Aston04 said:
We are early, but Starks may be the best press breaker I've seen since I started watching a&m in 2000. He absolutely flys past traps and is strong with the basketball.
From everything I've gathered, including statements by his own teammates, Caldwell will look just as impressive as Starks in terms of ball handling and penetrating a defense.
However, I think the big difference between the two will be what happens when Caldwell blows by his defender and is going to the rim. If defenders all collapse on him then instead of trying to finish the shot like Starks wants to do (and as you saw TJ fearlessly try to several times versus WVU even when it was like one on three), I think you'll more often see Caldwell instead make the pass to whichever teammate was left open. All the word on JJ is that is his Basketball DNA, to get a defense out of rotation and then feed a teammate. And that he is very gifted in terms of court vision. Hogg, Davis, Williams, several of his teammates have commented about Caldwell's ability to see passes that nobody else sees.
I suspect that we'll see that while Starks is the better outside shooter, Caldwell is the more gifted overall playmaker. And both are quite capable of breaking almost any press.
Get your popcorn ready on Caldwell. My prediction is, if all the off-season talk about him turns out to largely live up to the hype, that he will have multiple double digit assist games this season given all the weapons around him.