:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67772722/usa_today_13913743.0.jpg)
Guard | 5’10 | 162lbs. | Senior
2019-2020: 5.2PTS 2.4REB 1.8AST
Bubba Parham came into last season as a highly hyped transfer from VMI. He was a proven scorer who was going to complete the top-notch backcourt trio along with Jose Alvarado and Michael Devoe. Instead he never got a feel for his role in the offense. Without the ball in his hand every play he couldn’t create for himself. His knockdown three point shot fell off from 39.7% to 30.2%. He struggled getting the ball to the rim as seen by his declining fouls drawn (down from 5.5 per 40 minutes to 2.0). When he got the chance to play more point guard when Jose Alvarado was hurt early in the season Bubba didn’t do well distributing the ball or scoring for himself.
Bubba’s playtime continued consistently throughout the season, but his offensive production waned. In the final 7 games (where Tech went 6-1) Bubba only scored a total of 22 points while playing over 20 minutes in all but one game.
This season has to see improvement from Bubba on the offensive side of the ball. He won’t be a primary ball handler again so I expect improvement to come from two main places. The first is that his shooting should be better as he gets more comfortable in the system. The second is that he should move better and make more cuts to the hoop. He got stuck on the perimeter a lot last year and his shot wasn’t hitting. If he becomes an above average shooter again he’s certainly worth playing. With an injury to Alvarado or Devoe, Bubba would be pressed into playing point again. I expect him to be more comfortable in that role this year should it come to it (last year he only played point guard while he was still new to the team).
Playing time is going to be very interesting for him this year. At guard you’ve got to figure that Alvarado and Devoe will take the lion’s share of the minutes and Pastner likes to keep shorter lineups so that could be most of the minutes. Last year Bubba was the third guard, but this year he has competition in Kyle Sturdivant (or even potentially Tristan Maxwell if he’s healthy). Bubba’s defense will almost always be a negative (especially if he’s on the court with Jose). He needs to improve offensively this year or he may not be playing much.
He’s got the ability to be a difference maker on offense, but we haven’t seen it at Tech yet. Hopefully this year we start seeing how he scored over 21 points per game at VMI including 35 at Kentucky.