Even if you believe Pettiford is a much better talent than I do, it's hard to explain his fit on this team as constructed. If you were bringing him into a situation with great shooters and defenders around him maybe it could work as a nonshooter/poor shooter, but he mostly had that on Kansas. Even there he had a -13.3 net rating playing mostly against back ups.
For all the talk about this core returning, this latest signing of Pettiford will dramatically alter how Walker has to play and fundamentally changes the team you saw that finished the season. It alters what was good about it with Walker with his size at PG. Playing Pettiford starter minutes automatically makes the team smaller and likely worse on defense and worse shooting. For a team already 315th in three point percentage and 270 in offense that's a problem.
I can't see how inserting a 6-1 player helps this team on defense either, especially one with a 103 defensive rating at Kansas. A Kansas team that was really good on defense when he wasn't playing. The team average was 96 DRtg ranked 50th nationally. You are taking a big wing like Diboundje or Bayela off likely, or Walker. Infact at the end of the year 6-8 Johnson was playing at SF. Players who at least kept the defense honest from three on offense.
The numbers suggest Pettiford is a complete non shooter/poor shooter as ECU has had in the backcourt, certainly at his size. A 6-1 player that can't shoot will need the ball in his hands to have any value on offense. That takes the ball out of Walkers hands and puts him spotting up way more which didn't work the first 23 games. That will make what you saw at the end of the season completely different.
Walker isn't so great you should build the team around him. I've advocated all along ECU needed to recruit over him at PG and have him play off the bench as the backup. I still like Walker better at PG than Pettiford. So the other route was to get shooters around him. That's how what you saw at the end of the year could have been leveled up. Especially if you were going to add a 6-1 guard anyway and impact the defense. A 6-1 guard in the make of Akeem Richmond that ran off screens and shot a high volume of three could have played beside of Walker. I could have been like Akeem did with Prince Williams at PG and cross-match on defense and logically made sense. Pettiford is about as opposite of Akeem as you could make.
ECU got up a lot of three's but the percentage was 315th last year. That only gets worse when you take out Small out of the core and replace him with Pettiford.
That's a team coming back that shot 31.6% from three.
They haven't shot better previously either, if you took the total of their careers it's lower. Even using Pettiford's high school career to project out if he's allowed to take a few three's it's only 32% on a shorter line his career there. One of the things ECU did well last year was at least get up good number of three's on volume ranking 83rd in attempts. That's likely going to drop as well with another non shooter or at best likely low volume one on the court.
I don't really get the concept of Pettiford on this team, or Styles for that matter who also shot very poorly vs back ups at UNC and was a high priority. This roster construction has the exact feel of the season ECU was the worst three point shooting team in the nation going into year 3 of Dooley and added only Farrakan and ran it back.
You can't just magically expect the shooting to improve, there needs to be some insurance on if it doesn't. Even if it improves how much can it really improve. Likely no enough to matter.
The shooting is not only starting to feel that way, so is being enamored with 6-7+ SF's. In a recent interview it was stated they wanted to play Johnson more at SF. That looked ok with Johnson and Ausar at the forward spots when Houston had one day to prepare. I don't have much faith if they try to run that all year as a primary lineup of it working. Teams will figure that out almost certainly.
There are even parallels to moving the big PG like Newton off the ball like he did that year or bringing in the hyped PG that was Farrakan. Haven't wee seen this before. Even when ECU had Gardner and Newton it was an underachieving way to play. Schwartz likely gets more out of what the roster is than that, but this roster build is getting very Dooleyish in construction.
