It was announced on SUAthletics.com today that Paul Harris will join Jonny Flynn and Eric Devndorf in declaring himself eligible for the NBA Draft. Making matters more serious for the Orange is the Zagsblog report that Devo and Harris intend to hire agents. Oddly, Flynn, the player widely perceived as having the best crack at the pros, still has not hired a rep.

There are lots of reasons behind Harris’ decision:

1.The rocky and well-publicized turn that Harris’ relationship with Jim Boeheim took this season
2. Seeing Wes Johnson already nipping at his heels on next year’s depth chart
3. Harris has some kids to take care of
4. His high school buddy may or not be back at school
Read the rest of this entry »

Since last posting, there have been some noteworthy developments surrounding the SU program. Jonny Flynn and Eric Devendorf have thrown their names in the NBA draft hat, James Southerland has qualified academically, and Jim Boeheim isn’t going anywhere (ba-dum-ching).

First, I’ll try to make some sense of Flynn’s move. For starters, this should surprise zero people. From Flynn’s perspective, there’s absolutely no reason to at least see if the water’s fine. At some get-togethers last summer, Flynn drew many a Chris Paul comparison and impressed those who were on hand. We all know that he was the engine that made the ‘Cuse go all year long. He failed to tally double figure scoring just twice all season while leading the team in that category and also led the team in assists per game with 6.7, three more than the next closest player.

The final few weeks brought a lot of positive PR, and the whole country saw how Jonny Flynn performs when the spotlight’s on him. He could be one of the NBA’s most marketable players as the pro level continues to rise in popularity.

I went on record before the season started that Flynn would be gone next season, and I’m going to stick by it. About the only thing left for him to fine-tune is his decision-making, but if you ask me, he’s been able to succeed despite it, and I think that’s one of the few things that can be learned in the pro’s.

Now we get to Devendorf. It seems like the only thing rewarding about Syracuse to Eric has been basketball. At the moment, we don’t know whether or not he intends on hiring an agent because the story is still developing, but you get the feeling that if he was so desparate to leave, he would have hired one, or stated publicly that he intends to. It appears as though he’s just throwing out a flier at this point and at least will get an evaluation on his game from a different perspective, and I see little harm in that. 

What I don’t see for Eric is a very high ceiling at the next level, at least not in the states; I can see him making a very comfortable living as a three point specialist or a backup guard, but in my mind that’s not a very good reason to leave early (just don’t tell Donte Greene).

The motivating factors behind this move seem to be wanting to provide well for his daughter and making some cash before he gets hurt again. In addition to the ACL tear that kept him out of action in the 07-08 season, he had some nagging hip issues this year, but those same health issues will be what keeps him in an Orange jersey in 2010. Like Flynn, Devo seems to thrive when under the spotlight, be it positively or negatively, and if Flynn is gone for good he would be THE man in the Orange’s guard rotation.

Finally, it’s been confirmed that incoming freshman James Southerland has qualified academically and that the third time was the charm on his SAT. It’s ok, James, I know those analogies are a pain the ass.

A deadeye shooter, James is now focused on building the strength necessary to not only drive to the hoop, but to be an enforcer in the back of the zone. While he may not be the physical freak that Paul Harris is, he appears to be the shooter that Harris has struggled to become.  The fact that Southerland has Harris and Johnson ahead of him on the depth chart means he may only see Kris Joseph-type minutes next season.

If Southerland can stretch defenses with a smooth jump shot as well as bulk up to withstand contact, he’d make for a welcome addition to the jamming core of Jackson, Harris and Onuaku.

Now that the season is complete and we’re over the grief of the Oklahoma loss, we thought we’d revisit our preseason predictions and see how we did. Here at The Rind, we’re all about accountability. You won’t see us head for the hills…unless Devo, Flynn and Harris all leave.

Jonny Flynn:
TFG: 28 MPG, 14.0 PPG, 6.3 APG, 228 AST/80 TO
LVO: 34 MPG 12.3 PPG, 7.2 APG, 252 AST/85 TO

Flynn: 37.3 MPG, 17.4 PPG, 6.7 APG, 254 AST/129 TO

TFG: It looks like we didn’t do too bad to start out, playing time aside. When Jim Boehim rides a point guard, it’s a sight to behold. The UConn epic and the second half of the Oklahoma game are the only times I remember Flynn just being out of it, let alone breaking a sweat.

He turned the ball over a lot more than both of us expected, and my thoughts on that are that it was a product of two things – playing time and Flynn’s tendency to get into pissing matches with other teams. The first factor isn’t a slight against Flynn, it’s just that when you never get off the court, you’re going to be handling the ball more than average and so the numbers may be a little skewed. We also saw Flynn make some questionable decisions when it came to dribbling into traffic or rushing three pointers. Another thing we didn’t anticipate was the scoring load that Flynn would take on. We knew he was a more-than-capable scorer, but with all the options on this team, it seemed as though Flynn would be a more of a distributor and not lead the team in scoring.

LVO: I have to agree all around with TFG here.  I gotta admit it’s pretty tough to get my hand off my back with that assist prediction, but honestly it could have been even higher!  I know there were a bunch of games, especially early when JFly would find the open 3 shooter only to see a brick get tossed up.  On the downside, I really thought we’d see more deferring to teammates, but really he can get to the rim at will.  He will have to learn how to finish better or figure out how to draw contact.  If he gets this, we are looking at a 20/7 guy easy next year.  Or we could see a 16/9 if players like Wes Johnson/RJ/AO make feeding the post like throwing bread crumbs at the ducks. Read the rest of this entry »