Guest Post: The Argument to Start Tony Wroten

This is a GUEST POST by JR Jarrell, famous mainly by his twitter handle of @jrjarrell4 and he is currently working on a project of making famous the hash-tag of #StartWroten. He is driving the train for putting Tony Wroten into the starting lineup. I asked him to formulate his argument and I would post it. Here is his argument for starting Wroten. 

After the games in New York, Tony Wroten finally proved to me what I have thought all along: he needs to be starting for this team to reach its full potential.

• Abdul Gaddy is a solid player makes decent decisions, average shooter, and average defender.
• Tony Wroten makes sometimes poor decisions, below average shooter and needs to assert himself more on defense, but at the end of the day he brings more than Gaddy.

In the closing minutes against Duke,  Lorenzo Romar was yelling at Gaddy to

get the ball to Wroten.  The fans, Coach K, the announcers knew what was going to happen: Wroten was going to the hoop and he was going to score. It didn’t matter if you knew or not, it was going to happen, which is very impressive for a freshman.

The kid has room to grow, needs to stop making the flashy pass for one, but he also has so much skill/talent.  Starting Wroten will help this team grow and make an identity for themselves. Let Gaddy be the calming influence off the bench. With Wroten, Ross and Wilcox that is absolute matchup nightmare for anyone in the Pac-12. When Gaddy went down last year they got an attacking point guard in Isaiah, this team blossomed. Tony Wroten is the attacking point guard Romar’s, often stagnant, offense needs. (We needed Gaddy over Venoy last year, let me say that)

On top of that, this team is also missing a leader.  Isaiah was the heart and soul of this team last year, Gaddy, Wilcox and Ross don’t seem have that fire that this team needs to get it going. Wroten appears to have that. This might get rid of those awful slow starts (Duke, St. Louis).

He is vocal, national media that went to practice before the Duke game saying that he was the most impressive and vocal person at the Huskies practice. With Suggs redshirting this team needs some kind of leadership, Gaddy hasn’t provided it, maybe Wroten can.

I’ve read on message boards about the +/- stat. It is a decent stat over a season or over a half of season, but when you are comparing 3 games, all ending in losses the +/- isn’t going to be great. Tony Wroten has a -12 for the first half against Duke, not good by any stretch of the imagination. On the other hand, if you watched the game you would know that the only reason the Huskies were not down by 30 at the half was because of Wroten. He came in and kept us in it when nothing was going right. Stats don’t tell the whole story.

This team is better with Tony Wroten on the floor. Gaddy is a solid player, Tony fits better and will thrive as a starter with the ball in his hands.  I would also bet 10 out of 10 times Wroten finds Darnell Gant wide open against Marquette were Gaddy threw it over the backboard. The Huskies need both players but starting Wroten will be better for this team in the long run.

#StartWroten if you want this team to go the dance.

Follow me @jrjarrell4

—