Basketball guys, what does Reid need?

He has incredibly slow feet and lateral quickness. That's been evident all year, it just hasn't been exploited until the competition got much better.


What he needs to do is be better on offense to make up for the bad defense. He's simply not going to be a good defender in todays world of switching and pulling bigs out onto the perimeter. He's not fast enough at recovering to block a shot either. He's just not good on defense.
But his offense has to be better, and we need to get 10 points or so from him in his limited minutes. He's not being aggressive enough and he's not getting better positioning in the post to be effective. If he can't do that either, he's kind of worthless on the court altogether. He needs to punish defenses, and he's not coming close to doing that. He's got the ability to do it though. He's still a young kid out there with plenty of room to grow and get better, but he's not getting better defensively. He is who he is, and it's not a good defender. His physical ability limits him. He can't move laterally, and he can't jump.

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What does/can Wade do to help him stop fouling so much?

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He could stop switching everything, 1-5, on defense. But that is the identity of LSU's defense and the way they execute it is the reason they are the best defensive team in the country right now. So changing it up just to hopefully keep Reid from picking up fouls is NOT an option.

However, the simplest answer is that Reid is just going to have to go through growing pains like many Freshman big men go through. He's not a dominant athlete in the mold of Ewing, Olajuwon or Shaq where he can just come in and overwhelm even good big men with raw ability. He's an offensively skilled Center that, probably for the first time in his life, is going up against guys with equal size, and greater strength and skill.

To give a little bit of perspective, Colin Castleton, who LSU faced last night, had very little production at Michigan in the first two years of his career. Walker Kessler, Auburn's big man, only played about 8 minutes per game last season as a Freshman at UNC. He wasn't a huge impact player as a freshman. And it is hard to blame the UNC coaches for that considering Roy Williams was his HC. I'll give Williams the benefit of the doubt that he knew how to coach.

There is a reason guys like Ewing and Shaq are still so revered in the history of college basketball. That's because while there have been thousands of "big men" who have played since them, their ain't a whole lot of Ewing's and Shaq's on planet earth who were that dominant as freshman.

He needs to toughen up on offense and quit committing stupid fouls.

Work on his game

Aggressive but not foul
Confidence
Strength

He needs to get some minutes and score. He has such a huge lack of confidence rn.

He needs some minutes and have the ball force fed so he can make some plays. When he is out there and the ball isn't going to him he is not going to do well bc he isn't confident.

He needs to score and then he can start improving

More weight, more touch, more experience. He is owned by SEC competition. Of course to all the LSU homers, it's the referee's fault.

To get away from SEC refs to start.

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I know last night refs were trigger happy but this is like 5 games in a row he’s either fouled out or got to early foul trouble.

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Hell, 2 games ago he got his second foul at the 17:28 mark of the first half. That's before the first TV TO at 16:00 or so.
That said, they were ticky tack and he's getting a lot of those. Hands straight up and not jumping but getting some of the body whether it's him or the other guy initiating the contact. He's 7'tall. He's gonna get those fouls near every time.
Correct me here if I'm wrong but I don't seem to see him getting fouls on switches when he gets away from the basket.
Look - he's a freshman who hasn't done much to establish himself so he's mostly thinking not playing.
We've just got to let the coaches do their thing. I believe when the light comes on, he'll be everything we hoped for. (just hope it pops in the next 6 weeks though!)

Dale B. Used to bring Shaq to practices to help with new centers that always seem to get them going in the right direction.