3/14/07 Bianchi article

[SmackDaddy 30]

quote:

Originally posted by ThisIsTheYear:

All Zach has on him is the jumpshot. He gets his points because he attempts close to 30 FG's a game. I always believed that Jameer was the leader of this team, but since the late slump, the low assists rate, and the smiles while we're down big, I'm seriously questioning it.

 

Huh?

 

Zach averages 23.6 pts & 10.1 reb per game while attempting 19 shots per game and hitting 31% from 3pt range and 82% from the free throw line.

 

Dwight will eventually be a much better player than Zach could ever hope to be. But right now, Zach is 10 times better in almost every respect except defense. Less than 2 rebounds per game also isn't too big a difference.

[MilitaryMagic 0]

quote:

Originally posted by SmackDaddy:

 

I'm still a little puzzled by your reply. A youth movement at the midpoint of the season (as you stated in your previous post) would not include Dwight & Jameer. They were both starters from day one and therefore an adjustment has not occurred that would thrust them into the spotlight anymore than usual.

 

Ariza, has more regularly played 15-18 minutes than he has 25-30 and hasn't eclipsed 32 minutes playing time yet this season. Therefore I still don't understand how you can perceive Ariza's role changing due to any managerial onus placed upon him.

 

Darko was limited to 21 minutes per game until Battie was injured. Therefore Darko wasn't thrust into the foray until it was necessitated by injury.

 

Beleive me, I don't disagree that Jammer & Darko (and even to some degree Dwight) haven't lived up to expectations. Our entire team is underachieveing. However, without Ariza, JJ, Diener & Augie getting significant playing time instead of our senior citizens, I don't understand how any perceived youth movement could have ever failed. I understand that you are only talking about our core of Jammer, Dwigth, Darko and Ariza but 2 out of those four haven't been shown full confidence by management and therefore should be left out of the discussion. And if two out of those four are left out of the conversation along with JJ, Diener, and Augie...than there never has been a youth movement. Brian Hill continues to play Grant, Pat, Bo, etc instead of our prospects.

 

So, how can you determine that our young players have been utilized and thus failed?

 

I'm attempting to look past coaching decisions throughout the season and am focusing on the season as a whole - we're pretty close to the end, so why not take a look back across the whole season for these 4 "core" players?

 

We aren't disagreeing over Jameer and Darko.

 

Jameer has regressed this season. Yes, from day 1, he was expected to be our leader. The leader of the youth movement, the new guard. And he has done anything but lead this team and its youth. He is an example of selfishness with his play and his attitude - and his contract extension talks in the middle of the season.

 

Darko still only has one good game to show for an entire season. I continue to contest that it doesn't matter if Darko had to wait until mid season to start. If anything, I believe that would give him more opportunity to better ready himself for the starting position. I do not believe that keeping him behind Battie is why Darko is not performing now.

 

For Dwight, yes, he's a good player, but not a great player. Our coaches this season have made a strategic decision to place our focus on Dwight and his development. He has progressed this season, after all it is his first season of double & triple teams, but he has not had the advanced progression we had hoped. One would hope that Dwight would be keeping the ball at or above chest level and would learn how to avoid the weak-side strip by opposing guards. This season we learned that Dwight is not an elite basketball prodigy and certain things that we may believe would be intuitive for him are not. You can see his frustation. He's learning it's much harder to progress from "good" to "great" than he thought it would be.

 

Finally we come to Ariza. He was coming along great.. and... BOOM he blows out his knee. This is a case where I don't blame the player at all. But the reality still is that he hasn't progressed like we hoped. His injury has stunted him and you can see his (relative to before the injury) lack of explosiveness and elevation since coming back. I don't believe it would have been wise to give Ariza 30+ minutes a game after coming from that injury. In any case, he was getting DNP's to start the season and by the 5 game winning streak before his injury he was a focal point of this team. The onus was being placed on him.

 

Anyhow, that's a continuation of my thoughts before.

 

I totally agree with you SmackDaddy on our youngest players - it's pathetic that our other young players have been given ZERO chance to prove themselves on the court. No reason for Garrity to play - EVER. Bo, well, he's still decent and is probably better than Augie. And then the players in front of Diener and Redick... oh, brother. Arroyo is trash, traded every year b/c he fits nowhere. Dooling and Bogans are both marginal. Not only is coach an idiot for pushing Diener and Redick to the edge of the bench and back, but I also believe they can be better players than those in front of them.

[MilitaryMagic 0]

quote:

Originally posted by SmackDaddy:

quote:

Originally posted by ThisIsTheYear:

All Zach has on him is the jumpshot. He gets his points because he attempts close to 30 FG's a game. I always believed that Jameer was the leader of this team, but since the late slump, the low assists rate, and the smiles while we're down big, I'm seriously questioning it.

 

Huh?

 

Zach averages 23.6 pts & 10.1 reb per game while attempting 19 shots per game and hitting 31% from 3pt range and 82% from the free throw line.

 

Dwight will eventually be a much better player than Zach could ever hope to be. But right now, Zach is 10 times better in almost every respect except defense. Less than 2 rebounds per game also isn't too big a difference.

 

I think a lot of folks associated with our organization (fans incl.) are reluctant to compare Dwight to other players in the league. There are more than just a couple bigs in this league that are better than Dwight right now, and Zach Randolph is probably the most sobering example I could think of.

 

Zach's defense totally blows though... nonetheless that his stats are bad (.28 blocks a game???) but I have seen him play a few times. No force at all in the paint on D.

[SmackDaddy 30]

quote:

Originally posted by MilitaryMagic:

I'm attempting to look past coaching decisions throughout the season and am focusing on the season as a whole - we're pretty close to the end, so why not take a look back across the whole season for these 4 "core" players?

 

We aren't disagreeing over Jameer and Darko.

 

Jameer has regressed this season. Yes, from day 1, he was expected to be our leader. The leader of the youth movement, the new guard. And he has done anything but lead this team and its youth. He is an example of selfishness with his play and his attitude - and his contract extension talks in the middle of the season.

 

Darko still only has one good game to show for an entire season. I continue to contest that it doesn't matter if Darko had to wait until mid season to start. If anything, I believe that would give him more opportunity to better ready himself for the starting position. I do not believe that keeping him behind Battie is why Darko is not performing now.

 

For Dwight, yes, he's a good player, but not a great player. Our coaches this season have made a strategic decision to place our focus on Dwight and his development. He has progressed this season, after all it is his first season of double & triple teams, but he has not had the advanced progression we had hoped. One would hope that Dwight would be keeping the ball at or above chest level and would learn how to avoid the weak-side strip by opposing guards. This season we learned that Dwight is not an elite basketball prodigy and certain things that we may believe would be intuitive for him are not. You can see his frustation. He's learning it's much harder to progress from "good" to "great" than he thought it would be.

 

Finally we come to Ariza. He was coming along great.. and... BOOM he blows out his knee. This is a case where I don't blame the player at all. But the reality still is that he hasn't progressed like we hoped. His injury has stunted him and you can see his (relative to before the injury) lack of explosiveness and elevation since coming back. I don't believe it would have been wise to give Ariza 30+ minutes a game after coming from that injury. In any case, he was getting DNP's to start the season and by the 5 game winning streak before his injury he was a focal point of this team. The onus was being placed on him.

 

hmmmm....

 

I guess we just feel differently about this.

 

I feel 20 minutes a night for Ariza doesn't make him a focal point.

 

I feel that Darko hasn't been given the full "go ahead" by our coach.

 

Jameer & Dwight definitely have some explaining to do. This was supposed to be their breakout years. For Jameer, that was supposed to mean 15pts and 7-8 assists. For Dwight, it was supposed to mean figuring out the double teams, not turning the ball over and for crying out loud, Hitting his darn free throws.

 

I will continue to say this from my perspective. A youth movement could not have failed if there wasn't a full blown effort to get our youth involved, collectively. In my opinion, the only way that we could say our youth have failed is if they were actually counted on. In my opinion, this would mean Jameer, Darko, Ariza, Dwight getting 35+ minutes per game. Remember, at one point in the season Jameer was basically platooning with Arroyo (carlos was getting 18-22 minutes per game for a long stretch). Darko was playing 21 minutes until Battie went down. Dwight was only averaging 9-10 shot attempts per game. And Ariza was only granted a significant role for 10-15 games prior to his injury. Also JJ, Diener and Augie have never been given consistent garbage minutes.

 

Therefore, in my opinion, a youth movement has not ever been implemented and could not have failed.

[jonathan 0]

Detroit Magic, good observetion. I would like to add that magic strategy to make Howard a superstar can be applied to Nelson too and I gonna give you an example here:

1.Arroyo and Darkos summer were exelent (specialy Arroyo whom were called by experts as the best p/g of the tournament)and when B.Hill was asked by reporters about their games and future with the magics B.Hill answered "well,the guy who has the best summer is Jameer, hes trainning with A.I. in Philli. Waooo, that was'nt the question.He did'nt want to give any credit to the guys. (maybe Darko could ask for a very nice contract and otherwise they loose the superstar on Nelson ?)

2.Nelson had a so so preseason meanwhile Arroyo was red hot and Deiner had some awesome games too and again when B.Hill was asked by reporters about Arroyo as starter, Hill said all positions will be defined after preseason but there were no change at all.

3.the season started and Nelson was a t/o machine meanwhile Arroyo once again red hot and the media were asking Arroyo for starter,but inmediately B.Hill started to reduce Arroyos playing time,why ?

4.Arroyo did strugle for a month and was sent to bench and even so his f/g is at 42% otherwise Jameer was well over 57% f/gs but he strugle for whole month shooting for 33% (thats why hes at 44% right now).Did B.Hill apply the bench rule to Nelson ? NOPE.

I can continue the list but I just gonna stop here.

 

IMHO, Otis and Hill pulled the trigger to soon on calling Nelson "the future" and playing him no matter what, even his minutes are increased (good reward).Arroyo's game has changed because of that and the other players are down too because B.Hill refuse to give them the oportunity to play even when the whole starting lineup is strugling (Howard sometimes).

Looks like we need a new GM,coach,and maybe a new owner (He needs to step up now, RIGHT NOW !!!) WE need it.

 

THATS THE BIG REASON WHY WE ARE GOING NOWHERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Berto 338]

Bianchi's right on the money with this one. Yes, Brain Hill is a terrible coach, but the blame needs to be spread among everyone. This team went 16-6 down the stretch last year because of they're effort, if we don't give that kind of effort everygame, we're just another bad NBA team.

[bhnole 153]

quote:

Originally posted by SmackDaddy:

 

I feel that Darko hasn't been given the full "go ahead" by our coach.

 

 

I think the same thing. Why has Darko who displayed an very good perimeter jump shot last year suddenly become exclusively a post player. Last year that jumper helped open the floor by pulling a big out of the lane to cover him. Look at Sean May who drilled us with jumpers everytime Darko tried to help on penetration moves.

 

Suddenly, he can't take or hit that jumper because Brian will yank him out of the game if he does. Other teams utilize a big man with shooting skills (Nowitzki, Randolph, evan Barghani,etc.) to open the floor. Brian Hill jams both Dwight and Darko in the lane where their defenders can much more easily help out. The truth is Dwight should be the only guy in there most of the time.

 

The fact is, instead of building on offense around the talents of his players. He forces his players to play within his offense whether it suits their skill set or not.

[chosen12 75]

quote:

Originally posted by bhnole:

quote:

Originally posted by SmackDaddy:

 

I feel that Darko hasn't been given the full "go ahead" by our coach.

 

 

I think the same thing. Why has Darko who displayed an very good perimeter jump shot last season.

 

The fact is, instead of building on offense around the talents of his players. He forces his players to play within his offense whether it suits their skill set or not.

 

Agreed!!! This of course is specific to Darko and it was compounded by the extreme limitations placed on JJ and Travis! The total misuse of Trevor, he never designed anything specific for him but play kid!!

[SmackDaddy 30]

I will say it again. This is the same coach that saw how effective Horace Grant was playing with Shaq. Can you imagine how screwed up things would have been if both Shaq and Horace were both clogging the paint and Horace wasn't utilized at the elbow to hit jump shots and cut through the lane on occassion? Darko could be a much, much, much better version of that style player. He has more range than Horace did. He can put the ball on the floor and drive to the basket better. And he has better passing skills to go with his superb court vision. However, if Brian Hill continues to misuse him, then he is a one dimensional bust for this team.

[weezt0e 0]

Brian Hill seems to think we have 2 Shaqs when we really have one Dwight and one Darko.

[MagicPhan732 0]

What bother me the most of all this situation, is the fact that we the fans care a lot about the team, instead the players they don't give a hoot as far as they collect their paycheck.

[weezt0e 0]

Despite the laughing, I don't see anyone on this team (with the exception of Darko, only because he is VERY hard to read) as being a "collect the paycheck" kind of guy.