My thoughts on Dual.
1. He is a first rate defensive guard. If he stays at the Hall he will be one of the best if not the best in the conference.
2. On offense he is not as proficient. In short he is not a finished product there. But if you watch his game he has the ability to grow. His handle is already Big East quality. His court vision is as well. He controls tempo which is what he is being asked to do but he has to learn to finish at the rim, get much stronger and work on his jumper outside the paint.
We are talking about SHU here. Sure our NIL is going to improve by leaps and bounds, but Dual will come at a reasonable price and if you project on his potential he absolutely can become our starting point. He has the work ethic, but for that to happen he must improve on his offensive issues.
Bring him back and recruit another high quality point and let them compete. There's 40 minutes available at the position and maybe more if they play together.
Would be fine on the last part of your plan -- bring him back with another high quality starter level PG, and let them compete.
Defense is the best part of his game right now - agreed. How good is he? I'm not sure. I think we (and other fans) overrate our own defenders. Preseason, you would have characterized Dual, DAW, Coleman, Prince and probably Middleton as high-level or potential high-level defenders. With Manny in the middle being a defense presence, and GWH an unproven commodity with his defense ahead of his offense. Take that and Sha supposedly being a defensive coach. And yet how has the defense been this year? Especially with our pace of play, which should result in lower scoring totals and make it easier on our defenders.
Could he develop into one of the best defenders in the league? Maybe. I think one can reasonably project that. But you can probably look at most BE backcourts/wings and say the same thing for so many kids. The metrics make it even more difficult to judge. I saw a metric from that Bart Torvick guy which had St. John's with 6 of the top 10 individual defenders in the league based on his metrics (basically the 6 kids who play the most). Obviously they are a good defensive team, but I don't know how to read into that when you look at defenders on other teams like Stevie Mitchell, Micah Peavey, Chase Ross, Diarra, Poplar and probably other guards/wings I'm forgetting. And factor in how "team' defense impacts "individual" defense.
Offensively, I see the profile, but I don't see the results. I don't see the court vision. I think his handle is fine coupled with his length that allows him to ward off defenders, but so much of the time all he is doing is dribbling the ball around and waiting to pass it off to someone coming off a screen or similar action. That's usually his "facilitation". It was telling that Sha deliberately put the ball in DAW's hands more this last game because he wanted to drive the ball. If you have a capable PG -- you aren't probably doing that.
On the work ethic -- I don't know. He had some borderline DNPs in the BE schedule. He had issues at Providence. No clue what the deal is here.
I'm still in on the kid to a degree, but I'm less bullish than preseason when we got him. And I don't see how the next few games before our season ends changes anything given the sample we already have.
