Coaching staff seems pretty confident Bishop will get a waiver, like Amir Harris last year.

If he plays, I expect us to be a little better next year (assuming there’s a season) before taking a huge leap forward, to ncaa contention, in two years.

While it is everyone's hope that Bishop receives the waiver, I would not dismiss the very distinct possibility of JNJ becoming much improved playing the point.  We have seen two of the school's greatest point guards, Carl Elliott and Joe McDonald, struggle rather mightily while playing the point during their freshmen seasons, only to display major improvement throughout their careers.  What helped was that each was coached by a former point guard as is the case with JNJ (not to mention his father who undoubtedly will share a thing or two).

What should be remembered about JNJ was that baseball was his primary sport growing up.  He did not start playing basketball competitively until high school and he was injured for much of his senior season.  In other words, he is about as raw a talent as it gets.  He clearly needs to improve his handle, decision-making and outside shooting.  The coaching staff knows all of this and I am sure they are monitoring his progress as best the can from afar.  During the second half of last season, we started to see JNJ make some strides in these areas when he became the secondary ball handler behind Armel. 

Maybe it's conceivable that JNJ does not become an effective playmaker.  Just because Carl and Joe improved by no means ensures that JNJ will make similar progress.  At the same time, JNJ possesses enormous talent.  As long as he demonstrates a willingness to really understand the position, there is every reason to think that JNJ will follow in Carl and Joe's footsteps.     

Absolutely FQ.  Anyone would have to view these situations differently.  I do think a major difference had to do with how prepared each one was to play point guard coming out of high school.  You could tell from watching JNJ early on that he wasn't as used to getting teammates involved as the other two.  Plus, the advanced level of college play caught up with him a bit as well.  Still incredible to see some of the things he was successfully able to do but just not with the consistency that he was probably used to.  

Carl had TJ to help mentor him as well as take much of the burden off of him.  As a freshman, Carl played 26.5 minutes per game, about 4 fewer minutes than TJ and about 4 minutes more than fellow freshman JR Pinnock. Carl's minutes increased each season he played.  He had the time and room to develop.  Joe was given the keys to the car from Day 1 and never really looked back. His mistakes were glaring in that first year but they were cut considerably thereafter.   I believe this was the plan for JNJ but the abundance of mistakes led to JC feeling he had to make a change (that, and realizing that Armel actually was a pretty good point guard).   

Point being that it's way too early to write-off JNJ as a more than capable point guard at this stage in his development.

 

Thomas, both JNJ and James Bishop should be considered scoring point guards which may be a little different than a shoot-first point guard (see Brown, SirValient), and which is what JC wants from his point guard.  A point guard who can both shoot from the outside and who can score taking the ball to the hole is a tremendous asset.  I believe what this all boils down to is decision making.  When to shoot?  When to pass?  When to get a struggling teammate involved?  When to capitalize on somebody else's hot hand?  So much of this is gained by experience, seeing what a defense gives you and reacting accordingly.  Making decisions based on simply knowing what to do as opposed to having to think about what to do.

Again, the high turnover rate by JNJ was alarming, and he may very well never become the decision-maker (and ball handler) that a great point guard needs to be.  My point is that I wouldn't simply look at last year and conclude that he'll never be this guy.  There's plenty of time and opportunity for him to learn.    

From what we’ve seen what does JC want defensively out of his PG? Stop the ball (duh) what else?

If JNJ ends up being our starting PG I expect we'll continue to see TO struggles. While I love his scoring ability, he does much better off ball as a SG. He isn't a bad passer but rather has poor court vision. So many of his turnovers this past year were either because he didn't see the open man and when pressured threw it away, or more often didn't see a closing defender and threw the ball right to the opposing team. 

Sure these are things that can be learned and considering how raw he is, there is a real chance he gets better as he gets a better feel for the game, but right now it sure doesn't come naturally to him.

Either way, I'll root like crazy for him. One of the more exciting players when on the court for sure.