Naw....a player can fly to California to get a perfectly legal weed prescription from a neighborhood medicinal prescriber.
Sean Williams' defense is overrated. Here's an interesting analysis of him at ESPN Insider For those without an insider account, here's some snipplets from the article: Unfortunately, blocks per game has very little context associated with it. But thanks to the detailed record keeping that is beginning to become available at the college level, we can put the performance of shot blockers under the statistical microscope to reveal which ones are truly superior defenders. ... Additionally, players who are undisciplined about attempting to block shots will put themselves out of rebounding position more often. This explains why the 6-10 Williams swats like he's 7-foot-1 but rebounds like he's 6-7. So, I'd say defensive rebounding is very relevant to this discussion.[/size] ... Finally, prolific shot blockers usually have an influence on team defense. But for some reason, Williams doesn't seem to. Or maybe he does, and BC's defense is so bad without him that it still looks poor with him. It's unfair to lay the entire blame for BC's defensive woes on Williams, because you don't block over five shots a game without providing some benefit to your team. But if he were the force people seem to think he is, wouldn't the Eagles' defense be more respectable? What's more, Williams' blocks haven't correlated to improved BC defense. His 13-block game against Duquesne was BC's worst defensive game as a team -- they allowed 1.23 points per possession. His 12-block game against Providence was BC's fourth-worst defensive game in terms of points per possession. In both cases, the opponent's offensive rebounding was the reason for the impressive offense in the face of double-digit blocks. It seems that the value of Williams' shot blocking is offset somewhat by his ultra-aggressiveness. But what is the value of each player's shot blocking? This is a complicated issue, but one that can be partially addressed by finding out what happens to the ball after each player's block. Thanks to the detailed play-by-play data that most schools keep these days, this can be calculated. Let's look at a new suite of block-related stats. How effective are the blocks? PLAYER OB% SELF% DR% OPPB Williams 13.8% 9.2% 46.2% 0.62 Thabeet 12.3% 19.3% 61.4% 0.25 Oden 20.0% 13.3% 53.3% 0.17 Hibbert 18.9% 24.3% 64.9% 0.27 Opponents' 2-point percentage PLAYER WHEN ON COURT WHEN OFF COURT Williams 46.3% 45.3% Thabeet 36.8% 41.3% Oden 39.6% 44.9% Hibbert* 36.1% 47.8% ... A lot of it is due to the volume of blocked shots by Williams, but a more thoughtful breakdown of their respective games shows that Hibbert's case for being the superior defender in this group is better than he's given credit for.
