lipoli390 wrote:I saw LaVine's comments in the GDT thread for the Thunder game. This confirms my comment in a post yesterday or the day before that Zach appears demoralized. I have no problem with Zach's comment. But I do have a problem with a head coach whose conduct spurs that sort of comment from a young player. I might feel differently if Zach were a slacker. But he is by all accounts a tremendously hard worker, often described as a gym rat. Unlike Wiggins, you'll never see Zach fail to chase down a loose ball or rebound in his vicinity. Fortunately, Zach snapped back today and had a great game on both sides of the ball. But he was playing really well the last month of last season - well before Sam's "tough love" approach as head coach.
As for Sam's whining about the AAU background and playground style of players coming into the League these days, my response to Sam is DEAL WITH IT! The reality is that ALL the American players coming into the League today and for the past 10 years are and have been products of the AAU system -- Kevin Durant and Michael Westbrook for example. So what do NBA-caliber head coaches do? They coach and teach. They design schemes that draw out the strengths of these former AAU PLAYERS and make the most of the talents those players bring to the table. They certainly don't whine publicly about the reality of the background of the modern day player.
I read Sam's interview. You have to really feel an overwhelmingly strong urge to defend Sam to find anything positive about him from that interview. Some of his responses we probably all agree with, but in those responses he was simply master of the obvious. I didn't see anything in Sam's remarks that reflected any special insights or understanding you'd expect from a NBA-caliber head coach. I saw his condescending attitude in some responses. And I noticed that he misstated his offensive record as Toronto's head coach.
And the bottom line is this. The team is not improving. In fact, it's regressing. Sam's rotations and substitutions are often odd or nonsensical. The spacing and movement off the ball on the offensive end are typically terrible. Zach and KAT look like their at their wits end with Sam. He's a bad coach and the sooner he's gone the better.
Lip, Your frustration is fair and Mitchell deserves a lot of heat. However.....
I don't have a problem with Mitchell's tough-love approach. Frankly, some of these guys have probably been coddled throughout most of their basketball existence and they never went through the experience of being broken down and then built back up. This should have really happened in their youth or college experience, but now Mitchell is "stuck" being the one having to do it.
While ultimately Mitchell isn't long for this team, we may see the fruits of his labor borne out under the next head coach.
Edit: Also, I also hear about Zach being a gym rat. That's great and all, but just because he spends a lot of time in the gym doesn't mean he's increasing his b-ball IQ or being a student of the game. Perhaps he is studying film, working on weaknesses, studying other great players, etc. - I really don't know. But being a gym rat doesn't really say a lot to me.
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I agree. I remember reading a piece about LaVine a year or two where his long, late-night shooting sessions were mentioned.
He was practicing dunking like his heroes... and shooting fadeaways and shots like that like his heroes. Instead of emulating those types of shots... why not perfect the Zach LaVine jump shot? I know he was just a kid, but I thought it was telling at the time.
Hope the kid reaches his potential... but there are hints that he's gonna be one of those perpetual teases that will alternate between incredible promise and maddening inconsistency. There's always a place in the league for those guys, but they seem to wear out their welcome eventually and move on to the next place.
Yep Abe it matters if you are working on the right stuff. McCants worked really hard but it seemed a lot of the time it wasn't on the right things. He was obviously talented and comparing him to Lavine is not what I want to do. To me Lavine is an energetic confident young kid not that a bonehead that just likes to dunk and doesn't listen to coaches and does dumb stuff off the court. I feel like he has done enough good already and has a good enough head on his shoulders as a person he can reach enough of his potential he will be more than a 6th man type. On the other hand if he turns into a Lou Williams Jamal Crawford type that wouldn't be so terrible either. I think some of my optimism about Lavine comes from his effort and approach to defense this season he is making progress there he gets in a stance moves his feet and often really attacks guys and situations. You can see he has some sort of clue what he is supposed to do as a team defender. I am not saying he has arrived but the progress he has made there is very encouraging. The Wolves have a long way to go defensively and that's on a lot of people throughout the organization.
Lavine said it wasn't fair in his quote. What a child. He is playing horrible lately save the last game. It is totally fair that there are consequences to make horribly dumb decisions on the court. Has Sam optimized his development? Probably not. But Lavine hasn't done himself any favors with Lazy effort on the court and poor decision making regardless of position. It is fine to say that Mitchell has put Zach in a difficult situation, but Zach has a ways to go here too. If you are playing like shit you should be keeping your head down and working hard, not complaining about what's fair.
I don't think it is a coincidence that this was the same story of his year at UCLA. Teasing with great talent without any clear direction.
Ugh. You guys knew I was gonna do this...
We're two questions in... and I'm already calling bullshit on Mitchell's inaccuracies:
"Britt, we averaged more threes in Toronto than anybody. Go back and pull up my record. We led the league in three-point shooting."
Actually, no. Toronto never won in any category... not makes nor attempts nor percentage. But wait... it gets worse.
He mentions Matt Barnes specifically as a good shooter in Toronto. Now that guy has played seemingly everywhere... oddly enough though... never in Toronto. Yikes. By the way, Barnes is only a 33.6% three point shooter, which is below the league average during his playing career.
Not a huge fan of a defensive minded coach trying to run a flow system offense. He also lied about not running plays. Our curl action and iso post ups are very clearly designed plays and not just part of a flow offense. It's hard to know what to take as real and not when he so often straight up lies in his responses.
Ugh. You guys knew I was gonna do this...
We're two questions in... and I'm already calling bullshit on Mitchell's inaccuracies:
"Britt, we averaged more threes in Toronto than anybody. Go back and pull up my record. We led the league in three-point shooting."
Actually, no. Toronto never won in any category... not makes nor attempts nor percentage. But wait... it gets worse.
He mentions Matt Barnes specifically as a good shooter in Toronto. Now that guy has played seemingly everywhere... oddly enough though... never in Toronto. Yikes. By the way, Barnes is only a 33.6% three point shooter, which is below the league average during his playing career.
Yeah I was wonder about some facts like a couple of you have pointed out. Maybe he meant Matt Bonner? Sam is sort of bizzare because he has a lot of stuff and insight that makes me think hey that was pretty good then there are some glaring stuff that doesn't add up at all.
Ugh. You guys knew I was gonna do this...
We're two questions in... and I'm already calling bullshit on Mitchell's inaccuracies:
"Britt, we averaged more threes in Toronto than anybody. Go back and pull up my record. We led the league in three-point shooting."
Actually, no. Toronto never won in any category... not makes nor attempts nor percentage. But wait... it gets worse.
He mentions Matt Barnes specifically as a good shooter in Toronto. Now that guy has played seemingly everywhere... oddly enough though... never in Toronto. Yikes. By the way, Barnes is only a 33.6% three point shooter, which is below the league average during his playing career.
Yeah I was wonder about some facts like a couple of you have pointed out. Maybe he meant Matt Bonner? Sam is sort of bizzare because he has a lot of stuff and insight that makes me think hey that was pretty good then there are some glaring stuff that doesn't add up at all.
I'm ok with slight inaccuracies, especially if they're preceded by "I think" or "I believe"... but when a guy challenges you to look it up...
It looks bad when it doesn't support what he's saying.
Mitchell brings up his tenure in Toronto throughout that piece as a sign of things working. And that's where his stats get fuzzy. A cursory check reveals the Raptors weren't as good as he claimed. Remember, in four years though, the Raptors had a winning record only once.
Ugh. You guys knew I was gonna do this...
We're two questions in... and I'm already calling bullshit on Mitchell's inaccuracies:
"Britt, we averaged more threes in Toronto than anybody. Go back and pull up my record. We led the league in three-point shooting."
Actually, no. Toronto never won in any category... not makes nor attempts nor percentage. But wait... it gets worse.
He mentions Matt Barnes specifically as a good shooter in Toronto. Now that guy has played seemingly everywhere... oddly enough though... never in Toronto. Yikes. By the way, Barnes is only a 33.6% three point shooter, which is below the league average during his playing career.
Yeah I was wonder about some facts like a couple of you have pointed out. Maybe he meant Matt Bonner? Sam is sort of bizzare because he has a lot of stuff and insight that makes me think hey that was pretty good then there are some glaring stuff that doesn't add up at all.
I'm ok with slight inaccuracies, especially if they're preceded by "I think" or "I believe"... but when a guy challenges you to look it up...
It looks bad when it doesn't support what he's saying.
Mitchell brings up his tenure in Toronto throughout that piece as a sign of things working. And that's where his stats get fuzzy. A cursory check reveals the Raptors weren't as good as he claimed. Remember, in four years though, the Raptors had a winning record only once.
Good points. Some guys like Sam get credit for winning games even if they record wasn't all that exciting and part of that probably isbecause they were coaching for franchises that were less than exciting and the Raps were that. As another example look at Reggie Jordon who now is the coach of Rutgers had some similar success as an NBA coach but...nobody is getting excited about guys that were closer to .500 and maybe made the playoffs with a sub .500 record. He doesn't seem to be able to do much at that school despite all his NBA success. I bring him up because I was having a conversation this week about the coaches in the BIG 10. An article I read later had him at the bottom of the league.
To go back to your point about facts... Sam talks about those folders with all kinds of info (which seems good) and really emphasizes how he has something to back everything up and then sites incorrect info that anyone can look up and many posters here don't even have to to know it's probably not right. That's pretty poor.
