@ralster
If I recall correctly, @drgnslayr always thought (and I concurred) that EJ already had a chronic shoulder injury during his soph season, or maybe early his junior season, that never really healed correctly and so never permitted him to be the outside shooter that he seemed destined to become. And my recollection is also that he and Travis were playing through some significant leg injuries that limited both their remarkable athleticism even their junior seasons. So: even though I have been arguing that Devonte is "playing through" something nasty this season (and so seeing his explosiveness and productivity fall off from last season), my aricepted memory tells me that Devonte has been more productive offensively his current junior season, than EJ was his junior season.
We are both big boosters of EJ's actual contributions to making all those big winners he played on, despite never having lived up to his sizable hype, except for one game against ISU, but at this stage of their careers, Devonte seems decisively the better player and bigger contributor up to their junior seasons, cumulatively and in on-going performance trajectory, when compared. And comparison is particularly oranges and oranges, and will continue to be, because Devonte and EJ were mostly 2 guards through their junior seasons, and then EJ did become the PG, and Devonte likely will, too, the senior seasons.
Devonte just is someone I underrated his first season and until I saw him go on a tear his second season. Devonte is a case of a guy who is just much more than the sum of his abilities and skills. He has that rarest of rare gifts of being able to blow a game wide open, when it is a very, very BIG game. He has done it enough times now, even this last time against WVU, when he had to protect whatever underreported injury he labors with for 35 minutes before going off like a Sidewinder Missile.
To give Devonte his full due, I don't recall another KU perimeter player that was EVER able to blow big games wide open, or drive come from behind miracles, as frequently as Devonte. Something happens to the guy OFTEN at these moments. We saw it once in EJ's career. We see it time and again with Devonte. Even Frank Mason, who can and does take control of games rather in a studfied, almost engineer-like way, does not shift into the kind of hyper-space level of play that Devonte goes to at certain points of big games. Doing what Devonte does in lesser games, or in no pressure situations, really wouldn't be a big deal at all. There have been endless KU players that have massive performances in meaningless brand-builder games, or when the opponent is never a serious threat to win the game. Devonte is like George Brett was in baseball. The guy comes up HUGE so many times that even the most skeptical QA types have to start talking about some sub atomic particle being involved in how frequently he does what he does.
It appears Self has always prided himself on being able to coax super performances out of certain players. Self coaxes and waits and cajoles and baits and plays them out of position, and forces them out of what they were when they came, and then waits and waits and waits for the guy to explode for a super performance hopefully at a time when the team really needs it. EJ is the quintessential example, but almost all of KU's long term starters sooner or later have one of the Self-coaxed super games.
But with Devonte, Self seems to have stumbled into a guy that actually somehow routinized this coaxing toward one hyper peak performance in a career into a bizarre pattern of recurring, intermittent behavior.
Devonte doesn't do it every time, same as George Brett did not come up with game winning hits EVERY time. But Devonte comes up with these freakishly good stretches of performance much more often than most players, same as George Brett came up with clutch hits more frequently than most high average hitters did.
This peak performance thing at peak moments was called "at your best when you need your best" and "competitive greatness" by Wooden, and he placed it as one of the highest blocks of his pyramid of success. This meant two things to me. First, it showed that Wooden valued this attribute just about the most highly of any attribute that a player could have. Second, it suggested that Wooden believe it was either something that could be taught, or at least enabled, by calling attention to it, and place it as something to build toward. The latter is what is most important. What most forget about Wooden that waste their goddamned time rationalizizing away Wooden's monumental accomplishments with Sam Gilbert's cash recruiting (note: something all programs used to do at the time and that Wooden only permitted after 15-20 years of competing without doing what all the other top programs were doing). was the incredible number of SUPER performances by UCLA players--both from the greats that went on to the pros and the not so greats that did not. No other coach has EVER gotten so many peak performances out of so many players at critical moments before, or since, as Wooden got from UCLA players. Wooden apparently learned how to trigger, or enable these great performances. Self is pretty good at it. He gets a one or two every season, but except for 2008, Self has struggled with enabling these mind blowing peak performances during March Madness. Wooden won ten rings in 11 years, not because he had the best players for 10 years (he only had the best players for some of those years). He won those ten because his teams almost routinely produced peak performances in the tournament; THAT WAS THE KEY!!!!!!!
MAKING PLAYS! PEAK PERFORMANCES!!!!! THAT WAS WHY UCLA NOT ONLY WON WHEN THEY HAD THE BETTER MATERIAL, BUT WHY THEY WON WHEN THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE BETTER MATERIAL. IT WAS ALSO WHY THEY BEAT OTHER GREAT TEAMS SO OFTEN. UCLA HAD THE PEAK PERFORMANCES AND THE OTHER GREAT TEAM HAD AN OFF GAME.
Self needs to put Devonte Graham under a microscope.
Self needs to study Devonte closely and figure out what if anything Self is doing to enable those peak performances of Devonte's.
And then he needs to begin to find ways to do the same for his other players.
THIS WAS WHAT WOODEN MEANT, WHEN HE SAID ONCE WE FIGURED OUT HOW TO WIN A TOURNAMENT, WE GOT PRETTY GOOD AT IT.
TRIGGER PEAK PERFORMANCES IN BIG GAMES AND WATCH THE BANNERS ACCUMULATE.
SELF IS STILL YOUNG ENOUGH TO DO THIS.
DEVONTE IS POINTING THE WAY.
ROCK CHALK!!!!
