In this year’s The Wisdom of Crowds series, our assignment is to figure out how Coach Wright will replace 56% of last season’s offense produced by departed players Corey Stokes, Corey Fisher and Antonio Pena. In today’s post we focus on Maalik Wayns, who now owns the point guard position he once shared with Corey Fisher. Use the voting buttons, below, to predict the points per game you think Maalik will score this year and the comment section to explain your thinking. To help you come up with your prediction, we have provided his career stats as a Wildcat, a "third party expert" player assessment, and a 2010-11 highlight video below.
| Season | GP | MPG | PPG | FG% | 3FG% | FT% | APG |
| 2010-11 | 33 | 30.1 | 13.8 | 39.9 | 27.1 | 82.0 | 4.5 |
| 2009-10 | 33 | 15.0 | 6.8 | 43.4 | 31.5 | 81.4 | 1.3 |
| Career | 66 | 22.6 | 10.3 | 41.0 | 28.4 | 81.8 | 2.9 |
Note: in 'Nova's Euro Jam games played in August against Georgia, Netherlands and Israel national teams (each loaded with professional players), Maalik averaged 13.7 ppg.
Player Assessment by VUSports.com
"Wayns had some games where he knocked down deep shots, played a strong floor game and dished out numerous assists. After these contests, the buzz would begin about how Wayns is beginning to look ready to make the leap into the NBA draft. Those great performances were counter-balanced by games with poor defensive effort, over-aggressive passing and erratic shooting.
Strengths: Quickness with the ball in transition. Dribble penetrating. Ball-handling and physicality. Foul shooting. Scorer's mentality.
Weaknesses: Inconsistent jump shooter. At times, he struggles to stop dribble-penetration and to effectively provide help in Coach Wright's defense. Over-dribbling. Digressed as an on-the-ball defender.
Summer School: Improving the consistency of his jump-shot. Developing the ability to bring the same focus and desire to the arena game in and game out. He improved his court vision and ability to distribute the ball over the eighteen months - that area can continue to improve along with his decision-making. Improve as a team defender.
What next: This is Maalik's team now. Will he step up and lead it? The opportunity is there to play 35 mpg, run the offense, and be the leading scorer and assist man on offense while setting the tone on defense. The team needs to jump-start the offense with turnovers and transition baskets - Wayns needs to be the spark-plug on the defensive end of the court. Take care of business on the court and the appropriate level of NBA attention will follow."
Highlight Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPYpz4V4v40
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