Do Players Do Better or Worse After Transferring? And What About the Teams They Leave Behind?

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Personally I like the new transfer rules. I like that a player who feels under-used or under-appreciated doesn't have to pay a penalty to find a better situation. But . . . .

Are there any intelligent numbers on whether kids who transfer actually do better? Where by "intelligent numbers" I mean taking into account reasonable factors. For example, if Kessler had stayed with us, he certainly would have done a lot better as a soph, so you can't just point to him and say he benefited by leaving. Might be true, but he would have benefited by staying, too. So how much of that, if any, is due to transferring?

I assume most transfers aren't like that.

If you look at their numbers, both Pete Nance and his Northwestern teammate Ryan Young, now at Duke, are doing noticeably better on eFG% and TS%. Both are playing a few more minutes than they did last year. OTOH, both are taking noticeably fewer shots. I'd say the move was good for Young, not so clear for Nance.

Meanwhile, the team they left, Northwestern, seems improved. This time last year they were 8-4 with no bad losses, but no particularly good wins, either. This year they are 11-3 with no bad losses and a couple of decent wins (MSU and Illinois). Addition by subtraction? And while Collins did pick up a big from the portal, he isn't starting and is doing worse than at his previous school. A good addition for Northwestern, but not necessarily for the player.

Meanwhile, Kerwin's move doesn't seem to have helped him.

So anyway . . . even if transfers don't always do better, I still like the freedom the new rules give players. And of course Hubert seems to be pretty good in the portal.

What do you guys think?

 

[imajericho]

Zero way to calculate this. Every player and place is different. Way too many variables.

What's really going to blow your mind is when you consider if some of the busts in the NFL would have been hall of famers if they simply were drafted by a different team.

As far as I am concerned, generally transfers aren't great. Sometimes you find lightning in a bottle like Manek and Cam Johnson, but it's rarer than the norm. We should prefer new talent or experienced players from our roster over transfers 99% of the time.

Our lists of transfer busts far outweigh our hits.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

Zero way to calculate this. Every player and place is different. Way too many variables.

What's really going to blow your mind is when you consider if some of the busts in the NFL would have been hall of famers if they simply were drafted by a different team.

As far as I am concerned, generally transfers aren't great. Sometimes you find lightning in a bottle like Manek and Cam Johnson, but it's rarer than the norm. We should prefer new talent or experienced players from our roster over transfers 99% of the time.

Our lists of transfer busts far outweigh our hits.

One of the problems is that some systems need more time for a new player to catch on. I think Roy's system fell into that category. Cam might be a good example. If we only had him 1 year, he would have been a good player, but he became great his second year. Sure there were injury issues, but a lot of the delay was learning the system, learning to move without the ball and, of course, working on his outside shot.

Roy's 2 prior transfers - Christian Keeling and Justin Pierce - didn't have the same upside. They weren't bad. Keeling probably gets a lot better if he stays another year. Instant offense 6th man or maybe even a starter on a better UNC team. Justin wasn't bad but he's never more than a 7th or 8th guy.

Sadly for all concerned, they joined Roy's worst team ever, helmed by a sometimes injured, always hotdog freshman point guard, coached by a fine coach in his declining years, during the onset of COVID.

Before that we had Justin Knox. He did well for us off the bench, but I don't know if transferring to us helped him any. Would he have been better in a 2nd year with us? Probably, but he'd still have been playing behind Zeller and Henson in their almost-championship final year.

 

[DSouthr]

I am not a fan of the portal, I prefer building teams from recruiting and developing players over time. I love to watch the progression of a kid from freshman to senior. The portal deal is to much like the 1&D deal, it brings in 1season mercenaries that are gone before ya got to know them. So far we have done OK with the portal deal, only guy we have lost that for me hurt some was Ant, liked that kid, he was starting to play really well for us before he was tossed. WE did strike gold with Brady, I would say we hit silver with Nance but the rest of our portal guys have been more pyrite (fools gold) so it has been a mixed bag for us. We have to deal in the portal now, not a matter of liking it or not, just a matter of it being todays reality. I do believe we are on the verge of losing some guys I really prefer we not lose, that has me concerned.

Oh, Kessler we lost in the portal, his leaving hurt, I did not want to see that kid transfer even more so than Ant, I think he paired with Bacot would have been outstanding and could have easily stepped in for Bacot to give him some rest or cover the 5 when Bacot got hurt.

 

[What Would Jesus Do?]

I am not a fan of the portal, I prefer building teams from recruiting and developing players over time. I love to watch the progression of a kid from freshman to senior. The portal deal is to much like the 1&D deal, it brings in 1season mercenaries that are gone before ya got to know them. So far we have done OK with the portal deal, only guy we have lost that for me hurt some was Ant, liked that kid, he was starting to play really well for us before he was tossed. WE did strike gold with Brady, I would say we hit silver with Nance but the rest of our portal guys have been more pyrite (fools gold) so it has been a mixed bag for us. We have to deal in the portal now, not a matter of liking it or not, just a matter of it being todays reality. I do believe we are on the verge of losing some guys I really prefer we not lose, that has me concerned.

Oh, Kessler we lost in the portal, his leaving hurt, I did not want to see that kid transfer even more so than Ant, I think he paired with Bacot would have been outstanding and could have easily stepped in for Bacot to give him some rest or cover the 5 when Bacot got hurt.

The portal sweet spot is the guy who has 2 or more years of eligibility, has shown he fits our style of play, but isn't so awesome that he's likely to leave after 1 year. Again, Cam is the perfect example.

Nance is a guy who could be a star for us next year, but he doesn't have the eligibility. He has plenty of good sides, but still too often looks lost in our system. Early on people were saying he was deferring too much. Maybe so, but that shouldn't be an issue halfway through the season. He needs to toughen up more, know where he's supposed to be, and shoot more.

Nance played 29 games last season for Northwestern. He's played 15 for us.

He averaged 3.1 3pt shots per game at NW. Here he's taking only slightly more, at 3.5.

BUT . . . He averaged 8.0 2pt shots per game last year, and only 3.5 this year. Less than half.

Sure, that reflects that we have Armando, so Pete isn't playing inside as much. But he should still be taking more shots.

His eFG% is 58.3 and his TS% is 63.0. Both numbers lead the team. Seems like we should get him the ball more and he should have the greenest light.

Last year, Brady was everybody's favorite target when passing the ball. Made sense. And while we want Armando to get touches, if he doesn't have a good shot, get that ball to Nance.