Sergio, Minutes, and Rudy

[BlazerDraft2006]

There's alot of hubbub about Rudy's comment about Nate and Sergio's playing time. This season, Sergio has averaged 9.1 minutes per game, which is 19% of a full game. In last year's Eurobasket 2007 European tournament, Sergio averaged 7.4 minutes, which is 19% of the shorter 40 minute game. So Nate is playing Sergio to the same extent that the Spanish coach has played him. What's the tapas?

[Yadadimean]

I don't know. All I know is if Rudy is gonna be a cry baby about not getting minutes if he doesn't deserve them, then he should stay in Spain. Its not like Rodriguez is at the end of the bench just because he's Spanish. He just hasn't played well enough to get the minutes he wants.

[ph1sh55]

shirley this could have been posted in the existing topic. And no I will not stop calling you shirley!

[ebott]

^ I think I'm gonna throw up

[PDXKnight]

Sergio hasn"t earned PT this season. I"m fairly sure Rudy will get more PT in Portland.

[ebott]

I don't know. All I know is if Rudy is gonna be a cry baby about not getting minutes if he doesn't deserve them, then he should stay in Spain.

That's just ridiculous. If Rudy decides to come over we're lucky to have him. He would be a HUGE addition to our bench. We've been doing pretty damn good with Jack as our combo guard off the bench. Rudy is easily three times the player that Jack is.

Seriously. Everything that Jack is good at, Rudy is three times as good. Everything that Jack sucks at, Rudy is only one third the liability that Jarrett is.

Jack is the worst (based on the +/- stat) player on the team. Rudy is (based on most people's reviews) THE BEST PLAYER IN EUROPE. If you pay attention to what he's done in international play that makes him one of the best players in the world. Wide and far people are declaring that he'd be a top 5 pick in this year's draft.

Remove our worst player and add a widely acclaimed player and we're a MUCH better team.

Even if Rudy does complain about his minutes / touches / etc. he's still that much more valuable than Jack (or any of our other possible backup swing men/guards) to the point where any possible distraction he might cause wouldn't matter.

Its not like Rodriguez is at the end of the bench just because he's Spanish. He just hasn't played well enough to get the minutes he wants.

This brings me back to my previous statement. Rudy's situation doesn't directly relate to Sergio's because Rudy is so much better than Sergio. But there's still the basic "He's a Spaniard that came to the NBA hoping for bigger better things and it failed miserably" principle that could dissuade Rudy from coming over.

Example:

A guy I went to middle school with ended up at the same college as me. It's especially odd because we both grew up here and ended up going to college in MyAssachusetts. I got a job straight out of college and he decided to stay for graduate school. He got much better grades than I did and would likely have gotten a much better job than I did when he got his master's degree and went out into the professional world.

But when 9-11 hit I got laid off from my job in Boston and when I told my friend about it he so lost faith in the Boston economy that he dropped out of our college and moved back here to finish up his master's degree at PSU.

Moral:

Success is hard to argue against.

But there's no argument against failure. You can make excuses galore. But there's no truely convincing argument.

I see Rudy and if he see Sergio's failure the way I do I can't blame him if he doesn't come over here.

But I sure hope he does. His addition to our team would be HUGE. He might be thought of as a rock star in Spain, but he would be thoroughly beloved here in Portland. We should start a Rudy fan club to show him that coming here is the way to go.

[Yadadimean]

A simple "I disagree" would have sufficed. LOL

[mojomarc]

A simple "I disagree" would have sufficed. LOL

Right. That's how it works around here. People just write "I disagree"

[Maik]

i think Nate is doing a prety nice job. i really like what hes doing with the YOUNGEST team.

Sergio is a point guard with talent BUT he needs the ball in hes hands to make something happend on offense, and we want the ball in Brandon

[Billy]

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Right. That's how it works around here. People just write "I disagree"

"Ooooh Reginald. I DISAGREE! *tire screech*

[rasheed44]

I don't know. All I know is if Rudy is gonna be a cry baby about not getting minutes if he doesn't deserve them, then he should stay in Spain. Its not like Rodriguez is at the end of the bench just because he's Spanish. He just hasn't played well enough to get the minutes he wants.

I didn't realize that Blake and Jack were studs and deserve everything from McMalo.

[Khazim]

All I know is if Rudy is gonna be a cry baby about not getting minutes if he doesn't deserve them, then he should stay in Spain.

Agreed. A true man would only be happy about getting minutes if he worked hard to EARN them. Rudy looks like he has a ton of talent, but he hasn't done **** to earn any minutes in the NBA yet.

[Wizenheimer]

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I didn't realize that Blake and Jack were studs and deserve everything from McMalo.

McMalo?

[mojomarc]

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Agreed. A true man would only be happy about getting minutes if he worked hard to EARN them. Rudy looks like he has a ton of talent, but he hasn't done **** to earn any minutes in the NBA yet.

By that token, neither has a Rose, Beasley or even a Greg Oden. But you would clearly say that their talent warrants minutes in the NBA without question based on their obvious demonstrations of talent at a lower level. Same with Rudy--he was MVP of a league of professional basketball players, which is more than Oden has done. He has played a significant role on a world championship team, another thing that Oden hasn't done. Sorry, Khazim, but with that kind of history as an NBA talent evaluator either you have to be able to say he has earned his minutes or you have to say no one has earned their minutes. With an Oden, you give him the minutes and you take them away if his play doesn't warrant continuing to give him minutes, and the same is true with Rudy. They get the right to prove that their previous accomplishments weren't flukes. So either you tell them "you'll get your minutes and we'll make room on the roster for you and give you every chance to succeed," or you take the approach that no one earns any minutes in which case Rudy could just decide that despite him doing enough to have earned the chance your organization is just not one that wants to treat him well and he decides not to come over. If you told him he would have minutes and he failed, the result on the court would be the same as if you took the approach that he hadn't earned "***" except that if you take the latter approach, chances are he doesn't bother trying to prove to you he deserves the minutes.

In other words--it is counterproductive to say a player of that caliber hasn't earned it. It doesn't get you anything, and possibly loses you something.

[Khazim]

The difference between what I'm saying and what you're saying is that Oden isn't complaining about being worried about getting minutes because McRoberts isn't getting them. He isn't complaining at all. He will get his minutes, and so will Rudy. They are both certainly talented enough. And if Rose, Beasley, Oden, etc. we're in this position I'd be saying the same things about them.

And I should clarify that I'm not saying Rudy is complaining, but he is borderline. I personally am not worried about this much, but if he does have the attitude of "Coach won't play my friend, so he might not play me, and so I don't want to play for him" then I don't want him here. That kind of attitude is piss poor and certainly doesn't fit well on our team.

I will re-emphasize that I am saying IF. I'm not accusing Rudy of anything based off a google translation of an interview taken out of context. I'm just stating that if it goes down that road, this would be my response.

[Yadadimean]

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I didn't realize that Blake and Jack were studs and deserve everything from McMalo.

Neither did I. What I did realize though, is that Sergio is not even on par with either one of them. He's not a threat to score and other teams know that so they effectively can play 5 on 4 defense, and then Rodriguez is also a defensive liability effectively making it a 5 on 4 trip for the other team when they come down on offense. When he's on he looks like a great player, but unfortunately he's hardly ever on.

[Yadadimean]

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Agreed. A true man would only be happy about getting minutes if he worked hard to EARN them. Rudy looks like he has a ton of talent, but he hasn't done **** to earn any minutes in the NBA yet.

Thats all I was trying to say. If he's already complaining, he could end up being bad for team chemistry if it turns out his game doesn't translate well enough at first for him to get many minutes.

[Yadadimean]

The difference between what I'm saying and what you're saying is that Oden isn't complaining about being worried about getting minutes because McRoberts isn't getting them. He isn't complaining at all. He will get his minutes, and so will Rudy. They are both certainly talented enough. And if Rose, Beasley, Oden, etc. we're in this position I'd be saying the same things about them.

And I should clarify that I'm not saying Rudy is complaining, but he is borderline. I personally am not worried about this much, but if he does have the attitude of "Coach won't play my friend, so he might not play me, and so I don't want to play for him" then I don't want him here. That kind of attitude is piss poor and certainly doesn't fit well on our team.

I will re-emphasize that I am saying IF. I'm not accusing Rudy of anything based off a google translation of an interview taken out of context. I'm just stating that if it goes down that road, this would be my response.

[/argument]

[mojomarc]

And I should clarify that I'm not saying Rudy is complaining, but he is borderline. I personally am not worried about this much, but if he does have the attitude of "Coach won't play my friend, so he might not play me, and so I don't want to play for him" then I don't want him here. That kind of attitude is piss poor and certainly doesn't fit well on our team.

I couldn't disagree more. Rudy isn't a college player where you draft him and it is automatic he will come, but a professional player getting paid more to play than we can offer him. We are asking him to both take a pay cut and to come to a foreign culture on top of that. Then, to add to the risk factor, you have one of his better friends sitting on our bench getting strangled by Nate. If he weren't worried about this, I would consider him mentally imbalanced. He is simply being forthright in evaluating the risks involved in the situation, and saying that by doing so he is exhibiting (potentially) a "piss poor" attitude is pretty darned callous if not arrogant. It's not like he ever has to come here, and treating this like he not only has an obligation to come but on top of it also has an obligation to keep his concerns about it to himself for fear of not fitting in is extreme.

[Mil]

The NBA game is significantly different from what European players are used to, and even for the best of them the adjustment takes playing time and some help and understanding from the coach. The view in Spain (rightly or wrongly) is that McMillan hasn't given Sergio a real opportunity, so I'm not surprised that Rudy is worried. Who wouldn't?

Just to reiterate, importing foreign talent is potentially very rewarding, but the unavoidable adjustment takes commitment from both sides, not just from the player. I can see how Rudy might have some doubts about McMillan's attitude right now.

By the way, I haven't seen Sergio or the Blazers enough to have an opinion on whether he should play. I'm just trying to give you the Spanish view on the subject.