Illini in the Pros (Basketball)
Yeah i wouldn't count his minutes out. He played quite a bit when ant was still starting.
he played all 7 Oct games at ~21 min/game and averaged 12 pts. missed 3 games last week with hip contusion, has played in 2 games since.
my take is hes still easing back into playing time and dynamics have shifted a bit with Ant going down around when TSJ went out and other role players have stepped up in the meantime- Bones, Clark etc
He’s also coming off a hip injury. He found his way last year. No reason to think he won’t do it this year.
By the way, Ayo has passed Luther Head and is now 5th all-time in 3pt buckets for Illini in the NBA. He'll almost certainly pass Eddie Johnson this season. Then it's a bit of a climb to the top 3 guys, who all made over 1,000 3s in their NBA careers (D-Will, Harper, Anderson), but at his current rate of production (and assuming a career that goes into at least his age 33 season) there's a decent chance Ayo ends up as the most prolific NBA 3pt shooter in to come out of Illinois (until Wagler takes the crown from him).
t's just crazy how much he's defied odds. A very fair knock on Ayo coming into the league was his shooting ability and lack of explosiveness as an athlete. Fast forward a few years, and he's an excellent 3-point shooter with multiple highlights of him dunking on people. Makes no sense.
Just a hooper. NBA has the best sports medicine/fitness people in the world. Hoping for a similar career arc for Keaton.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Dunno if I would call either of those knocks fair actually. Ayo's jumper looked a little weird then and now but it has always gone in.
I think that quote from the TWolves coach that got posted earlier about Ayo being so instantly adaptable into so many different roles goes a long way to explaining how scouts screwed up so badly on him. Illinois asked him to be a hero ball volume scorer because that's what we needed, but then he got viewed one-dimensionally in that way, when he had so much else to his game and was going to be so functional as a swiss army knife at the next level.
Some of it is an unknowable defying of the odds as you say, but the industry really did get it wrong letting him slide to 38, that shouldn't have happened.
(Leave it to the Bulls to make nothing out of their good fortune)
He looks WAY more athletic in the pros, than he did at Illinois.
Significantly more bouncy and explosive.
I’m not sure exactly what it is. It wasn’t immediate, but now, he’s got another level of speed and a legit threat to dunk on people. Perhaps just comes with getting older and more conditioning.
He was always fast, but seemed like he was a late bloomer. Very skinny and could barely dunk as a freshman, but built up his body and was easily dunking by Jr year and has continued to build up his body since then.
Although I agree it seems unusual to develop that much explosiveness in your early 20s. Usually you have those quick twitch fibers or you don’t.
OrangeBlue98
Iowa is not in a great spot right now (LvilleILL1)
- Des Moines, IA
The guy works his @$$ off. Good things happen when you do that.
Germanboxers
- Fort Wayne, IN
I wish I could click the like button twice on this post.