Richard Bonner

To clarify, this is a theoretical question and not a practical question. Roster limitations mean he's starting at PF this season and he'll be starting at one of the post spots next season. However, I can't help feeling that in spite of threatening to hit 800 overall in D3 he's not a plus-plus at anything as a post player. He can't be a top scorer, he's an above-average but not awe-inspiring defender, and he's an average to average+ rebounder. He's definitely a good player at the PF position, but he's not doing anything to really uplevel the team, just filling a spot with a solid piece. Would he be better at SF? He has the same basic O/D profile at the 3 that he has at the 4, but he has the speed and guard skills to fill that role without being a turnover problem or struggling to defend teams that put a 3rd guard there. At the SF he's going to have a massive rebounding edge against virtually every matchup he faces. Note that last season, in his sophomore year, I had an excess of posts and started him at SF for most of the season (and he played mostly SF when he didn't start as well). He averaged 5.5 rebounds in 21 minutes and as a team we crushed our opponents on the boards. But his rebounding is still worth less at the 3 than the 4, so I don't know.

If you had him, and you had an otherwise-solid team, where would you want him to play?

This has to be a flex post. He would prob start on any of my DI teams. I would start him at PF most likely. At D3 his ath paired with his other attributes makes him the best player on the floor. 95% of the time

I think, from not playing D3, you may misunderstand the value of a player like this. To begin, very few teams lean heavily on their post players for scoring, so elite interior defenders are of dubious value. Thus, while he's probably not even the best starting post player on my team, I don't think either one of them is as indispensable to my team's success as Dennis Spina, a mostly unremarkable 2-guard who has the important distinction of being my only really great shooter this season. The biggest difference-makers at D3 (and really anywhere below high D1) are elite scorers. When the whole team aren't effective scorers, one guy who can get you 20 points efficiently is a massive asset.

Posted by Fregoe on 5/9/2022 4:47:00 PM (view original):
This has to be a flex post. He would prob start on any of my DI teams. I would start him at PF most likely. At D3 his ath paired with his other attributes makes him the best player on the floor. 95% of the time

? huh.

59 defense? Bonner is a good D3 player but I wouldn't even recruit him D2. definitely not best player on floor... barely a solid D3 scorer

Orginal question, I think he's a solid 4. he fits in nicely with your team and complements Crowder well in the frontcourt.

There's a lot of versatility there, insofar as he isn't really going to hurt you at a number of positions. What this gives you is the opportunity to move around some of your other players to take best advantage of your opposition's defense, moving them to a spot where they can score significantly, (or defend a star) and this guy plugs the hole that is left very nicely.

I like him at 4 just fine, but if I’m short at 3 he works there too. I would have been all over him with my zone/press D3 team, he’s a very good zone 4 (or 5) defensively. There’s nowhere on the floor you can put him where he’ll be an “elite scorer” but he’ll be capable of an efficient 7-10 at any frontcourt position. I think you could bump his distribution up if you needed to, but cool if you don’t have to.

Posted by cubcub113 on 5/9/2022 8:42:00 PM (view original):

Posted by Fregoe on 5/9/2022 4:47:00 PM (view original):
This has to be a flex post. He would prob start on any of my DI teams. I would start him at PF most likely. At D3 his ath paired with his other attributes makes him the best player on the floor. 95% of the time

? huh.

59 defense? Bonner is a good D3 player but I wouldn't even recruit him D2. definitely not best player on floor... barely a solid D3 scorer

Over half the players on your DI rosters combined are under 80 Def. and a quick look at those rosters says you actually do have this type of players on your DI rosters now. So don't act like you don't recruit these type of payers when you have them recruited by you on teams like Louisville and K State let alone D3

He's pretty close to maxed-out, though. Generally if you saw a guy like that on a high D1 team he'd be young and have some potential left.

If I wanted to flex I would have found an excuse to post this guy. He's a legit D1-caliber player. What's ridiculous is that he was a 2-year JUCO. He wasn't just a recruit with a bunch of SuperGreens™ on whom I got lucky, he pretty much guaranteed to look roughly like this when I recruited him, yet I still somehow received very little meaningful competition for him.
..

Maybe i have a warped opinion. I would be happy havng that guy on any DIII team I ever had

It would be wonderful if the HD worlds were more full, so players like this had no chance to slip down into D3...but alas

yeah..... definitely not a flex post. these well rounded but great at nothing guys, just aren't that good. the guy is a good rebounder, and a quality 2pt scorer on the basis of his ath/spd in a triangle set which prioritizes lp/per and where his lp/per are not impressive at all. looks ok on defense but definitely not a stud. does not have the bh/pass to be a strong back court contributor.

seems like a 3-4 to me, i feel like he would be pretty good at either. i kinda feel like his scoring is better at the 3. when you face strong defenders at the 4-5 with strong blk, i feel like these 50 lp 2pt scorers struggle more, that they somehow get away with more at the 1-3 despite facing better ath/spd and their ath/spd being their salvation. and his bh/pass is a bit wasted at the 4. but not a lot i suppose. his reb is a bit wasted at the 3, and his blk. i probably lean 4 i guess? i don't play enough d3 or have enough of the rest of the team context to feel strongly either way though. and i don't feel comfortable with my d1-based view on where a guy like this scores down in d3. against d3-level talent, i'm not sure it holds up that scoring from the 3 is better down there for a guy like this?

i guess you said its all theoretical though? in a way, in the ideal world, i like a guy like this at the 3, because you can stack him with strong reb 4/5 and have a really nice reb team, and that really does level the team up, as you put it. but you have to have the per scoring covered, and it seems in d3 that is far more the case than today's d1. in triangle i just haven't really ever gotten to the point where i was happy with a team, unless they had a strong 3pt scoring sf, because i don't get the scoring i want from my 1. i like the bh/pass defender type of pgs in triangle, but if you figure you need two 3pt scorers, this basically leaves the 3. so under triangle, i'm probably slotting him at the 4 if i could fabricate the team around him from whole cloth. but elsewhere, probably slotting him at the 3?

He's okay, definitely a nice player at d3. But defense without much offense is a liability and not something I like to have on my own teams (ideally of course) . I'd probably just move him around based upon matchups. Put your elite defenders on their elite scorers and hopefully he doesn't get exploited too much.

I think if you wanted him to, Bonner could probably put up 20+ PPG at ~45% FG shooting in a flex offense. He could probably even perform similarly in triangle. That BH/LP combined with the ATH/SPD is decent enough against most D3 opponents for him to be an efficient high volume scorer. Against elite D3 teams he can probably get shut down but I've had similar players produce well on offense at D3 tbh.

In a FB offense he would do fine, check out this dude from my D2 team...nothing special about his ratings but he is shooting 58% averaging 14.5 points a game....of course against weaker competition but still. Corey Newman

Im with Benis on this one, would move him around the 3/4 based on matchups