Couch: Tum Tum, Cassius Winston give MSU contrasting point guard duo
EAST LANSING – If it were possible to combine Tum Tum Nairn and Cassius Winston into one human body and soul, you’d have pretty close to the perfect point guard.
That’s essentially what Michigan State coach Tom Izzo is hoping to do this season. Absent advances in science, he’ll attempt to get the best traits out of each of his two contrasting point guards, and occasionally play them together.
“They can play together,” freshman Miles Bridges said. “And I feel like he’ll bring out that lineup very soon.”
Perhaps as early as Thursday’s exhibition opener against Northwood.
Mostly, though, it’ll be one or the other for MSU this basketball season. They couldn’t be more different, each with attributes that make the Spartans better off with them on the court. And each with shortcomings that make the other guy the obvious choice in certain situations.
Both have a clear understanding of who they are as players. And, as of late October, there appears to be no rivalry between them. Just a partnership.
“You have two opposite guys in some ways that get along very well together,” Izzo said. “I’m so impressed with the fact that Tum has taken Cassius under his wing like he has when it’s a guy that could replace him, for God's sake. That’s typical Tum.”
Nairn, a junior, isn’t one to feel threatened. After all, as the freshman Winston said, “This is his team, his program. He makes sure each person deals with what they need to do to make this team successful.”
Nairn is the reason the nourishing culture from the last couple of years has a chance to carry over. He’s why Izzo’s right-hand curmudgeon and assistant video coordinator Doug Herner didn’t retire two years ago and won’t until Nairn is done. “I can’t leave Tum,” Herner told me a few weeks ago.
On the court, however, Nairn has been a limited player to this point – lots of defense and quickness, leadership and grit, and almost zero offense. Having healed from a nasty case of plantar fasciitis that crippled him last season, he is eager to show off the outside shot he’s displayed each of the last two summers at the Lansing Moneyball Pro-Am.
When will Nairn take his first 3-pointer?
“As soon as I’m open,” he said, his voice cracking with insistence.
If he hits a few, it’ll change the way teams play him. MSU needs that. Nairn needs that to stay on the floor.
“It’s going to open up the game so much more, not for me, but for my teammates,” he said, before acknowledging what his limitations have done to MSU offensively. “Playing four on five, it’s harder to get in the paint. I’m trying to get in the paint to make a play and somebody’s already down there (because they’re not guarding me). So I’ve got to take my shots with confidence.”
Nairn, as Bridges put it, is speed and passion. Winston is “crafty and smooth.”
“He’s not a lightning quick guard like Tum, but he has such a great capability with what the NBA calls pace,” Izzo said of Winston. “He plays with great pace. He can change speeds. He's a little quicker than I thought. He’s got himself in the best shape of his life. He can use his left hand as well as his right hand. … Just an extremely fun player to play with, because if you’re open, he’s going to find you.”
Winston isn’t worried about his offense. His offense is the reason he was named Michigan’s Mr. Basketball last March and why, a week later, University of Detroit Jesuit High School won a state championship.
“Tum Tum has the aspect of the game that I need, that I need to take it to the next level — the leadership, the defensive ability, the things like that,” Winston said. “Every day I’m kind of picking and learning.”
Likewise, Nairn is trying to glean what he can from Winston.
“I appreciate Cassius and what he does, his game, his feel for the game,” Nairn said. “When I watch film, I don’t just watch myself, I watch him. I see how he gets in the lane, how he uses his body, how he’s so under control. Everything he sees, he sees two plays ahead of the game. For me, being a point guard and what I want to do, I study him as much as I can.”
Whichever of them most eliminates their weaknesses and adopts the other’s strengths will likely wind up as MSU’s primary point guard. Otherwise, it’ll be a constant platoon, MSU trying extract the best of both.
“We know we’re both going to play, both going to play big, contributing minutes to the team,” Winston said. “And we both have decided in our heads, whatever the team needs to do to win, we’re going to do as much as we can possibly do.”
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
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