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1. Culver was a sophomore. Big, big difference. He had around Reddish's usage as a freshman (a little under), but then he worked all offseason and came back to be The Guy in the offense. He wouldn't have been able to handle that sort of usage as a freshman-- or if he had, he wouldn't have been nearly as efficient as he was this year. If you give Reddish another offseason with Duke, then sure, he can be Culver-level good... but, leading to my next points...
2. Culver as a freshman was miles better than Reddish at finishing inside. 60% at the rim to Reddish's 50%. 51% from 2 to Reddish's 39% (ugh). Then Culver gets another season to work on that and improves it. I think there's no world in which, even as a sophomore, Cam improves from 39% from 2 to 53% from 2 (Culver's soph number). He just wasn't good at getting inside this year, period. In large part due to my third point...
3. Culver as a freshman was already better at assist rate and turnover rate than Reddish was this year. Culver had an assist rate of 13.7% and a turnover rate of 16%-- both not great, both not terrible considering his usage. Reddish had an assist rate of 10.7%-- fairly dreadful, not much higher than Jahlil Okafor's assist rate at Duke. He also posted a 20.7% turnover rate, which is more than fairly dreadful.
The last two points underscore what I posted before: Reddish can't drive. He's a black hole in that regard: he puts his head down and goes. Led to multiple charges a game, multiple bad dribbles, and, when he would kick, multiple errant passes. Right now, his offense is shooting 3s and running in transition-- and *that's it.* And again, I really, really don't think having the type of defensive attention a sophomore Culver faced would've helped. It absolutely would've made things worse.
I don't think freshman Culver could've dealt with it, and freshman Culver was, by basically every metric, a better freshman than Reddish was. He even shot significantly better from 3 than Cam as a freshman-- a number that regressed significantly when his usage went up this year, in large part because he was against better defenders! If Cam only shot 31% from 3 against ACC opponents this year with teams's third best defenders against him, how would he have handled the first best or the double teams that Culver faced? My guess: very, very badly.
I think if Reddish was The Guy on a team, his ceiling is having the kind of year Isaiah Whitehead had for Seton Hall as a freshman. Decent numbers, poor efficiency (especially in getting inside), and scouts telling him it's possibly in his best interests to return for a sophomore year. Same honestly goes for Nassir Little. They benefitted, imo, from being relatively lower-usage guys on teams with strong supporting casts, because they didn't face as heavy defensive attention, and their flaws seemed less flagrant, so they'll still likely be lottery picks off their potential. My movies: http://russellhainline.com My movie reviews: https://letterboxd.com/RussellHFilm/ My beer TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebeertravelguide
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