Lindell was not great for us last year, but people do make a good point when saying he wasn't set up for success. His role on offense was to stand out on the perimeter and shoot catch and shoot 3's. Did he shoot a decent percentage? Sure. But after watching his freshman season it was obvious his game is driving and slashing in the lane to create shots and get to the foul line.
Was he turnover prone? Sure. Did he overthink and was he tentative when he was slashing last year? Yes. Why? Because the coaches didn't put him in position to be as confident a player as his freshman season. Slashers need to handle the ball and be active in the offense. It's hard to expect him to be the same type of player when he was constantly standing around in the corner waiting to shoot a 3 as the shot clock winds down.
Would putting him at PG have been a risk for more turnovers? Absolutely. But I think I would sacrifice a couple of possessions if it meant having an active and aggressive Lindell. In my mind he was definitely misused and it's not even a question.
It was pretty easy for him to be confident and keep getting minutes as a Fr., especially late in the season because ISU had like 6 guys available to even play. Not to mention they were playing in meaningless games running out the string on a bad season. Once Weiler-Babb went out, it was a great time to let Lindell let it rip and develop as a PG, get more efficient slashing and creating in the lane, cut down on TOs, etc. The thing is, during his Fr. year ISU was good when NWB was healthy and was the PG. When the PG duties were elsewhere, including with Lindell, that was a God-awful team. The injury certainly set his So. year back, but I'm not sure how anyone could watch think ISU would've been better with him at PG. Lots of turnovers, lots of high degree of difficulty shots early in the shot clock. I thought he accepted his role well, and was certainly a good player overall. But if you're going to play him at PG and think that's going to make the team better, you're basing that on pure hope, and not on anything actually observed.
The thing is, guys like Lindell and THT were kind of what you expect underclassmen ranked where they were to be - Sometimes really good, sometimes not. Good at some things, needing serious development in other areas. Based on rankings they were similar to Matt Thomas and Monte. Quite frankly Matt struggled until his Jr. year. Monte was a role player as a Fr. Fred didn't misuse them, they were just underclassmen that needed time to develop.
LW was a guy that should've been a 4 year player. Hard to argue with THT leaving, but expecting a guy that isn't an absolute bluechip to be good AND consistent is pretty unrealistic.
