@drgnslayr
Glasses Rx. "Better or worse." Better. Swish.
Healed and enough thigh and calf strength acquired to off set lost pop in ligaments.
Playing 3 instead of two. His natural position.
24 second one-read, no-think offense keeps him focused on making shots instead of timing and multiple reads.
No ball handling chores.
An end to shrinking impact zone attack of Bad Ball. Once again Wayne gets to do what comes most naturally to a player--move to increase impact space, rather than reduce it. Benefit = more open shots. Cost = fewer FTs.
Better suited to guarding 3s than 2s and 3s generally require less defensive effort than 2s, so more energy budget left for shooting legs which implies ---> increased shooting accuracy. Big guys chasing mighty mites for 35 mpg is hard on the big guys. As anyone that had to guard Nic Moore.
Summation: Wayne is experiencing the net benefits of having an offense finally crafted around his abilities and it makes life a lot easier to look good at. Self is like a master tailor. He can tailor his offensive and defensive schemes to fit any player's range of abilities and strengths and weaknesses, like a Kowloon suit.
But like any master tailor, he must make trade-offs in choosing what suit not only fits the player, but also allows the player to fulfill the role the team requires him to play. Some roles are prettier than others, and some players can do some roles better than others. But if a team needs a role fulfilled, someone's gotta do it, no matter what, or the team thing doesn't yield .82 W&L statements.
In seasons past, Wayne has worn a suit of a supporting player as a freshman. The team needed a two, so he played it. But he was injured in the knee, so he didn't look too good playing the role; i.e., no Oscar for best 2 and so Self won no Oscar for best costume design.
Last season, the team needed a full blown glue 2, because Wayne's pop was greatly limited situationally (i.e., he could only elevate off the dead run most of the season and his no-step jump was non existent by season's end). Being the most experienced perimeter player, but the team needing to go with green point guards, he was also needed as a kind of single wing quarterback (ball is hiked to tailback [think point guard], but the quarterback [Wayne's 2] is calling the shifts), while Frank, in his first full season starting at PG, and Devonte, in his first season backing up, learned the ropes and the leadership thing from Wayne, who was himself wearing the leadership cloak for the first time himself. It was, frankly, an ill-fitting suit for anyone to have to wear--too much leadership here, not enough there, too much control here, not enough control there. It lead to a near total brain overload at times that bled into Wayne losing sight of his game and losing sight of what the team was needing from him at many moments. It was the sophomore jinx with a bad suit and incompletely regained pop. Not only were no Oscar nominations forthcoming, some outright rotten tomatoes were justifiably garnered, though only if one were to expect a player to wear an ugly suit and make it look pretty. Even Cary Grant could not have worn the suit Self sewed for Wayne well last season. And Self knew it and that's why Wayne kept getting to play. He knew Wayne was making the best of a bum two-button triple breasted freak of a suit.
Last season, Self clearly tailored the Denzel tux for Perry and it took Perry awhile to find The Designer in himself in that bespoke design Self rough cut for him and then asked him to do the finish work on.
This season, there are enough bodies around, enough pieces of a puzzle, and Perry is comfortable enough, for Self to design Wayne his very own signature George Clooney threads.
Wayne Selden, new specs and all, gets to step out on the floor every game in a role tailored just for what he can do best.
There will be Oscar nominations, if he stays healthy, for him and for Self.
But remember.
While Wayne is in the spotlight and draining treys, and creating space, and taking bows in his sweet suit, there is another Jayhawk that will not be looking as good as we hoped; that will appear to be wearing an ill-fitting suit; that will appear to be doing far less than he is capable of doing.
I don't know who it will be.
But given any 8 to 10 man rotation at any given time of the season, in any team with a true team approach, some one or two fellows are going to be asked to put on a uniform that doesn't fit quite as well as it could, because for this year's Denzel, this year's George, this year's Cary to look and play with the sartorial splender required, eh, some one's gotta be as they say in the Tour de France, the domestique for a season, till its their turn to play the leading man. (Sorry about the metaphor shift, but at two thirds into the Tour and starting the Alps I am unable to completely escape it.)
