MagicFan149 wrote:shard has fire... he is calm and collected most of the time but when hes fired up he'll let you know.... as good of a job that svg has done with this team this is one spot i dont think is his best... if you watched shard with seattle his game had much more variety, but here he is used as mostly a spot up shooter..... i dont feel svg has utilized shard to his full potential... but who would you take the shots from and we do have 48 wins so what we have is working pretty good... shard is doing exactly what the coaches want him to do... if we need more from shard in the playoffs, i believe he will step up big time
See I think that's exactly what the problem is, really passionate and competitive players don't have to be told by their coaches to step up. The coaches actually have a hard time trying to get them to accept lesser roles (see Kobe in the Shaq era). For the record I like Shard, I like the dynamics of our team and what he brings to it. But in games like yesterday vs NY where our schemes and plays were clearly not working, passionate and competitive players will just automatically step up their game not because the coach said so, or because it's what the pecking order dictates, but simply for the fact that they despise losing, specially to a bottom tier team. The only one I saw who tried harder at the end yesterday was Turk, but unfortunately he ended up chucking some horrible shots in the process. But at least you could see he was trying.
I would like to see Lewis take initiative and recognize when he has to take some ballgames over, I'd like to see him demand the ball if he is hot or when he clearly has an advantage vs his defender. I like what he has brought to our team so far, but let's not pretend like he's already all we want him to be.
Unfortunately, gettting franchise player money comes with franchise player expectations, and one of those expectations is to sometimes put the whole team on your back and carry them to a win.