How 2024 commits Durral Brooks and Chrisitan Anderson Jr. can thrive playing together

Michigan basketball’s 2024 recruiting class consists of two four-star guards so far: Atlanta native Christian Anderson Jr. and Grand Rapids native Durral Brooks, who just committed over the weekend.

The interesting thing about these commits is they both primarily play point guard, and as I’m sure you’ve seen on Twitter and on message boards, some fans don’t seem too fond of that.

Just because both guys play point guard in high school now — in games where they are head-and-shoulders the best player on the floor — doesn’t mean they will both play point guard at the collegiate level. And even if they do, we could see them rotate in and out and lock down the point guard spot for the Wolverines for a couple years.

But when watching both of them play, I think there is a world where they can co-exist, mainly because they are two different types of guards.

When watching Brooks play, you can see he excels in transition, leading the offense on the break and making plays for his teammates. He’s not a score-first guard, and he does a great job setting up guys with great shots.

When chatting with Maize n Brew earlier this week, Brooks said his strengths as a player are his defense and his ability to get his teammates involved. Perhaps he was trying to be humble, but scoring wasn’t the first thing he mentioned, which to me was pretty telling of the type of player he is.

Can he get a bucket when he needs to? Yes. His ability to get to the rim and finish around rim protectors is one of my favorite parts of his game. But he’s always looking to facilitate and that type of point guard can co-exist with pretty much any other type of player.

In other words, he could be the perfect player to set Anderson, who profiles as more of a scorer at the guard spot. Right now he is smaller than Brooks, but if Brooks ends up being the better passer, I could see Anderson sliding to the 2 in certain lineups.

Anderson is also a decent passer, and he’s working on getting better at facilitating. But at this point, I think he’s a better three-point shooter and a more versatile scorer than Brooks, especially in the mid-range.

While they play the same position, they have different strengths. Brooks is better at leading the break and playing on-ball defense and finding teammates, while Anderson is better at knocking down threes and scoring at all three levels.

It’s good for your guards that primarily play together to have different strengths. Dug McDaniel and Kobe Bufkin weren’t the exact same type of player in 2022-23, and they got much better playing with one another as last season went along.

Brooks and Anderson still have another year of high school basketball, and they both have plenty of times to get taller, stronger, and develop other strengths. Neither is a complete player at this moment, but that’s also the case for pretty much every high school prospect.

It’s great they both are point guards now, getting reps leading an offense before they get to the college level. It may take some time, and it may not happen their first season together, but at some point, don’t be surprised when they help win Michigan games because of their ability to thrive playing together.