kulaz3000 wrote:The times when he messes up is when he just darting towards the basket with no real purpose besides getting to the basket, then BAM, he'll barrell into a defender. There is a 50/50 chance that when he gets a steal and decides to take it up court himself, that it will result in a turnover.
What he used to do often was lead the break, pass when someone covered him, and then immediately crash into that defender and have a charge called. I wouldn't say it was without purpose per se, because taking the ball yourself gets the break going immediately whereas finding a guard can slow things down a bit. Obviously it's not worth it though if a turnover results half the time. However, I haven't seen him commit that charge for a good while (though he hasn't been playing nearly as much).
kyrv wrote:Tyrus rarely plays, so not a big deal, but I also would prefer Tyrus give up the ball asap. I like that he starts downcourt but I think (for now) he should be looking to get the ball to the guard and then head towards the basket.
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of limiting the things he can do on the court. Since he generates turnovers a lot, it's pretty valuable if he can take the ball up the court himself. As I said though, if it rarely turns out well, he can't continue to do it. It's just one of the struggles of developing a player on a competitive team. We're struggling an awful lot with that, which makes me think Pax screwed up if he didn't have some sort of a game plan in place when he drafted Tyrus, Thabo, and Noah.
derf wrote:I hope You are not suggesting that the judgement of the fans is superior to the judgement of the coaches.
That is not an argument that I'd want to have to make.
What's the alternative? To always defer to the judgment of the coaching staff? There's a long history of fans not doing that in sports and we wouldn't have a lot left to talk about around these parts.
derf wrote:Tyurus plays every day in practice, The thing is it is not on TV, so we don't see it.
But the coaches do. Perhaps they are seeing something we don't.
This sounds pretty close to absolute deference to the coaching staff. Especially when you consider that much of what Boylan said contradicts with this notion ("I'm trying to shorten the rotation to get players in rhythm," "No one is buried," "I need to ride the guys who got us here," etc.). Coaches often notoriously favor veterans and it seems like there's a very good chance that's what is happening here. If that's the case, I disagree and I think my opinion is valid.
derf wrote:To answer your question on Skiles? Yeah I'd guess he knew more basketball then anyone here. Unless of course someone is a ringer.
I don't think being a genius when it comes to X's and O's means you have flawless judgment. That's what a lot of this is, judgment calls. As Kryv noted, apparently Pax's judgment differs from Boylan and he certainly knows a lot about the game of basketball.
derf wrote:The old argument was that Skiles was sitting Tyrus because Skiles was playing head games, trying to mess with Tyrus. That argument no longer holds water. What's the new argument? As far as I can tell it is that Tyrus is entitled to minutes because he has potential.
I thought Skiles not playing Tyrus was a combination of things. Some of it seemed like head games in that his idea of developing Tyrus was to bench him when he didn't play exactly the way Skiles wanted instead of letting him play through mistakes. Some if it to me is that I think coach's often lack perspective about what helps win games. They like steady, mistake free players over more mistake prone players with a bigger impact because they like their plays run correctly.
As far as Boylan, I think the (paraphrased) quotes I noted above sum the situation up pretty clearly. He favors "more established," veteran players, and wants to play a shortened rotation so that leaves Noah and Tyrus on the outside looking in. It seems the reason that Gray is playing more minutes is that he places a great deal of value on his size at center.
derf wrote:Kryv, you're orgional point was that fans knew as much as Pro coaches. Please stay on topic.
The argument I picked up from you is that fans aren't qualified to question the decision making of NBA coaches because we're laymen and they're experts. It would seem to logically extend to GMs also since they make decisions and they're experts but if you want to limit it to coaches so be it. I don't think it makes much of a difference because Skiles, Isiah, and the like have pretty obviously made some poor decisions as coaches. I don't know how you justify things like having Wallace set screens out on the perimeter when it repeatedly leads to terrible results or some of the rotation moves we've seen Skiles make ("shaking thins up" seems like a cop out you could always use to justify a terrible decision).
