University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: James Wants To Play Big
October 8, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
By Adam Lucas
Like most college students, Joel James is well acquainted with YouTube.
Unlike most college students, Joel James has some very unique YouTube viewing habits.
“Nobody watches Andrew Bogut mixtapes,” James says of the highlight reels that regularly record hundreds of thousands of views for more TV-friendly superstars like Vince Carter or Steph Curry. “Except for me. I watch Andrew Bogut mixtapes.”
Bogut doesn't play above the rim. James doesn't care. A latecomer to basketball, he's still soaking up the diverse ways to play the game, especially in the paint.
And that's exclusively where he wants to spend his senior season—close to the rim. National champion-turned-radio broadcaster Eric Montross took a very early interest in James and regularly offers pre-practice or pre-game advice. This summer, James expanded his big man research archive, working with a variety of Carolina big man alums, including Sean May and Brendan Haywood. The latter gave the pupil some priceless advice:
“He told me the closer you stay to the basket, the more money you'll make playing the game,” James says. “He told me to limit myself from floating out onto the court. Shooting jumpers is fine, but I'm more effective inside.”
As Haywood knows, that's good advice from a scoring perspective, but also in other elements of the game. James didn't rebound particularly well last year for his size, getting just 12.8 percent of the available defensive rebounds when he was on the court, and 7.6 percent of the available offensive boards according to KenPom.com.
Those are rebounding percentages that are closer to, for example, Justin Jackson than Brice Johnson. And they emphasize the fact that James has the size to be effective on the boards—but is still gaining the experience he needs. Rebounding is about watching thousands of balls bounce off the rim, learning angles and understanding floor spacing. It's also a guaranteed way to earn playing time, because one of the coaching staff's favorite sayings is, “You can never rebound too much.”
“Rebounding isn't about being big,” James says. “It's about position and timing. I can be one foot away from the rim, and if Marcus Paige boxes me out at the right angle and gets low and hits my knees, I'm neutralized and he gets the ball. If you watch Dennis Rodman, Willis Reed, or any of the great NBA rebounders, they're all great position rebounders. They use their body to shield the opponent and the ball seems to magically fall to them. It's an art.”
Some of those subtleties are where James can still make progress. He gives Carolina a weapon very few teams have—few opponents this year will have a capable seven-footer coming off the bench who is, as James says, “willing to throw my body around.”
He's still working on some of the intangibles to go with those imposing physical gifts. When he met with Roy Williams before the summer break, one of the items the head coach asked James to improve was his confidence. James sees the difference in his play when he watches film.
“When I'm confident, my speed of game play is so much faster than when I second guess myself,” he says. “When I'm slower, I'm surveying everything and I seem unsure. This year I want to do a better job of acting instead of reacting.”
