Darius Miller Must Provide Leadership And Consistency

When I look at a basketball team there a few things they must have in order to be considered a championship contender.  A team that would like to compete for a championship must have talent not only with the starting five but they must have talented role players coming off the bench.  DeAndre Liggins and Josh Harrelson provide that for the ‘Cats.  You have to have great team chemistry and play as a very cohesive unit.  You can check that trait off the list for Kentucky as well.  Although Calipari coaches young teams every season.  He gets them playing together and his teams usually are very successful.  The third and most important trait a team must have is leadership.

Last season Patrick Patterson was looked at as the seasoned veteran, the old guy that the young players looked up to.  When the team was in a bind Patterson was called upon to make a big play or give a little confidence to players like DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall, who are talented but would continually put their heads down after a negative outcome.

The Wildcats coming into this season are lacking that type of leadership.  They don’t have that one go to guy that is going to keep every players head up when things get tough.  They need someone to essentially fill Patterson’s shoes.  It’s not an easy job but it is a very important one.  Darius Miller is the perfect person to take on the task.

He played on the USA U-19 team which gave him a lot of experience.  He doesn’t seem to be very vocal which could lead to some problems but that is an easy problem to fix.  If you pay attention to high pressure situations they don’t really seem to bother Darius.  The big problem with Darius Miller is that he was very inconsistent last year.

He was supposed to provide the outside jump shooting Kentucky desperately needed but time and time again he would have one good shooting night and then two off nights.  Consistency is key to any athlete and without that they are just not any help to their team.  With this being his junior year he has played in enough games to understand how to lead a team.

He won’t need to go out and score 20 points a game but he will definitely have to improve on the 6 ppg. average that he has for his career.  Also, for his career he shoots close to 33% from beyond the three-point line.  It’s not a terrible average but he needs to get to the rim a little bit more and not rely just on his outside jumper.

If Miller becomes a reliable captain for UK then the sky is the limit.  When looking at their roster all they are missing is the leadership.  They have a ton of talent provided by the incoming freshman and the bench will be solid.  It doesn’t have to be Miller who steps into the role but Calipari certainly would like it to be him.