People make up their minds about players early on, and then seem incapable of changing that opinion down the road. Players get better. Some sooner than others. I've said it zillion times, Willie came to the game late, so from the get go, he was going to take more time. My main knock on Willie has nothing to do with his skill set, but with his mentality. He knows how to play the game, he just has to let it go. Or as Mac likes to hear me say, his problem is strictly between his ears.
I thought he had a very nice game last night in limited minutes. He played within what the team was trying to do, made some very nice passes, grabbed some boards etc. On a team loaded with a lot of very talented young players, not every one of those players can put up 20 and 10 on the same night. This team is sorting itself out and trying to find it's playing level. This is going to take a while, but it will get done as the season progresses.
Put another way, if Willie can play 28 to 30 minutes a night, and put up 14 pts, 8 to 9 boards, 4 to 5 assists, a couple of steals and a block, and the team wins, then what more do you want? Every player on the team can't be a star, and right now, the team is trying to figure out who is going to be the go to guy. Who is the number one, two, three, and four option. Right now, all of that is up for grabs. When they do figure that out, then we'll have a viable team.
To many times, people want to make things an either/or situation. It's like, if we have Giles, then we can't have Willie. Pure nonsense! It's just a matter of everyone know what their role is and contributing to the team. It's not Giles first, or Bagley first, it's team first. Period!