popper wrote:Halcyon wrote:popper wrote:Question for anyone / everyone. Players like Josh Smith, Keven Love, Zach Randolph and Faried intrigue me with their overachieving accomplishments in the face of what appears to be average athleticism and physical appearance. Can their extraordinary mojo be quantified in some way to predict similar overachievers in future drafts?
Where's the green font?
Good one Halcyon. I deserved it. I was just curious as to why the four players I mentioned rebound so much better than other pros with similar measurables. Positioning? Reading the ball flight early and anticipating angles? Ability to push other players out of position? All of the above maybe? And finally, can those skills be taught?
If so, Seraphon could use a crash course.
While physical measurement matter, there is obviously a good part of this that goes to what is between their ears and what kind of heart they have. Generally.. Personality. That is the part that needs to get highlighted more. This is one of the reason I want to learn about their background and see them interviewed.
Beal is the right kind of mind to play SG effectively at a higher level. As he grows up, I think he will be a very solid player in the league. While he is a polite kid, he has that fire inside and drive that as he matures, he will be a big stage type competitor.
Nene has the perfect mind set and drive to be a PF. So that two positions set.
There is a lot regarding personality, experience, drive, smarts and heart that goes into being a good or great NBA player. The physical skills are important sure, but the other stuff needs to get identified. Its the stuff that made CCJ fall in love with Faried. Its why we liked players like Lillard and Crawder. Look at the difference it even makes with a player like LeBron. LeBron has honed his game mentally.
Kevin S is a good example. He should dominate a lot more then he does but it doesn't seem he has the mental make up to do it. The exercise I would run on Kevin would be to find some big DC street ballers and put them around the basket and tell him he need to score going toward the rim. Basically rough house without the outside shooting. I would give the street ballers $1000 for every basket they make against Kevin and take it from him salary. The kid need to learn what a hungry player plays like. Or as I said before, send him to an Army boot camp.
This organization did purge itself of the goofballs, but what it added and what is left is to vanilla. Look at all the quit types the team has.
Trevor A, Okafor, Booker, Ves, Martin, Kevin S, C Singleton and Mack 1.0 Thats to many players of that type for one team. You can have one or two but not eight.
All nice guys and all have some BB skills, but they are not wired like Nene, Beal, Crawford, Wall and Webster
With what they have, Wall, Beal, Crawford with Mack 2.0 and Martin is fine as a mix of personalities but without Wall out there, you are two and two and Beal is only 19. Adding Wall would tip this over into a much more swagish group.
Webster has it for the SF group but he hasn't translated it to enough production on the court so he can't maximize all of his personality and drive to lead. The rest of the SF don't seem to have it so the team is pretty weak there. That position needs to add a player with some swag and game.
http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/playe ... l-forwardsPretty much any player from the top 20 would be a huge upgrade for the Wizards in production and heart at SF. Most good SF are full of piss n vinegar. The lifeless group of SFs on this team is a big reason the team gets chumped so often.
Then you look at the front court and all you have is Nene. Okafor, Kevin S, Ves. None of them have it. All of them play like punks. It would make world of difference to this team if they could find a way to light that fire in Kevin. Nene could really use another beast to help him in the post.
One a team with so many of these softer personality types, no Wall and Nene to start the year was crushing. That only left Beal 19, Crawford, and Webster to lead the team. Thats not going to work. Now they have Nene back. Well he needs to lead. Mostly he needs to work on Kevin S and Ves. That is part of your job Nene. You think KG and Kobe leaves it all up the coaches and GM to work out. NO
Beal is maturing so that helps and hopefully Wall is back soon, so that will help.
But they need at SF that they just don't have and they need to keep adding the right kind of personalities that will help. A Faried or Crawder would be great for this team.
