{"id":18451,"date":"2024-07-02T17:35:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T21:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=18451"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:40:40","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T21:40:40","slug":"former-nba-player-says-xavier-booker-has-made-major-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/?p=18451","title":{"rendered":"Former NBA player says Xavier Booker has made major progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Xavier Booker is one of the most talented players in college basketball and a former NBA player says that he&#8217;s heard about major progress.<\/h2>\n<p>Who do you think is the most important player for <a href=\"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/category\/basketball\/\">Michigan State basketball<\/a> this season? With so much unknown going into the season there are likely four or five guys you could name.<\/p>\n<p>But the answer is quite simple in my mind: <a href=\"https:\/\/msuspartans.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/xavier-booker\/13669\">Xavier Booker<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure we all remember the frustrations we all felt last season when Booker was routinely not getting much playing time. Even if we knew it was for good reason, it was hard to wrap our heads around it.<\/p>\n<p>As we enter July and peak college basketball offseason, it sounds like Booker may be turning a corner.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Spartans&#39; Xavier Booker Improving <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/GlIB7XvYcL\">pic.twitter.com\/GlIB7XvYcL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Stephen Bardo (@stephenbardo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stephenbardo\/status\/1807519938921341145?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/player\/stats\/_\/id\/3635\/steve-bardo\">Stephen Bardo<\/a> is a former NBA player from the mid-1990s and recently spoke about Booker and the offseason he is having.<\/p>\n<p>Bardo first spoke about last season and the struggles Booker experienced. He shared, \u201c<span class=\"s1\">He (Booker) just needed more experience\u2026 Xavier Booker just wasn\u2019t ready.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>As much as that is tough to read, it\u2019s 100 percent the truth. Booker didn\u2019t have the size, muscle, or defensive awareness to thrive on a <a href=\"https:\/\/msuspartans.com\/staff-directory\/tom-izzo\/189\">Tom <\/a>Izzo-coached basketball team, and that\u2019s why he didn\u2019t play much. On the bright side, however, all of those things can be improved, and that\u2019s exactly what is happening.<\/p>\n<p>Bardo then began discussing this offseason and the outlook for Booker next season, sharing, \u201c<span class=\"s1\">But I think he\u2019s (Booker) ready now.\u201d He continued, \u201c<\/span>The word I\u2019m getting out of Michigan State, he\u2019s made a lot of progress in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Keep in mind that we are only in July of the offseason. Bardo has heard that Booker made a ton of progress in the spring, but he still has all summer and fall to improve even more. So if Booker truly did improve a lot during the spring, the sky\u2019s the limit moving forward.<\/p>\n<p>Xavier Booker vastly improving might be the difference between another average season and a Big Ten title. And if what Bardo is saying is accurate, my gut tells me that Michigan State will contend this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Things you love to hear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[59,190,189,504,285],"class_list":["post-18451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","tag-featured","tag-michigan-state-basketball","tag-michigan-state-spartans","tag-news","tag-xavier-booker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spartanshadows.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}