I want to agree with you and I love watching Ayo garner minutes for the Bulls so early in his career. I want him to succeed so much because he was a great student athlete while at IL and comes from a terrific family. If anyone deserves success, it is him. But I just am not seeing what he brings to this team from a perspective of offense, especially a team that is so loaded in the back court. I hope like hell I'm wrong and that Ayo improves his game throughout his career to the point where he is a strong contributor to the team he is on. But judging from my own 2 eyes, there are times where aside from good to great defense he just looks invisible out there. It's very very early in the season and it could just simply be a thing where he's finding his niche on this team, and him understanding his role for this team that he's letting things come to him and he's not pressing things too much. Get to the All Star break, he could be literally a completely different time of rookie/player and be contributing more in the box score.
Yikes, so my post yesterday certainly didn't age well at all. Joke's on me....
Again seeing the solid mins Ayo is getting early in this season, it's been really great to watch and to see his progression in his very young career. Most definitely his defense has been good if not very good, and that alone really is what is going to continue to get him good mins. When a coach sees that from a rookie, you better believe it will continue. He clearly knows his role on the team which will only grow as the season goes along. But I was just concerned about what kind of offensive player he would become on a team loaded in the backcourt, and being someone who's not really an above-the-rim kind of player and will still need to continue to improve that 3 point shot.
However, after last night it was amazing to see how much he was contributing on the offensive end, and how lock down he was on the defensive end. He was advantageous on fast breaks and leak outs, and then that 3 he hit on a potential broken play from Vucevic to give the Bulls the lead in the 4th was simply awesome. I literally jumped off the couch and punch the air because I was so happy for him. That comeback from 19 down on the road against a good Boston team was simply amazing, and the bench was solely responsible for that comeback with Ayo leading the way. And the look on his face after hitting that 3 to give Chi the lead there, Ayo looked like a kid on Christmas. It's as if you could literally see his confidence growing by leaps and bounds in real time with just that one simple shot. It was really really great to witness.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/QV77IOMWJXHOS2AGNRG4U4UVTQ.jpg)
www.chicagotribune.com
theathletic.com
