Agreed. Backups and development are about to get weird. Why sit on a bench when you can transfer? There are of course legitimate reasons, and it will be up to each program to convince players to stay. As a fan I'm worried this will be tough to watch. Even when UNC does well I don't enjoy it nearly as much when the players are gone in a year or two.
On the other hand, I was a college athlete. You've got 4 years to play. Do you really want to be a 4 year practice player? Or play spot minutes your junior / senior year?
Quite the pickle.
One thing coaches can do is give younger or backup players a little more burn on the court.
If you assume the kid is at UNC because he wants to be, but isn't entirely happy because he isn't getting much PT, that seems like an easy fix. Unless he's looking for clearly unreasonable PT.
Of course that could mean teams aren't playing their best guys as much, so aren't as good. It's a different kind of balancing act.
Roy almost always gave all his players some PT. This year, for example, we had 9 guys who played double digit minutes. Kessler wasn't one of them.
We've had plenty of fans bitching that Roy gave lesser players too much burn, and should shorten the lineup sooner in the season. But that burn makes the players happy. And, frankly, I like to see it, too, as a fan. It also may make the less skilled or less ready players understand why they aren't getting so many minutes down the stretch - they had their chances and didn't get there.
Think about a coach like K. Will he give the Jaemyn Brakefields and Joey Bakers more PT to make sure they stick around? Then again, Brakefield left even though he got more PT than Kessler.
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