Sophomore Sunday: A Tale Of Two Anthonys

Douglas ably covered last night's dazzler, and we've got plenty of time to anticipate being re-Biedrinsed tomorrow night. Let's take a quick breather and check in with our second-year men, who have seemingly been heading in different directions of late. How are the Anthonys doing, and how can they improve from here? Fill us in, clumsily-pastiched screenshots:

On a per-minute basis, Morrow's second season has not been wildly different from his first; he's passing a bit worse, picking off a few more passes, actually scoring a bit more efficiently (he's still 24th in the league in TS%, despite his recent struggles). The main differences: he's shooting fewer twos, getting to the line even less often, and grabbing offensive rebounds only half as often.

The Dubs fan CW is that Morrow hasn't been getting enough open looks from beyond the arc. And there's something to that -- it'd be good if he, Nellie, Monta and Curry could figure out a way to get him a few more threes. But part of the story here is that Morrow's not doing anything *else*... he's shooting midrange jumpers, driving and drawing fouls even less often than last year. It's possible that he's just too targeted of a weapon this year, and that he'll get more open threes if he can convince his opponents that he might try to hurt them in some other way.

Randolph has gone in the opposite direction... his FG% is even weaker than it was last year, but thanks to increased aggression and improved accuracy at the line, he's more of a scoring asset than he was a season ago. That's not to say that he's a big scoring asset -- his TS%, though improved, is still a tad below league average. But the combo of improved efficiency and increased usage is a heartening thing, as is the jump in Randolph's passing numbers; he still creates a bunch of positive defensive plays, and his foul rate, though high, is still normal for a young big. The only bad news here is a dip in his rebounding totals. This may have to do with his increased passing duties on offense and his tighter man assignments on D. It may also be that last year's numbers were a bit fluky high. At any rate, ten rebounds per 36 is no tragedy.

The easiest way for Randolph to improve? Rediscovering his solid touch near the basket; he's gotten blocked and spooked a ton down there, and a pump fake or two would do wonders. But it's worth noting that Randolph *doesn't* need to fix anything to be effective. His current warty approach is enough to make him a very good player; any meaningful improvements will make this Anthony an All-Star.