The curious case of Amari Williams’ efficiency and the need for Brandon Garrison to step up

Amari Williams has become the Kentucky Wildcats’ most important player and is deserving of All-SEC honors. Through SEC play, the big man has averaged a near double-double with 11.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.7 assists in just 24 minutes.

With Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson out of the lineup to injuries the last three games, Williams’ numbers have leaped to 17.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 3.3 assists, with just a small bump in minutes to 27 per game.

That begs the question: Should Williams be playing more minutes?

Mark Pope says no.

“Efficiency drops when Amari’s off the floor. It also drops when Amari is on the floor a little bit too long,” Pope said on his Monday call-in show. “As he gets stretched and stretched, you start to see cracks in what he’s able to do energy-wise. He’s most efficient and most impactful when he can be somewhere between 20 and 28 minutes.”

Pope has mentioned multiple times a study that he and the rest of the staff conducted earlier this season to find each player’s most efficient stretches in the game. He has leaned on that to this point, and it doesn’t sound like he will be going away from it anytime soon.

Looking at his career minutes, Williams has only had one season where he averaged more than 23 minutes per game, his junior season at Drexel (27.4 mpg). Last season, as a fourth-year senior, he averaged nearly five minutes less per game (22.9 mpg) but still maintained the same player efficiency ratings while improving efficiency in other areas.

Not playing 30 minutes for the majority of his career, and Pope sticking to the analytics, it looks like Williams will continue to play around that 25 minutes per game. That means Brandon Garrison needs to take a step and help close that gap of productivity with March just on the horizon.

If you look at the metrics, Garrison has been part of many of Kentucky’s least-efficient lineups this season.

That needs to change in a big way for Kentucky to stay above water whenever Williams leaves the game. We’ve seen flashes from Garrison throughout the season — including his recent outburst vs. South Carolina — but he’s not come close to putting it together on a game-to-game basis like Williams has.

Of course, it wasn’t that long ago when Williams was enduring his own struggles. Some even wondered if Garrison should be taking more of his minutes early in SEC play, but thankfully, Williams has since turned the corner in a big way.

Can Garrison follow suit?