Georgia Tech center Daniel Miller is the rare basketball player who could sound convincing when he said the following on Monday:
“I like to do well myself, but at the end of the day, if I don’t score and we win, I’m happy with that.”
In this case, Miller’s actions have spoken for him. Despite the constant encouragement and urging from Tech coaches and players to shoot more, Miller has proven only too willing to pass out of the post to set up teammates. He realizes that he needs to adopt a more attacking style. He’s working on it.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” coach Brian Gregory said. “He’s much more aggressive and assertive than he was last year, and that was worlds apart from where he was the year before, so we just need to stay on the same continuum. He’ll get there.”
Tech will need Miller’s best Wednesday night, when the Yellow Jackets play No. 6 Miami at 9 p.m. He is on something of a roll, with three double-figure scoring games in Tech’s past five. He is averaging 8.1 points per game, fifth on the team. While he has the second-highest field-goal percentage on the team, 51.1 percent, he takes the second fewest shots per minute of any scholarship player on the team, behind only backup point guard Pierre Jordan.
His low shot rate is partly due to the fact that typically Miller needs to have teammates feed him in the post to take his shots, but also because of his desire to keep the ball moving. Forward Marcus Georges-Hunt is among those encouraging him to shoot more. When Miller is passing too much, Georges-Hunt said, “we have to remind him, that’s your shot. Just shoot it. We’ll rebound if you miss it. It’s O.K. to miss.”
The messages, which Gregory said he sometimes delivers with an arm around the shoulder and others with a foot to the backside, are being heard.
“I’m getting to where I shoot more than I have been,” Miller said. “Still got to get more there in my head, just shoot every time – not every time – but look to attack every time.”
There are two primary benefits. One, Tech, which ranks last in the ACC in field-goal percentage, needs its most effective shooters shooting as much as possible. Two, when Miller is scoring, the double teams he commands in the low post open up opportunities for teammates.
The trouble is, it goes against his training and personality.
“I think he’s an unselfish kid in general,” Gregory said. “And he enjoys passing.”
Along with a high basketball IQ, Miller is indeed a gifted passer, perhaps the best on the team. He is averaging 2.1 assists per game, 24th in the ACC through Sunday's games. At 6-foot-11, he is taller than everyone ahead of him by at least four inches. Playing at Loganville Christian for coach Mark Davis, Miller was taught to find the open man. The team-first ethos came naturally to him.
“He’s one of the best team players we’ve seen come through here,” Loganville Christian athletic director Andre King said. “It’s not about him. He’s about the team.”
“It’s just how I was brought up to play,” Miller said. “My high-school team, that’s all we did, pass till we got an open shot. That’s just my process.”
The rub that Miller is learning, though, is that by shooting more, he makes Tech better. In the 78-68 win over Maryland last week, for example, Miller took just four shots, but his aggressive play earned him 12 free throws (he made all of them) for a 16-point game in what was the Jackets’ best offensive game of the season.
“I just know that they want what’s best for the me and what’s best for the team,” Miller said. “Sometimes, yeah, it might be a little frustrating, because I want to do those things. It’s just not always in my mindset.”
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