I love JWill. I watched him quite a bit during his days at Arkansas because Arkansas is my second favorite college basketball team behind Oklahoma.
Arkansas truly has had a history of excellent and interesting basketball coaches over the years. Eddie Sutton, Nolan Richardson, Mike Anderson, crazy Eric Musselman, who was ejected two straight years in the Arkansas-OU matchups, and currently Coach John Calipari (Cal).
Arkansas has truly had great basketball coaches. So I was delighted when the Thunder surprised me by picking JWill in the second round of his draft class. I was clamoring for it and I’m to assume Sam Presti in reading the only honest Thunder blog out there… kept the JWill second round pick stashed in his back pocket and waited for the appropriate time.
Here on the video is JWill playing the pants off Chet Holmgren in the Razorbacks’ stunning upset of top-seeded Gonzaga in the Sweet 16. Again…not trying to pile on, but a players’ heart is part of the equation if you’re going to max a guy and make him a face of your franchise.
I’m honestly not trying to pile on here. But at some point there needs to be narratives out there not always orchestrated by Nick Gallo, Matt Pinto, and Royce Young. That’s the primary reason I’ve stuck it out with this blog.
If I was a piler-on-er I’d be eviserating OU offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh right now, but I’m not because I’m patiently giving him two more weeks to see how this plays out with OU’s offensive line woes without Michael Fasusi.
I’m a Libra…some have cursed at me over the years for being honest, but at the end of the day I’m basically a fair-minded person. That’s what Libras do. I think I would have been a excellent judge, and if Donald Trump had ever walked into my courtroom the United States would be in a different space currently.
Berry Tramel taught me this…always be human and fair before you’re negative with something you write. I love Tramel btw.
As far as JWill….every championship team needs a chemistry-character player who has the game to go with being able to handle coming off the bench and doing whatever it takes to make the team successful.
And of course there’s that beautiful smile. During the long, arduous NBA season… every team needs a guy like JWill with that smile and attitude to get through the mental rough spots when fatigue sets in.
Don’t ever discount guys like JWill because when you get to crunch time deep into the playoffs…a guy like JWill or Jared McCain might just sneak up and win you a basketball game coming off the bench.
Don’t ever discount the value of role players.
Love, MJ