As an aside with Webber thinking "shoot first" we ran off 7 straight wins recently.
Closer to point, wimping and whining from various secotrs aside, this is on Peja, always has been. When he's aggressive, he gets the ball. If he moved in his 6 pt game the way he moved last night, he would have gotten the ball. But he doesn't always. And let's not even get to the rebounding/hustle which has NOTHING to do with shooting whatsoever -- you know what I call a 6'10" guy who doesn't rebound because he's not getting enough shots? I call him a prima donna.
Peja is a naturally passive individual. Aggression and competition do not seem to be instincts with him so much as they are decisions. He has a great talent (shooting) but it takes an inordinate amount of handholding and "is this ok with you Peja" negotiation to get things set up just right for him. I think you could even make a pretty good argument that Peja himself was not nearly so responsible for his great season last year as was Vlade Divac -- the friend/mentor who dedicated himself to making Peja a star, held his hand, looked for him first, talked to him constantly etc.. Peja may not have ben entirely off base at being upset Vlade was leaving -- Peja body remains, but a significant part of his heart and his fight may have walked out the door in the person of Vlade.
I've played with guys like Peja before. Many of us probably have. He's the super-talented guy on your team who is better than you, but lacks that fire. While you're fighting and scrapping out there fro everything you can get, you are perpetually worried whether he's still with you or not. You are fighting his battles as well as yours. He's the guy who you make a point of going over to before the game and saying "let's do this", who you go out of your way to hi-five after every good play, who you call over and say "going to be looking for you next time down the court". In short, the guy who can win the game for you, but you have to spend all game long pumping up + inspiring, kind of like a balloon with a leak.
And that's all ok. It has to be because those guys can do things that I cannot. If I take care of the dirty work, and if I/we can just keep his head in the game, you can win a lot with a guy like that. But then one day a guy walks onto your team, and he's big and he's strong and he's also much better than you. But this guy is different -- when you go flying to the glass to snatch that board he's right there with you fighting over the ball, when you go over to pump him up and say "let's do this!" he barks right back "hell yeah!". When you go scrambling after that loose ball, he's diving right beside you. And then you know you're home. To use a term that I don't personally, you've found your dawg. And then you don't worry about the passive talent over in the corner so much anymore. He's got to fend for himself at some point and you've already found your winner.
We spend very little time asking/complaining how come everybody else on the team isn't being helped by their teammates. No "why aren't his teammates making Mike/Brad/Webb/Mobley a better player" threads. Nor should there be. They are grown men. Professinal athletes. And while they all mess up from time to time, they are responsible for themselves and their actions. And so is Peja, although his fans seem not to realize that. And the day Peja realizes that, the day he starts taking responsibility for himself every game, the day he quits relying on others + the alignment of the stars to determine when he will be inspired, that's the day when he will finally be the player he can be.
There is no way you can convince me that the contract is always an indication how good a player is.
