INTERVIEW WITH JIMMER after Raptors game

CruzDude

Senior Member sharing a brew with bajaden
Jimmer is a good interview and blunt about his plus and minuses.

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You can see Jimmer taking the "be the college Jimmer" thing very much to heart, but whether that is effective or good for the team at this level is very much open to question. You could give that ultimate green light to a lot of NBA guards and just let them charge in and shoot every possession.
 
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You can see Jimmer taking the "be the college Jimmer" thing very much to heart, but whether that is effective or good for the team at this level is very much open to question. You could give that ultimate green light to a lot of NBA guards and just let them charge in and shoot every possession.

Whether its effective in the nba or not, its still true that college Jimmer would be better than current Jimmer. He has his shortfalls, but his biggest one is mental right now. If he could shoot like he did in college most of us would be happy with him at this point. He is an amazing shooter but the pressure has been getting to his head. I really like him and would like to keep him around to see what happens. Even if he never develops into a solid bench player... his 3pt shooting ability (if it can be fully harnessed) is a valuable tool that is worth having around.
 
Whether its effective in the nba or not, its still true that college Jimmer would be better than current Jimmer. He has his shortfalls, but his biggest one is mental right now. If he could shoot like he did in college most of us would be happy with him at this point. He is an amazing shooter but the pressure has been getting to his head. I really like him and would like to keep him around to see what happens. Even if he never develops into a solid bench player... his 3pt shooting ability (if it can be fully harnessed) is a valuable tool that is worth having around.

Picked a bad time to get married if you ask me. It isn't wise to spend your offseason adjusting to married life and responsibilities when you come out of college with that kind of hype and end up having a very subpar season, outplayed by the 60th pick in the draft. The last thing you want is distractions of any kind. I'm not saying he shouldn't have gotten married, just that it was unfortunate timing.
 
Picked a bad time to get married if you ask me. It isn't wise to spend your offseason adjusting to married life and responsibilities when you come out of college with that kind of hype and end up having a very subpar season, outplayed by the 60th pick in the draft. The last thing you want is distractions of any kind. I'm not saying he shouldn't have gotten married, just that it was unfortunate timing.

I'm sure that getting married in the middle of the basketball season would be much less of a distraction.
 
I thin mac is 100% correct. I did not heard anything about Jimmer working on his game this summer. Following him on twitter, he was going on multiple vacations in a addition to a wedding and honeymoon. Now, I am not say there is anything wrong about that, but I think it's pretty evident he did not dedicate the offseason to getting better.
 
I thin mac is 100% correct. I did not heard anything about Jimmer working on his game this summer. Following him on twitter, he was going on multiple vacations in a addition to a wedding and honeymoon. Now, I am not say there is anything wrong about that, but I think it's pretty evident he did not dedicate the offseason to getting better.

Good news is this is still the offseason...
 
I think some of you are giving NBA players too much credit on how they spend their off season. It is a job for them, so even if they are the worst/best player out there a lot of their time is going to be on things other than basketball. Say he spends an hour a day on conditioning, 3-4 hours on skills... That still leaves a ton of time for other stuff. As much as I would love our team to focus on nutrition as much as Nash and to practice as hard as Kobe, it isn't realistic.
 
I thin mac is 100% correct. I did not heard anything about Jimmer working on his game this summer. Following him on twitter, he was going on multiple vacations in a addition to a wedding and honeymoon. Now, I am not say there is anything wrong about that, but I think it's pretty evident he did not dedicate the offseason to getting better.

No, no, you want to marry the hot cheerleader BEFORE the college hero bit begins to fade into the background. ;)
 
I really like him and would like to keep him around to see what happens. Even if he never develops into a solid bench player... his 3pt shooting ability (if it can be fully harnessed) is a valuable tool that is worth having around.
Jimmer better develop other skills (like dribbling or defensive skills) besides shooting. Otherwise, we should get rid of him. The Kings team would look like a kiddie team (summer league team for kids with his father as coach) if Jimmer won't be able to develop any other skill other than his shooting.
 
I'm sure that getting married in the middle of the basketball season would be much less of a distraction.

You're completely missing my point. I'm saying that it's unfortunate for him that his wedding was scheduled during an offseason where he absolutely needs to work on his game to improve. Another to put it is - it's unfortunate that he didn't play well in the season prior to his marriage. I can't say for sure, but I reckon it's a little harder to be working out hard every day when you're a newlywed.
 
You're completely missing my point. I'm saying that it's unfortunate for him that his wedding was scheduled during an offseason where he absolutely needs to work on his game to improve. Another to put it is - it's unfortunate that he didn't play well in the season prior to his marriage. I can't say for sure, but I reckon it's a little harder to be working out hard every day when you're a newlywed.

Getting married is much less distracting than going to the club every night like a lot of young NBA players do. If he can't play it isn't because he got married. Also Jimmer is a Gym rat and loves basketball so I don't think spending time in the gym is a problem for him.
 
Unless someone was stalking Jimmer 24/7 how do we know he did absolutely no work on his game in the summer?
 
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Getting married is much less distracting than going to the club every night like a lot of young NBA players do. If he can't play it isn't because he got married. Also Jimmer is a Gym rat and loves basketball so I don't think spending time in the gym is a problem for him.

Hmm ... well just off the top of my head, you'd have all the preparations for the wedding, then the honeymoon, moving? ... All that takes time and is both mentally and physically tiring. It's common sense really - you're a husband now, you've got additional commitments and responsibilities. Maybe you want to go for a late night shootaround, but the wife wants you home. Now does it beat staying up late every night consuming loads of alcohol? Probably, but I don't think Jimmer is that kind of guy.

Look, if the results were there I wouldn't be saying anything. The offseason isn't over and I'm sure Jimmer will work hard to improve. I never questioned his work ethic, I simply said that it is harder to commit to working on your game when you're just settling down with marriage.
 
I thin mac is 100% correct. I did not heard anything about Jimmer working on his game this summer. Following him on twitter, he was going on multiple vacations in a addition to a wedding and honeymoon. Now, I am not say there is anything wrong about that, but I think it's pretty evident he did not dedicate the offseason to getting better.

He works on it everyday. Smart was out there for like 6 days working with him too.
 
You're completely missing my point. I'm saying that it's unfortunate for him that his wedding was scheduled during an offseason where he absolutely needs to work on his game to improve. Another to put it is - it's unfortunate that he didn't play well in the season prior to his marriage. I can't say for sure, but I reckon it's a little harder to be working out hard every day when you're a newlywed.

You're asking the guy to put his entire personal life on hold for a year or multiple years because you don't think he's a good enough basketball player. That's really not reasonable. Keep in mind that there are more than three months left to this offseason for him to work on his game.

And is it really harder to work out every day when you go home to a stable family every night, or when you spend your offseason hitting the clubs and chasing girls with late nights and booze and hangovers? I'm sure the wedding and honeymoon took a little time out of his schedule, but other NBA players vacation, too. I understand your words, I absolutely don't understand how you can think it's a big deal.
 
You're asking the guy to put his entire personal life on hold for a year or multiple years because you don't think he's a good enough basketball player. That's really not reasonable. Keep in mind that there are more than three months left to this offseason for him to work on his game.

And is it really harder to work out every day when you go home to a stable family every night, or when you spend your offseason hitting the clubs and chasing girls with late nights and booze and hangovers? I'm sure the wedding and honeymoon took a little time out of his schedule, but other NBA players vacation, too. I understand your words, I absolutely don't understand how you can think it's a big deal.

No, I don't expect him to put off his personal life!

mac said:
I'm not saying he shouldn't have gotten married, just that it was unfortunate timing.

And the lesser of two "evils" does not = not "evil". Hey, at least Tyreke was caught speeding and not arrested for running a drug cartel, so that means that there's nothing wrong with speeding! (I'm just trying to prove a point, I'm in no way saying that marriage is evil or comparable to any sort of offence)

As I've said time and time again, it's unfortunate timing. It takes time to settle down after getting married - that takes time and energy out of your life that could have possibly been used on improving your game, which Jimmer needs about as much as any player currently on our team. It's exactly the same thing as us saying Honeycutt getting injured was especially unfortunate, because he really could have used the playing time in Summer League. We're not blaming Tyler for getting injured, merely stating that the timing of the injury was rather unfortunate.

I'm not even making a big deal out of it. I'm not the one saying that he hasn't been working out or that he won't continue to work out. All I said was added responsibilities = harder to be committed to working out.
 
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Conspiracy Theories are fun at times but seem out of place for this discussion about Jimmer. Multiple time at summer league Coaches Jackson and English have said that they want Jimmer to be more aggressive and shoot more. Kinda hard to do that in offseason whether your getting married or not. Jimmer is a workout rat for sure. His summer progress can be measured from game 1 through game 4 here at summer league. His aggressiveness, shooting and ball handling have improved. He is getting 30min a game now and going up against some really tough competition. Sure Bobby Brown cleaned his clock. But Brown has been cleaning everyones clock here. He is making progress at those items the Coaches want him to improve.
 
Conspiracy Theories are fun at times but seem out of place for this discussion about Jimmer. Multiple time at summer league Coaches Jackson and English have said that they want Jimmer to be more aggressive and shoot more. Kinda hard to do that in offseason whether your getting married or not. Jimmer is a workout rat for sure. His summer progress can be measured from game 1 through game 4 here at summer league. His aggressiveness, shooting and ball handling have improved. He is getting 30min a game now and going up against some really tough competition. Sure Bobby Brown cleaned his clock. But Brown has been cleaning everyones clock here. He is making progress at those items the Coaches want him to improve.

If I recall correctly Brown did the same a few years ago then pretty much did nothing in the NBA for the Kings.
 
Unless someone was stalking Jimmer 24/7 how do we know he did absolutely no work on his game in the summer?

We're in the middle of July. I don't see why Jimmer can't take a couple months away from basketball to do his own thing. People are acting like preseason is next week or something. We still have a few months to go.
 
I think mac just was pointing out that his personal life probably got in the way of practice which is why he was not crisp at summer league.
 
Sitting court side for every game, Jimmer looked "crisp" and "quick" especially in games 4 and 5 while getting 30 and 19 points respectively. If some of you commenters had come here to summer league you could have asked him these questions face-to-face. bajaden was here up from Ensenada, Mexico and he met Gavin Maloof and asked him what he wanted and got a very pleasant response. I chatted with George Maloof, short but very cordial. Chatting with coaches, players, owners, GM's is all possible when you are here. Jimmer is the best interview off all the players on the Kings squad and easy to talk to and get straight answers. So guess some of you will have to make the pilgrimage to round ball summer mecca and find out for your selves.
 
Sitting court side for every game, Jimmer looked "crisp" and "quick" especially in games 4 and 5 while getting 30 and 19 points respectively. If some of you commenters had come here to summer league you could have asked him these questions face-to-face. bajaden was here up from Ensenada, Mexico and he met Gavin Maloof and asked him what he wanted and got a very pleasant response. I chatted with George Maloof, short but very cordial. Chatting with coaches, players, owners, GM's is all possible when you are here. Jimmer is the best interview off all the players on the Kings squad and easy to talk to and get straight answers. So guess some of you will have to make the pilgrimage to round ball summer mecca and find out for your selves.

Would love to be there next summer to watch the games.

I agree with you on the progress he made during the five games. I thought he made better decisions every game compared to the last game.

I've been meaning to write down my thoughts on Jimmer and why he could be a perfect fit for the Kings, but never will be. This seems as good a thread as any.

Jimmer was brought in to play "small" guard with Tyreke. Thornton had made a strong showing at the end of the prior season, but nobody knew if he was the real deal or just had a series of good games.

Salmons was supposed to complement Tyreke and Thornton/Jimmer by being the second catch and shoot threat on the wing. Tyreke and Salmons were supposed to split the heavy lifting on perimeter defense because Thornton and Jimmer's D was and is awful. This was a sound idea in theory, but it never got off the ground. Salmons was a non-threat to start the season, playing the worst offensive basketball of his career and was awful from three-point range. He was adequate on defense but got overpowered by Ron Ron and Gerald Wallace. Worst of all, he disrupted the offense by shooting every time he touched the ball.

Jimmer was never given the space by NBA defenders to catch and shoot or to create off the dribble. That's his fault, but it's also on Westphal who started out the season by alienating the most important offensive piece for the Kings, and disrupting the entire first half of the season.

By the time we got a little bit of offensive cohesiveness together in the second half of the season, Jimmer had fallen behind IT in the rotation because IT is a more polished ball handler and showed a shooting stroke that was not there in college. Most importantly, IT is better than Jimmer in the open court and in transition, which is what Smart's "run all the time" basketball is about.

Jimmer is not a great floor general. He is a very good and very smart half-court basketball scorer. In the right system, he will get open looks by being in the right place at the right time for kickouts from the slashing wing or post-scoring big man. But that's not the type of game the Kings decided to play.

Imagine how last season plays out with a defensive small forward who shoots the three-ball at 36% (call him bizarro Salmons) and an uninjured Chuck Hayes. Thornton and the small forward space the floor while Tyreke learns to run off Hayes' picks. Jimmer can sub in freely for Thornton without disrupting the offense, playing off the ball on catch and shoot passes from Evans, Cousins, and Hayes. Suddenly, the Kings look like their team makeup makes sense.

But we know that the Kings did not have a working half-court offense for the first half of last season. Everyone wanted the ball all the time (Jimmer included). Put Jimmer on a team with a ball-dominant scoring wing (Knicks, Heat, Lakers) or a team with a set offense that knows how to run screens and get him loose (Celtics, Spurs, Thunder) and you have a valuable role player.

TLDR; Jimmer is a role player who is a good complement to Tyreke, but run and gun Smart small ball screws this up.
 
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I agree that the FO thought Jimmer would be a great compliment to Tyreke and while I understand their rationale, I disagree with their basic premise.

Now, to be fair, I didn't think Jimmer would have so much difficulty handling the ball in the NBA. I didn't think he'd be an upper echelon dribbler, but I was surprised by how easily some defensive pressure took him out of his game.

But even if Fredette had been better with the ball in his hands, I never like the potential pairing with Tyreke. For starters, even though Tyreke would still be the defacto PG on offense, pairing him with a smaller player let the opposing SG defend him while the opposing PG defended Jimmer. Secondly, it weakens the defensive backcourt significantly.

I'm not against moving Tyreke to the SG spot alongside a true PG but my thought was that if you were going to stick a combo guard next to him in the backcourt and continue to let Evans be the primary ballhandler that you might as well get a big defensive guard who can handle the ball. A Ron Harper/Doug Christie type. The hard part for me is that I really thought the team had found that guy in TWill. Sure, he's not really the shooter that the team needs, but outside of that I liked him paired with Tyreke in the back court. But not only did we not see much of that pairing, the team decided not to bring him back at all which I can't understand.

Jimmer's shooting could help stretch the floor, but he doesn't add much else and he's a weak point in terms of defense and ballhandling.
 
But even if Fredette had been better with the ball in his hands, I never like the potential pairing with Tyreke. For starters, even though Tyreke would still be the defacto PG on offense, pairing him with a smaller player let the opposing SG defend him while the opposing PG defended Jimmer. Secondly, it weakens the defensive backcourt significantly.

This has always been a flawed argument. Teams put their best defenders on the other teams better offensive players all the time. The only way to put the weaker defender on Evans to 1) run a pick and roll and get the switch 2) get a better player than Evans in the backcourt. But then people would whine about the better defender being on that player.
 
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