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Thursday, February 15, 2007
Comparing Young and Durant
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Not to dive too deeply into a story I’m working on for Sunday, when Tech will play at Duke, but is Thaddeus Young ahead of, or behind, projections? Or, is it crazy to ascribe certain expectations to freshmen?
Paul Hewitt said Young’s fine. He said he’ll be surprised if Young doesn’t make the ACC All-Rookie team, given that he’s been 1 or 2 in scoring all season.
Yet, Young and Texas’ Kevin Durant were viewed by some folks somewhat as equals coming out of high school, and Durant has gone nuts. “A once-in-a-generation player,” Hewitt said.
Hewitt said he’s been surprised by Durant (but absolutely not Duke’s Jon Scheyer), yet he’s far from disappointed and, in fact, quite pleased with Young, even though he’s averaging about half the points, and less than half the rebounds, of Durant.
We spoke some about the fact that Young’s playing on the perimeter now (one of the reasons he chose not to attend his hometown Memphis; because he pretty much figured out that Calipari was going to play him mostly inside and he didn’t want to) as opposed to playing with his back to the basket most of the time during his last season or so in high school. That’s a big change, obviously.
Durant’s playing a position more similar to what he did in high school, Hewitt noted, although Durant was a center-power forward in high school and, from the Texas games I’ve seen, he sure seems to spend a lot of time facing the basket now.
What do I know, though? What does anyone know?
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