3/14/07 Bianchi article

[ball junkie 277]

Anybody that wants to hear more Bianchi you should listen to this. He is all over the team in this afternoon's podcast.

 

Listen in yourself. Very interesting!

 

 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/

[magicfreak#1 0]

I think that Phil Jackson could win with this team, maybe not the NBA championship, but certainly into the first round of the playoffs.

Jackson, probably would have had the foresight to get a lot more experience logged in for his young talented players, and would probably be able to keep the team motivated and headed in the right direction, maybe not winning every game, but not getting embarassed repeatedly. and still changing nothing. Most of the problem is coaching, no one ever said this was a championship team at the start of the season, we all said this season would, be, or should be, the season to get our youngsters developed to the level where they can go all the way next year when our $$$ issues enable us to grab that last piece of the puzzle to make us serious contenders. I really haven't seen much of this either, except for D12 and Jameer, our youngsters have gotten sprained buttts riding the pine watching aging fossils take their much needed playing time away.

 

I would not be at all upset with our record right now, and would have been much more excited to show up and support the team, cultivating young talent, rebuilding for next year!

 

And I bet alot of people feel that way too!!!

[FanSince1990 0]

quote:

Originally posted by ball junkie:

Wow! I wish Jaguars would have worded his thread topic differently.

 

A lot of people probably won't click on this thread the way it's worded. It looks boring.

 

Trust me, it's anything but boring! I wish this could be highlighted all over the main Magic forum for all to see. Especially "all" the coach bashers we have on this site.

 

I especially loved this quote from Mike:

 

 

quote:

The easiest thing to do is point a finger at the coach and say, "Fire him." And, certainly, Hill deserves his share of the criticism, but I don't think Phil Jackson could win with this team. When you look at this roster, who other than Howard could start for one of the premier teams in the league?

 

 

Phil Jackson? Funny stuff Bianchi but it very well could be true.

 

Glad to see the media in various sites this morning is looking at the many faults of this team and "not" blaming Brian Hill for everything. I know ultimately though he will get the blame and the fall.

 

Sorry but get a clue..

 

Who else in the Bulls was a legitimate starter other than Jordan and Pippen?

 

And the same thing could be said for many other winning teams.

[MilitaryMagic 0]

quote:

Originally posted by SmackDaddy:

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.

 

Props man, I'm glad neither of us are getting into a huff.

 

It's different definitions of youth movement.

 

Regardless of the definition used, it's sad that our coach never implemented a true youth movement like you're talking about and that Otis never forced this on our coach. It's a crime that a journeyman like Arroyo gets minutes over Diener all the time and that a lazy player like Bogans steals minutes from JJ.

 

Of course, I still believe that Ariza and Darko both have had opportunities... not the best opportunities at all... and Ariza's opportunity was ruined b/c of his injury... but still... especially Darko... the kid has no excuse... he has got to get better... I mean, seriously, if he keeps missing bunny hooks, what's the point in talking about his jump shot? It's seriously backwards if he needs to make jump shots to have confidence on his bunny hooks.

 

Yea, yea he's being misused, it's true. If he ever gets confident in his game though he'll be better for having learned how to bang on the low block. Also, in the worlds, he didn't constantly play away from the basket, did he? I think I remember him playing in the paint a lot for the national team with that hook shot.

[The Ghost of John Gabriel 0]

For all my criticism of Bianchi, I have a sneaking suspicion he is promoting firebrianhill.org on the sly. He's still a putz for attempting to portray Weez as a he did, but every mention of the site if publicity it needs.

[weezt0e 0]

I have a sneakign suspicion you may be right! He said everything but "fire hill" in his column and podcast. In the podcast he said we shouldn't fire hill because we have had 4 coaches in 3 years and we need stablity, despite his recent coaching woes. Thats not exactly a rigning endorsement.

[EnFuego 1]

quote:

Originally posted by Mr Charisma:

 

 

Again, this is one of my biggest gripes about BHill. Has he come out and acknowledged any responsibility for this? If he has, I've not heard it. Based on Grant Hill's comments after the team meeting, the coach pulled out film to prove that he was right and everyone else was wrong.

 

Why? Because that is ALL that matters to him: Being right.

 

Not winning; being right.

Not making use of the athleticism on the team; being right.

Not determining what his youth can contribute; being right.

Not re-evaluating his offensive and defensive schemes; being right.

 

It's not that he is wrong about everything, it's just that he has no ability to objectively self-evaluate.

 

Wow, this is the best summation of Brian Hill I have read anywhere. I think his inability to objectively self-evaluate is what keeps the same rotations no matter what.

 

Brian can't even adjust his watch to daylight savings time, much less adjust to situations during the game. And no, I don't give a hoot about what he did against Utah. Forced adjustments don't show his true self.