And very skilled at basketball. He's probably the best offensive big this program has had since TRob.

I know you are going to throw out numbers, but they are lying to you.

Perhaps, although I don't need numbers to see how the team completely falls apart whenever he's out of the game.

Every team Hunter has been on has not exceeded preseason expectations...in fact they were much worse than expected.

It may not all be his fault but he is a common denominator.

Yep, KU's problem is their leading scorer/rebounder and one of the top three players in the country per Kenpom.

Because, dammit, the media ranked them #1 before the year started. Obviously, if they can't even live up to it, the most productive player is to blame.

Nobody is saying Dickinson isn't a solid to good player, but you would think at 7'2" 260 lbs. you see a little bit more dominance out of him. He definitely needs good players around him to take full advantage of his size..... aaaaand here we are, right back at KJ playing 32+ minutes a game.

Dickinson is a minus defender. Does he offset that with his rebounding and scoring? Not when KJ is in the game for sure because we then have two "bigs" who are defensive liabilities.

To be honest, I'd argue he's not even a great rebounder. For his size, he's average at best in that skillset. Most of his rebounds come straight to him. On occasion, you get him to be aggressive and he goes and gets some boards, but that's few and far between.

That said, HD is most definitely our best player and not the problem with the team.

Also that said, he's the most unathletic dude on the floor no matter who else is out there. I think the way he swings his arms and shuffles his feet make him an optical nightmare to watch for most KU fans who are used to watching athletic bigs (T-Rob, Doke, Embiid, etc).

All great points.....

He is soft in addition to being un-athletic .....was at Michigan....Still is here.....
There is a reason why he wasnt drafted years ago.....

KJ is a defensive liability? What?

Apparently Self is reeruned then, because KJ’s defense is by far the biggest reason he starts and plays so many minutes.

We're throwing around terms like "defense liability" but that's in context. We mix up his defensive versatility and team defense with post defense. KJ is terrible as a low post defender because he has no length... Like none at all. Self overvalues his ability to guard the perimeter as a big (with switching), and his help defense (which is the staple of Self's team concept). There aren't very many on this team that do it well, except KJ. That's why he gets all the minutes he's given.

Yeah, seems to be pretty common knowledge at this point, he makes everyone around him a little worse... there's a "hated player" thing on reddit for the B1G and he was in the quadrant of "talented player, hated by fans", and there were just as many Michigan and KU fans chiming in with their hate as other fans. It wasn't "this guy is a dick, but he's our dick" or "hated to play against that guy", it's clearly that he has talent, yet is too damn lazy to ever consistently hit his true potential (and slow as ****), on top of being a dick.

Self has always valued lengthy wings that are very athletic, can play defense, and can score. The teams under him that have been very good are because they have super wings with versatility. Think of Rush, McLemore, Wiggins, Braun, Agbaji, Dick, McCullar, Jalen Wilson, Mykhailiuk (and list goes on and on).. Unfortunately, KJ is very athletic and basically a wing but cannot score. And that severely hamstrings the dynamic of this team.

I know someone here thinks this team is top 5 in defense....

I dont see it....

CU had open looks all day. Either they are slow, lazy, or just cant do it but they suck at defending the other team. Throw in the complete inability to not turn the ball over.....
Not a classic Self team....

I don't think it is, it literally is.

They're currently 5th in defensive rating in the country (https://kenpom.com/index.php?s=RankAdjDE) behind only UT, Duke, St. John's and Houston.

The numbers also show they are particularly great defensively when both Flory and Dickinson are on at the same time (a lineup that Self appears reluctant to go to fully due to KJ's presence on the team).

It's the offense that remains this team's biggest issue. They basically don't have a consistent way to score points when Hunter doesn't have the ball in his hands and they fall off a cliff whenever he's off the floor. This was supposed to be resolved with more shooting (which, to some extent, they do have) but KJ again hurts them there too because teams basically don't guard him at all in the half court.