Joseph Dressler / MGoBlog
An inextricable tenet of common basketball ideology is this: teams - or franchises, in the NBA’s case - become a possessive. The Lakers are Kobe Bryant’s team. They were once Magic Johnson’s team. The Warriors are Steph Curry’s team; the Cavaliers are LeBron’s team; the Knicks are Carmelo Anthony’s team. The list goes on.
Perhaps no other major American sport (save for professional football and the almighty quarterback) has a construct that elevates a player to the level of king among men like that. In college hoops, there is the Cult of Coaching - that is, the masterminds who attract those leaders are often worshipped far more than are the on-court leaders themselves. John Wooden (the archetype), Coach K, Dean Smith, Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo, and yes, even John Beilein (who has won the degree of job security given to the aforementioned coaches) are the gods and the players are their kings, bestowed with divine right.
As an example, look no further than Michigan’s royal lineage over the last couple of years. The reign of Darius Morris lasted only one jaunty season before he abdicated his throne to journey on towards the NBA; Trey Burke eventually became the best in the country towards the end of his kingship and came tantalizingly close to a national title; Nik Stauskas rekindled the arrogance and bravado of the Morris era and championed one of the most dazzling offenses in recent memory. Caris LeVert was anointed as Nik’s successor -- in basketball parlance, he had next.
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Even though the Wolverines have struggled often this season, Caris has done well (with a few glaring exceptions). Following up Burke and Stauskas -- two former conference players of the year -- was an unenviable task, but Caris has been decent enough and has shown the type of pro potential that makes him a projected first-rounder and an obvious candidate for early entry.
Jamal Crawford only played a partial season as a Wolverine, but the parallels between he and LeVert are too obvious to ignore. Caris’s offensive game -- his only game, really, as his length is underutilized in wing defense far too often (and whether that’s due to a lack of physical maturity or plain indifference is hard to tell) -- is decidedly Crawfordesque: though Beilein’s system typically discourages it, Caris seems compelled to draw into one-on-one battles with a defender, where his length and dizzying array of quick dribbles, crossovers, and jab-steps often allow some space to blow by whichever poor kid is in front of him. It’s a labor intensive process, and too often it seems as if challenging a rotating big man at the hoop is simply too much.
Caris channels the ghost of Wolverine Crawford in other ways: he’s a good shooter with a quick release from outside, either off the catch or off the dribble; he plays well in the pick-and-roll and can sometimes draw both defenders to him and lay it off to the big man; he has plus floor vision at the two-guard spot and makes the tough skip pass to the opposite corner when necessary; and he’s a microwave much like Crawford, building confidence and aggressiveness with each consecutive make.
Ace was kind enough to put together a gif of all of Caris’s makes from the critical win over Penn State:
The first was a simple catch-and-shoot corner three, something Caris will be looked to make often at the next level; the second was a nice pull-up long two that left Shep Garner in the dust; the third, another catch-and-shoot three, this time from the wing; the fourth, a Kobe Bryant shot fake to a smooth jumper that shook Ross Travis; the fifth, a nice drive past John Johnson (after hitting him with an array of quick crossovers) to a floater off glass; the sixth, a quick stop-and-pop that left Donovan Jack with no chance to contest.
Despite his flaws – Caris’s defense is not where it could be, given his length and lateral quickness, and he’s hesitant to attack the rim in the halfcourt when he could be challenged at the rim – he’s a solid prospect. Behind surefire one-and-dones Justise Winslow and Stanley Johnson, he might be the best wing prospect in the upcoming draft because of his plus size at the two-guard spot, his ability to break down defenders with his handle, and his outside shooting. We might only get another three months of LeVert as a Wolverine.
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To state the obvious, this season has been a disappointment. Michigan’s customarily blistering offense has looked stagnant and has been prone to bouts of cold shooting; Kam Chatman hasn’t been able to fill Glenn Robinson’s vacancy at the four; Michigan’s corps of big men have been underwhelming as a whole (even if Ricky Doyle has shown good things); Spike Albrecht and Derrick Walton have been injured and Michigan’s struggled to get consistent production from the point guard spot.
In all fairness, Caris has contributed to the disappointment as well – although, notably, he still leads the team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals. Against NJIT, he put the team on his back to the tune of 32 points (on just 18 FGA) and Michigan still lost; but in other losses against Eastern Michigan, Arizona, SMU, and Purdue, he scored ten points or fewer, often inefficiently. It’s too reductive to place those losses squarely on Caris, but still, better performances (particularly against Eastern and SMU) might have made all the difference.
There’s another key point: Caris is still extremely young. He doesn’t turn 21 until next August, and it’s abundantly clear that his game is still very much a work in progress. His last name – LeVert – translates into French as “The Green” and Caris The Green is still as inexperienced and immature (physically speaking) as his name would suggest. Development can and does happen at the next level; Caris’s game (and his wiry frame) will grow over the next several years for whichever NBA team is fortunate enough to land him in the draft.
It’s tough in the here and now, though. Unfair amounts of criticism tend to fall on a team’s best player, and with Michigan’s rickety path towards NCAA Tournament contention, there might be more noise with each successive loss. The exodus of NBA talent has finally caught up with the Wolverines – it was probably naïve to assume that Michigan would reload with sufficient reinforcements (without recruiting at the type of level that keeps a continual pipeline of NBA talent).
In the end, it looks like what may possibly be the only season with Caris LeVert’s Michigan will wind up in disappointment,as Michigan enters into a brief rebuilding phase after the euphoric highs of the past few seasons. Here’s to enjoying Caris’s particular style in the meantime however, as it might be another decade-and-a-half before another player like him suits up in the Maize and Blue again. Any reprise of the 2011 surge into the NCAA Tournament would only add to his story.