Kentucky Basketball: Who is the Wildcats’ most important player in 2017-18?

Kentucky Basketball has talent all over the court, but which player will be most important to the Wildcats’ success in 2017-18?

The Kentucky Wildcats head into the 2017-18 as the favorite in the SEC and should be a top five preseason team overall, but which player on the Wildcats is the most important to their success?

Choosing which player is the most important for Kentucky next season is like choosing the worst player on the Cleveland Browns – there are way too many to choose from.

Talent is everywhere. You could pick anyone on this team and make an argument for them being the most important player on the Kentucky roster.

However, one quick look at the roster of other SEC teams tells you that, while every player has to work together for this to be a successful season, Nick Richards could be the key to everything.

Kevin Knox, Hamidou Diallo, Quade Green, Jarred Vanderbilt, P.J. Washington, Jemari Baker, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are all amazing individual players. In fact, Gilgeous-Alexander and Green might have the most difficult and important job of all by trying to keep everyone on this team with the ball in their hands and playing together.

Richards, on the other hand, is a 6’11, 239-pound, five-star center. His ability to protect the rim will make or break this Kentucky team this season because the defensive end is where this Kentucky team will do or die.

We know he can score; we know he can rebound – but it will be him making sure teams don’t get easy layups in transition that keeps the Wildcats from being upset. This is a young team, and there will be turnovers. Can Richards help his team by keeping those turnovers from becoming deficits?

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Kentucky is the best team in the SEC and one of the best teams in the country. I cannot wait to see what this elite group does in 2017-18.