We miss Afflalo. Who'd have guessed.
Grades v. Blazers 12/28/2016
- Thread starter Bricklayer
- Start date
We miss Afflalo. Who'd have guessed.
LA King Fan II
Bench
Couldn't watch five minutes...awful roster.
bajaden
Hall of Famer
I get what you mean, but it's not an either/or. Cuz, "and" the rest of the team need to have good games for this team to win on a regular basis. This team doesn't have a McCollum or a Beal roaming the perimeter. We lack the overall guard talent that some of the top teams have. As a result, your going to have games like this. When your team is made up of a lot of inconsistent players, your going to have inconsistent results. As a coach the best you can do is find ways to get them open shots. Some nights they'll hit them, and some nights they won't. That's why the Klay Thompson's of the world get paid the big bucks. Consistency!
Blob
Starter
Basketball is game of read and react. Read and react. If your mind is going 1000 MPH you are NOT reading and reacting, you're lost in your head you are lost in thought. This is the problem (among others) with Ben and Willie.
And to degree that you possess physicality you have to use it! This means drawing contact, initiating contact, moving at change of pace, throwing your opponent off balance. Willie and Ben do NONE of this. They are lost in their head, partly due perhaps to the complexity of the Joerger system. This is not an excuse as they've had enough time to acclimate themselves to the multiple variants of the same play.
Their respective struggles are partly about about instincts for the game, feel for the game, where to be, when to be there, sense of anticipation. These are skills that can be scouted BEFORE you commit to a player and draft them. Both in the case of Willie and Ben their feel and intuition for the game was highly questionable at Kansas and Kentucky respectively.
Is intuition and feel something you can teach? Not really!
This was one of the risks Vlade and previous GM made when selecting these prospective busts in a long line of proven busts, that their athletics gifts would make up for what they lacked in other areas. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it don't click. For both these guys it ain't clicking, and at some point, like now, it comes time to watch for an extended period (5 games minimum) and start logging DNP-CD while other dudes waiting in the wings (Malachi and Skal) are given their chance to shine.
And to degree that you possess physicality you have to use it! This means drawing contact, initiating contact, moving at change of pace, throwing your opponent off balance. Willie and Ben do NONE of this. They are lost in their head, partly due perhaps to the complexity of the Joerger system. This is not an excuse as they've had enough time to acclimate themselves to the multiple variants of the same play.
Their respective struggles are partly about about instincts for the game, feel for the game, where to be, when to be there, sense of anticipation. These are skills that can be scouted BEFORE you commit to a player and draft them. Both in the case of Willie and Ben their feel and intuition for the game was highly questionable at Kansas and Kentucky respectively.
Is intuition and feel something you can teach? Not really!
This was one of the risks Vlade and previous GM made when selecting these prospective busts in a long line of proven busts, that their athletics gifts would make up for what they lacked in other areas. Sometimes it clicks and sometimes it don't click. For both these guys it ain't clicking, and at some point, like now, it comes time to watch for an extended period (5 games minimum) and start logging DNP-CD while other dudes waiting in the wings (Malachi and Skal) are given their chance to shine.
c-webb1s#1
Starter
We can only get so far on grit and determination. At some point either someone is gonna have to step up or we're going to need more talent in the back court. If we can trade Rudy and Darren for Dragic, I would do that in a heart beat! The Pick and Roll game between those two would be insane!
A game like this is really hard to rationalize. It was hard to watch. Portland has one of the worst defenses in the League, but they made the Kings look weak. We held them to around 100 points, which normally gives us a chance to win. Except for Cousins, no one stepped up. Maybe the burden of winning was just too much.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
c-webb1s#1
Starter
I hear this upcoming draft has a bunch of good ones
I'm tired of looking at more rookie prospects who may/may not...probably will not do anything to help us anytime during the next few years.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
These aren't your average rookie guards...at least three of them look ready to contribute right away, probably even more. That said, if you can't bring in a Bledsoe, Dragic or Payne...then you start looking at the draft.
It seems that every draft has players that "look ready to contribute right away" but few actually do.
kingsboi
Hall of Famer
We shall see, won't we?
