The Jeron Teng mailbag

Going off some received tweets about the news that Jeron Teng will commit to DLSU...

Here's what we know about Jeron Teng: he scores most of his points as a slasher, but he's going to score at a lower percentage because of the speed and height of his UAAP defenders. His rebounding is questionable, because of the lack of height in the Tiong Lian (6'3" centers ahoy!) and because he'll be a collegiate shooting guard instead of a high school forward. As the primary scoring option in Xavier School, he doesn't pass a whole lot, but let's assume he will with DLSU as he can't overpower double teams anymore. Xavier plays an up-tempo style with a big focus on the transition game so maybe he manages a steal every now and then, though he himself with turn the ball over a lot as he gets used to the faster pace of the college game and the general increase in athleticism. I'm also projecting him to play around 20 minutes per game because DLSU would want to showcase their blue chip recruit. That makes me think he'll resemble something like the following two players. See if you can guess who they are.

Player 1: 20 minutes, 9.73 points on 34.58 percent shooting, 4.5 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.8 steals, 2.8 turnovers.

Player 2: 20.43 minutes, 9.43 points on 36.71 percent shooting, 3.9 rebounds, 0.93 assists, 0.5 steals, 2.71 turnovers

So who are the above two players?

Player 1 happens to be Jarelan Tampus, with his per-minute averages expanded to 20 minutes instead of the 15 minutes he averaged in Season 74.

Player 2 happens to be Joshua Webb, circa Season 72.

That's right, I have Jeron Teng looking like two of his own teammates. Admittedly, he'd be ahead of the curve if he can average that in his rookie year (versus Tampus' and Webb's sophomore year stats) but if you're La Salle, you're wishing he can provide more than that, especially since the hope is that he can be a future go-to guy.

(You're also hoping he can eventually expand his range to hit three-pointers more reliably. Tampus was 0/1 in Season 74 and 0/0 as a rookie, Webb is 7/48 for his career)

DLSU has Simon Atkins and Maui Villanueva graduating, leaving the rest of their roster intact. Here's how it looks right now:

PG: LA Revilla / Almond Vosotros / Dan Sara
SG: Luigi Dela Paz / Jarelan Tampus
SF: Joshua Webb / Joseph Marata

Assuming everyone comes back, that's a pretty crowded line-up, and we're not even factoring in Mark Tallo (PG), or possible recruits like Alex Torres and Gab Reyes from DLSZ (both SG/SF).

Let's say Revilla decides not to come back due to his health, while Marata and Sara get dropped to Team B.

PG: Mark Tallo / Almond Vosotros
SG: Jeron Teng / Luigi Dela Paz / Jarelan Tampus
SF: Joshua Webb / Gab Reyes / Alex Torres

That's a ton of guys who need the ball in their hands to be effective, with Tallo and Vosotros not being traditional point guards to boot. In fact, you could make the argument that everyone in that line-up is a scorer! And to further complicate things, we're not even factoring in the amount of touches the big men will need too. It goes without saying that head coach Gee Abanilla will definitely need to work on ball sharing in the off-season. If La Salle's offense devolves into a series of iso-sets, I doubt they'll be able to make the Final Four.

For argument's sake, let's look at the NU and ADMU line-ups, which were the other two schools that were going hard after Jeron.

NU
PG: Jelo Alolino / Cedrick Labing-isa / JJ Alejandro (rookie)
SG: Ajeet Singh / Robin Rono / Reden Celda
SF: Bobby Ray Parks / Jeoffrey Javillonar

ADMU
PG: Juami Tiongson / Nico Elorde (transferee)
SG: Kiefer Ravena / Tonino Gonzaga / Von Pessumal / Jomar Adonardo (Team B)
SF: Ryan Buenafe (one-year leave) / Oping Sumalinog / Gwynne Capacio

Both teams are pretty stacked as well, plus you have guys like Parks and Ravena who will dominate the ball much more over the others, but you can at least say that some of the other guys are role players (defenders like Singh and Gonzaga, traditional point guards like Alolino and Elorde) who won't demand the ball, or will look to pass first before anything else.