Minnesota Sports Forum

TheSP wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

TheSP wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

TheSP wrote:

monsterpile wrote:As for Zach not becoming a legit worthwhile NBA player are the people that don't believe think he is basically a Michale Beasely type without the boneheaded off the court stuff? If so I get where you are coming from but man I don't know if you can trade him at his age and he is cheap and get something back that's REALLY more worthwhile. I think a month from now we are gonna be excited about him again. He needs to get his shot on balance again and it will be falling.

If Beasley had Lavine's drive he would have fulfilled his potential. Zach IMO is a little slow between the ears, Beasley was just indifferent to pretty much everything. As we've seen nobody was able to make an indifferent millionaire care, we'll find out over the coming years if anybody can make Zach smart enough on the court to fulfill his physical promise.

If Zach fails I don't think it'll be fair to compare him to Beasley because Zach will have given full effort towards succeeding unlike Beasley.

How do we know LaVine is giving full effort? Is he putting in the right kind of work? Is he putting in video time? Is he putting what he's told into practice?

Maybe.

But I don't know without a doubt. I hesitate to make claims that one guy works harder than another or is giving "110%" all the time.

I don't know anything more than I read/hear and I've heard over and over that Beasley was underwhelming when it came to focusing on improving which explains why he was always the same player, no improvement from season 1 until his last. Zach on the other hand I've read, not just here, that he's a gym rat, that he's always working on his game. While he clearly has a very long ways to go he has shown improvement in his first year and a half, all while playing a new, difficult position. Is he doing the right type of work? Hell if I know, but to me if he's not that's on the team, not a 20 year old player who shouldn't be expected to know.

The details of their effort I don't know, but the results to me back up their reputations.

That's fine. I wasn't necessarily comparing LaVine to Beasley... more LaVine to every other NBA player.

A lot of them work very hard at honing their craft.

I think it would be safe to say that all good or better players do. There are very few players at the NBA level who have the natural ability to excel without hard work. Even LeBron with all his physical advantages had to work to reach the point where he could be considered as a Jordan peer. For most of the rest it's the difference between being a deep bench player, rotation player, good starter, or finding yourself in China.

And crappy players work hard, too.

I still don't know how we quantify that LaVine works harder or wants it more than other guys.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

TheSP wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

TheSP wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

TheSP wrote:

monsterpile wrote:As for Zach not becoming a legit worthwhile NBA player are the people that don't believe think he is basically a Michale Beasely type without the boneheaded off the court stuff? If so I get where you are coming from but man I don't know if you can trade him at his age and he is cheap and get something back that's REALLY more worthwhile. I think a month from now we are gonna be excited about him again. He needs to get his shot on balance again and it will be falling.

If Beasley had Lavine's drive he would have fulfilled his potential. Zach IMO is a little slow between the ears, Beasley was just indifferent to pretty much everything. As we've seen nobody was able to make an indifferent millionaire care, we'll find out over the coming years if anybody can make Zach smart enough on the court to fulfill his physical promise.

If Zach fails I don't think it'll be fair to compare him to Beasley because Zach will have given full effort towards succeeding unlike Beasley.

How do we know LaVine is giving full effort? Is he putting in the right kind of work? Is he putting in video time? Is he putting what he's told into practice?

Maybe.

But I don't know without a doubt. I hesitate to make claims that one guy works harder than another or is giving "110%" all the time.

I don't know anything more than I read/hear and I've heard over and over that Beasley was underwhelming when it came to focusing on improving which explains why he was always the same player, no improvement from season 1 until his last. Zach on the other hand I've read, not just here, that he's a gym rat, that he's always working on his game. While he clearly has a very long ways to go he has shown improvement in his first year and a half, all while playing a new, difficult position. Is he doing the right type of work? Hell if I know, but to me if he's not that's on the team, not a 20 year old player who shouldn't be expected to know.

The details of their effort I don't know, but the results to me back up their reputations.

That's fine. I wasn't necessarily comparing LaVine to Beasley... more LaVine to every other NBA player.

A lot of them work very hard at honing their craft.

I think it would be safe to say that all good or better players do. There are very few players at the NBA level who have the natural ability to excel without hard work. Even LeBron with all his physical advantages had to work to reach the point where he could be considered as a Jordan peer. For most of the rest it's the difference between being a deep bench player, rotation player, good starter, or finding yourself in China.

And crappy players work hard, too.

I still don't know how we quantify that LaVine works harder or wants it more than other guys.

I've not attempting to quantify one players work ethic in relation to any others.

thedoper wrote:

monsterpile wrote:As for Zach not becoming a legit worthwhile NBA player are the people that don't believe think he is basically a Michale Beasely type without the boneheaded off the court stuff? If so I get where you are coming from but man I don't know if you can trade him at his age and he is cheap and get something back that's REALLY more worthwhile. I think a month from now we are gonna be excited about him again. He needs to get his shot on balance again and it will be falling.

I think there is a lack of self awareness with him from what I can tell. This goes back to his displeasure with his role at UCLA (thinking he should be a PG of all the funny things) and has continued in the way that he prepares and plays now. I don't get the sense that he is properly evaluating himself, which can often be the shortcoming of people with tremendous amount of talent. I think there are a lot of guys in this category past and present. They work hard, they have tremendous physical talent, yet they may never become dominant basketball players because the game as a whole doesn't come naturally to them. I think it is a coin toss with players in this situation and the betting man in me believes that the majority of players like Lavine don't actually end up developing in the NBA or at least not in a typical way.

Thanks for responding. Yeah it's sort of a double edged sword guys have that are really confident in their abilities it helps them but it can cloud their judgement.

TheSP wrote:

monsterpile wrote:As for Zach not becoming a legit worthwhile NBA player are the people that don't believe think he is basically a Michale Beasely type without the boneheaded off the court stuff? If so I get where you are coming from but man I don't know if you can trade him at his age and he is cheap and get something back that's REALLY more worthwhile. I think a month from now we are gonna be excited about him again. He needs to get his shot on balance again and it will be falling.

If Beasley had Lavine's drive he would have fulfilled his potential. Zach IMO is a little slow between the ears, Beasley was just indifferent to pretty much everything. As we've seen nobody was able to make an indifferent millionaire care, we'll find out over the coming years if anybody can make Zach smart enough on the court to fulfill his physical promise.

If Zach fails I don't think it'll be fair to compare him to Beasley because Zach will have given full effort towards succeeding unlike Beasley.

I think where I was going with comparing Zach to Beas is that it became clear that Beas just didn't get it on the court and that was about it being between the ears issue not just his weird brain in general. I don't buy that Beas just sat around eating skittles and didn't work hard at all on his game. I doubt that was what you meant either but Beas just didn't get it whether it was on the court off the court whatever. I felt that way before we traded for him because he didn't wow me when I saw him in a few games playing for Miami. The risk/reward trade for him made plenty of sense. After watching him game in game out for the Wolves it was clear Beas had all the talent you could expect. Especially offensively there was little he couldn't do by the eye test. He also had some issues with nagging injuries that didn't help but the guy just couldn't get it. It's sorta weird how a guy like Derrick Williams who isn't anywhere near as skilled IMO is in the league and Beas isn't. Obviously Williams doesn't have some other issues Beas does off the court but yeah. So will Zach never get it on the court despite having a ton of offensive talent (though not as refined at the same age) Maybe not. I'd like to give him another year to find out. He will be 21 he will have to look pretty bad at that point not to be able to cash in on his "potential" still.