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Matter on Mizzou: Barnett battles for chance with Bucks
Posted on: July 15, 2018 at 12:36:35 CT
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The article is more extensive than what I posted here. I only posted what was basketball related from the article. In regards to Barnett, the hometown Chicago Bulls have signed Jabari Parker. That help the opportunity for his chances with the team.
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/mizzou/matter-on-mizzou-barnett-battles-for-chance-with-bucks/article_bdddf8f5-a95a-50ee-a4be-1325f5d154e3.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share
By Dave Matter St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jul 13, 2018
COLUMBIA, MO. • Jordan Barnett wasn’t among the 11 seniors taken in last month’s NBA draft, but that’s hardly a death sentence for a professional career. Barnett signed with the Milwaukee Bucks after the draft and will stick with the Eastern Conference franchise — now a legitimate Eastern Conference contender with LeBron James off to L.A. — during training camp this fall.
Through four games with the Bucks in the Las Vegas Summer League, the former P-D Metro Player of the Year from CBC has averaged 6.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.0 rebounds while shooting 40 percent from the field and 35.7 percent from 3-point range. Barnett saw his most action of the summer in Thursday’s loss to San Antonio, scoring seven points in 25 minutes. His best scoring output came in a loss to Dallas last Sunday, a 13-point game. In that game he led the Bucks in plus-minus at plus-16 and for the summer he’s dished eight assists with just two turnovers. During the four-game stretch, 14 of Barnett’s 25 field goal attempts have come from 3-point range (56 percent) and he’s gotten to the foul line for just two attempts.
He’s the Bucks’ fifth-leading scorer but has the team's best scoring average among players just out of college.
Can Barnett find a spot on the Bucks’ roster once the regular season rolls around? Teams can have between 13 and 15 players on their active roster in the regular season, and with the addition of first-round draft pick Donte DiVincenzo and free-agent signings Brook Lopez and Ersan Ilyasova, the Bucks are expected to push that 15-man limit the way their current roster is constructed, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote this week. That doesn’t include restricted free agent Jabari Parker.
If Barnett is going to last with the Bucks and bump a veteran off the roster, he’s got at least one more summer league game to make an impression, Saturday against Philadelphia. The Bucks are the 14th seed in the summer league bracket and would advance to the next round with a win over Philadelphia.
Whatever happens next, Corey Frazier believes in the former Tiger. Leading up to the draft, Barnett trained in St. Louis under Frazier, who works with players as part of Pure Sweat Basketball.
"What I got from Jordan was his upside. Tremendous upside," Frazier said Friday. "But there are things about him that people didn’t know or people forget. When Jordan played at CBC, man, he was always an exceptional athlete. He played in the post. He played outside. He shot 3s. He but the ball on the floor. His breakout was when he won the state championship against Columbia Hickman. That’s the Jordan I know."
"When he played at Texas and when he got to Missouri, they only saw a peek of who this kid could really be," Frazier added. "We wanted to maximize him on his athleticism, get him better getting to the basket and finishing through contact, get his jump shot back to where it was. We also worked on his in-between game, putting the ball on the floor and getting to his mid-range (jumper). Defensively we really worked on him switching off one through four."
At Missouri last season, Barnett blossomed into one of the country's best high-volume 3-point shooters, making 41.4 percent from long range. Often, though, he was a stationary shooter who didn't always attack the paint or move off the 3-point line. Frazier and MU coach Cuonzo Martin talked regularly about Barnett's abilities, some of which transcend what he did on the floor for Martin last season.
"Coach and I communicated a lot on his strengths, what buttons to push," Frazier said. "He was very helpful and instrumental in helping me understand some things physically to help Jordan get better. We want to work together to help this kid have success."
What Frazier couldn't fix was the one glaring blemish on Barnett's college credentials: He missed Mizzou's NCAA Tournament game after he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Columbia. (Barnett wasn't available for an interview leading up to the draft. His agent, St. Louis-based Adam Papas, was especially cautious about Barnett facing interview questions regarding his arrest.)
Before he could lift Barnett's game, Frazier had to lift his chin after the embarrassing end to his college career.
"It was mainly, 'Hey, things like this happen to the best of them,'" Frazier said. "It was a good lesson to learn. At that point in time he knew he couldn’t help his team but it hurt him with the Mizzou guys and it hurt him with being drafted. I feel like if he doesn’t have that incident happen his chances are far greater than what they are now. He’s a great kid. I hated to hear that happen to him and I don’t think we’ll ever hear anything like that about him again. But we definitely had to pick him up, get his spirits up every day and say, ‘Hey, what are you playing for? This is your second chance. Let’s get this done.’"
For Barnett to stick around in the NBA, his path to a regular job is as a “three-and-D” player, a perimeter shooter who can lock down an opponent on the defensive end. The Bucks return veteran 6-8 small forward Khris Middleton to play the position where Barnett would likely call home in the NBA, though Parker would command minutes there, too, if the Bucks match any offer he receives in free agency. In other words, Barnett figures to be a long shot to stay in Milwaukee on a permanent basis, but with a strong summer, an impactful training camp and — perhaps — an injury or two, he could stick around or, at worst, make the Bucks’ G League Team, the Wisconsin Herd, or find another NBA roster.
Five years ago an undrafted Missouri player fared well enough in the summer league to make a roster in the fall: point guard Phil Pressey made the Celtics’ roster as an undrafted junior and played 75 games as a rookie. Pressey, who has appeared in 148 NBA games with the Celtics, Sixers and Suns, is trying to earn his way back into the league, playing this summer with the Thunder. As the oldest player on the Oklahoma City roster at 27, he’s averaged 2.3 points and just under an assist per game. Pressey last played in an NBA game during the 2015-16 season in Phoenix. He’s also spent time with the Trailblazers, Jazz and the Warriors.
PINSON BACK HOME
Back in Columbia, Barnett’s former team is in the gym working for the upcoming season, but one teammate isn’t with the Tigers. Freshman point guard Xavier Pinson is back home in Chicago tending to “a personal matter,” a team spokesman said Thursday. He’s expected back over the next few weeks. Pinson, a three-star recruit who committed to MU in February, is expected to figure prominently in the team’s point guard plans, along with returning starter Jordan Geist.
Here’s what assistant coach Cornell Mann said about Pinson late last month: “Xavier is putting in the work but he has to continue getting his body to a certain level. He’s going to be a TRUE freshman, meaning his learning curve is going to be a little slower. He’s got the skill and everything, but he’s going to have a period that he has to play through physicality. He works really hard. I think it’s going to be awesome. I think he’ll have a great year. His skill level is extremely high, especially passing. His ability to pass the ball … man, I’ve been coaching almost 20 years and he’s as good as I’ve ever seen. For me that’s a pretty high compliment. With that being said, he’s also a guy who can get carried away with some of those passes, trying to make a home run pass from time to time. That’s the one thing he’ll have to get rid of, trying to make the home run pass. Other than that, he’ll make a normal transition and he’ll play a lot. We’ll count on him a lot. Coach (Cuonzo Martin) feels very comfortable with him out there with the ball. Also, he’s got to go up against Geist every day. That will get you better every day.”
Well, not every day apparently.
LIDDELL SHINES AMONG THE BEST
Back to Frazier. He spent the spring and early summer coaching a former Tiger. How many future Tigers is he also coaching? As the head coach of the Bradley Beal Elite AAU team on the Nike EYBL circuit, Frazier coaches 2019 MU targets E.J. Liddell (Belleville West), Mario McKinney (Vashon) and Moses Moody (Little Rock, Ark.). Frazier's team has been playing in the Peach Jam in Augusta, S.C., this week and faces Athletes of Tomorrow of Powder Springs, Ga., in an elimination game Friday night.
One player has stood out on Frazier's watch.
“E.J. has really come into his own in making the transition from being a power player to stretching his game out on the floor," he said. "He’s shooting the 3 better. His mid-range is better. But more importantly we’re working on his ball-handling especially so he can be one of those hybrid high-energy guys, a guy like Draymond Green who can defend, get the ball on the break and make plays at the stretch four spot. He’s doing a little bit of everything."
In the team's first two games, Liddell, the Post-Dispatch All-Metro Co-Player of the Year, averaged a team-high 13 points, plus 10 rebounds and blocked five shots while shooting 52 percent from the floor.
New one-year contracts for assistant basketball coaches Mann and Chris Hollender were approved and signed July 1. Their salaries will stay at $250,000 and $180,000 through June 30, 2019. Assistant coach Michael Porter Sr. is entering the second year of his three-year deal that pays him $375,000 per year.
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/mizzou/matter-on-mizzou-barnett-battles-for-chance-with-bucks/article_bdddf8f5-a95a-50ee-a4be-1325f5d154e3.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share
By Dave Matter St. Louis Post-Dispatch Jul 13, 2018
COLUMBIA, MO. • Jordan Barnett wasn’t among the 11 seniors taken in last month’s NBA draft, but that’s hardly a death sentence for a professional career. Barnett signed with the Milwaukee Bucks after the draft and will stick with the Eastern Conference franchise — now a legitimate Eastern Conference contender with LeBron James off to L.A. — during training camp this fall.
Through four games with the Bucks in the Las Vegas Summer League, the former P-D Metro Player of the Year from CBC has averaged 6.5 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.0 rebounds while shooting 40 percent from the field and 35.7 percent from 3-point range. Barnett saw his most action of the summer in Thursday’s loss to San Antonio, scoring seven points in 25 minutes. His best scoring output came in a loss to Dallas last Sunday, a 13-point game. In that game he led the Bucks in plus-minus at plus-16 and for the summer he’s dished eight assists with just two turnovers. During the four-game stretch, 14 of Barnett’s 25 field goal attempts have come from 3-point range (56 percent) and he’s gotten to the foul line for just two attempts.
He’s the Bucks’ fifth-leading scorer but has the team's best scoring average among players just out of college.
Can Barnett find a spot on the Bucks’ roster once the regular season rolls around? Teams can have between 13 and 15 players on their active roster in the regular season, and with the addition of first-round draft pick Donte DiVincenzo and free-agent signings Brook Lopez and Ersan Ilyasova, the Bucks are expected to push that 15-man limit the way their current roster is constructed, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote this week. That doesn’t include restricted free agent Jabari Parker.
If Barnett is going to last with the Bucks and bump a veteran off the roster, he’s got at least one more summer league game to make an impression, Saturday against Philadelphia. The Bucks are the 14th seed in the summer league bracket and would advance to the next round with a win over Philadelphia.
Whatever happens next, Corey Frazier believes in the former Tiger. Leading up to the draft, Barnett trained in St. Louis under Frazier, who works with players as part of Pure Sweat Basketball.
"What I got from Jordan was his upside. Tremendous upside," Frazier said Friday. "But there are things about him that people didn’t know or people forget. When Jordan played at CBC, man, he was always an exceptional athlete. He played in the post. He played outside. He shot 3s. He but the ball on the floor. His breakout was when he won the state championship against Columbia Hickman. That’s the Jordan I know."
"When he played at Texas and when he got to Missouri, they only saw a peek of who this kid could really be," Frazier added. "We wanted to maximize him on his athleticism, get him better getting to the basket and finishing through contact, get his jump shot back to where it was. We also worked on his in-between game, putting the ball on the floor and getting to his mid-range (jumper). Defensively we really worked on him switching off one through four."
At Missouri last season, Barnett blossomed into one of the country's best high-volume 3-point shooters, making 41.4 percent from long range. Often, though, he was a stationary shooter who didn't always attack the paint or move off the 3-point line. Frazier and MU coach Cuonzo Martin talked regularly about Barnett's abilities, some of which transcend what he did on the floor for Martin last season.
"Coach and I communicated a lot on his strengths, what buttons to push," Frazier said. "He was very helpful and instrumental in helping me understand some things physically to help Jordan get better. We want to work together to help this kid have success."
What Frazier couldn't fix was the one glaring blemish on Barnett's college credentials: He missed Mizzou's NCAA Tournament game after he was arrested for driving while intoxicated in Columbia. (Barnett wasn't available for an interview leading up to the draft. His agent, St. Louis-based Adam Papas, was especially cautious about Barnett facing interview questions regarding his arrest.)
Before he could lift Barnett's game, Frazier had to lift his chin after the embarrassing end to his college career.
"It was mainly, 'Hey, things like this happen to the best of them,'" Frazier said. "It was a good lesson to learn. At that point in time he knew he couldn’t help his team but it hurt him with the Mizzou guys and it hurt him with being drafted. I feel like if he doesn’t have that incident happen his chances are far greater than what they are now. He’s a great kid. I hated to hear that happen to him and I don’t think we’ll ever hear anything like that about him again. But we definitely had to pick him up, get his spirits up every day and say, ‘Hey, what are you playing for? This is your second chance. Let’s get this done.’"
For Barnett to stick around in the NBA, his path to a regular job is as a “three-and-D” player, a perimeter shooter who can lock down an opponent on the defensive end. The Bucks return veteran 6-8 small forward Khris Middleton to play the position where Barnett would likely call home in the NBA, though Parker would command minutes there, too, if the Bucks match any offer he receives in free agency. In other words, Barnett figures to be a long shot to stay in Milwaukee on a permanent basis, but with a strong summer, an impactful training camp and — perhaps — an injury or two, he could stick around or, at worst, make the Bucks’ G League Team, the Wisconsin Herd, or find another NBA roster.
Five years ago an undrafted Missouri player fared well enough in the summer league to make a roster in the fall: point guard Phil Pressey made the Celtics’ roster as an undrafted junior and played 75 games as a rookie. Pressey, who has appeared in 148 NBA games with the Celtics, Sixers and Suns, is trying to earn his way back into the league, playing this summer with the Thunder. As the oldest player on the Oklahoma City roster at 27, he’s averaged 2.3 points and just under an assist per game. Pressey last played in an NBA game during the 2015-16 season in Phoenix. He’s also spent time with the Trailblazers, Jazz and the Warriors.
PINSON BACK HOME
Back in Columbia, Barnett’s former team is in the gym working for the upcoming season, but one teammate isn’t with the Tigers. Freshman point guard Xavier Pinson is back home in Chicago tending to “a personal matter,” a team spokesman said Thursday. He’s expected back over the next few weeks. Pinson, a three-star recruit who committed to MU in February, is expected to figure prominently in the team’s point guard plans, along with returning starter Jordan Geist.
Here’s what assistant coach Cornell Mann said about Pinson late last month: “Xavier is putting in the work but he has to continue getting his body to a certain level. He’s going to be a TRUE freshman, meaning his learning curve is going to be a little slower. He’s got the skill and everything, but he’s going to have a period that he has to play through physicality. He works really hard. I think it’s going to be awesome. I think he’ll have a great year. His skill level is extremely high, especially passing. His ability to pass the ball … man, I’ve been coaching almost 20 years and he’s as good as I’ve ever seen. For me that’s a pretty high compliment. With that being said, he’s also a guy who can get carried away with some of those passes, trying to make a home run pass from time to time. That’s the one thing he’ll have to get rid of, trying to make the home run pass. Other than that, he’ll make a normal transition and he’ll play a lot. We’ll count on him a lot. Coach (Cuonzo Martin) feels very comfortable with him out there with the ball. Also, he’s got to go up against Geist every day. That will get you better every day.”
Well, not every day apparently.
LIDDELL SHINES AMONG THE BEST
Back to Frazier. He spent the spring and early summer coaching a former Tiger. How many future Tigers is he also coaching? As the head coach of the Bradley Beal Elite AAU team on the Nike EYBL circuit, Frazier coaches 2019 MU targets E.J. Liddell (Belleville West), Mario McKinney (Vashon) and Moses Moody (Little Rock, Ark.). Frazier's team has been playing in the Peach Jam in Augusta, S.C., this week and faces Athletes of Tomorrow of Powder Springs, Ga., in an elimination game Friday night.
One player has stood out on Frazier's watch.
“E.J. has really come into his own in making the transition from being a power player to stretching his game out on the floor," he said. "He’s shooting the 3 better. His mid-range is better. But more importantly we’re working on his ball-handling especially so he can be one of those hybrid high-energy guys, a guy like Draymond Green who can defend, get the ball on the break and make plays at the stretch four spot. He’s doing a little bit of everything."
In the team's first two games, Liddell, the Post-Dispatch All-Metro Co-Player of the Year, averaged a team-high 13 points, plus 10 rebounds and blocked five shots while shooting 52 percent from the floor.
New one-year contracts for assistant basketball coaches Mann and Chris Hollender were approved and signed July 1. Their salaries will stay at $250,000 and $180,000 through June 30, 2019. Assistant coach Michael Porter Sr. is entering the second year of his three-year deal that pays him $375,000 per year.
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Matter on Mizzou: Barnett battles for chance with Bucks - longtimereader MU - 7/15 12:36:35