Patience was the name of the game for Pavel Zakharov during the 2019-20 campaign, and it may have to be again this season despite the early departure of Filip Petrusev.
As a true freshman Zakharov appeared in 19 games, providing some rotation minutes at the beginning of the year while Killian Tillie rehabbed from offseason knee surgery. As the season progressed, however, Zakharov was unsurprisingly relegated to mop-up duty despite the season-ending injury to Anton Watson and Tillie’s ongoing “load management.”
Mark Few’s preference to occasionally drop Corey Kispert into the “4” spot, when the frontcourt was a little thin, rather than expand Zakharov’s role indicated where the Russian center was in his development journey and the level of trust he had yet to earn from the coaching staff.