Wizards and Player Development

[TheSecretWeapon]

My latest article for RealGM looking at player development in the NBA. The first couple paragraphs:

The long and painful Wizards season came to an end in Boston with youngsters playing big minutes and major roles. This frustrated Wizards fans, many of whom griped through the accumulating losses that the team wasn’t developing its younger players by giving them significant playing time.

Particularly vexing to some has been the plight of rookie center Javale McGee. McGee is a beanpole 7-footer who will run the floor like a guard, leap like a small forward, and hammer home a jaw-dropping dunk as he gazes down on the rim. On the other end, he’ll soar for a spectacular block or extend a long arm to snag a rebound from an opponent more obedient to the laws of gravity.

Read the rest.

[LyricalRico]

A true work of art, as usual Kev. You brought out both sides and had some interesting quotes in there. I completely agree that, if nothing else, young guys need to play in the D-League from day one and a rule change to allow teams to replace them on the active roster would help a lot. I can't see why either side would vote against that. The players ensure more veteran jobs and the owners would get better returns on their investments. I really think that needs to be in the new CBA.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Some stuff that I didn't include in the article either because of length or I just didn't have a convenient way to shoehorn it in:

- Why didn't Pecherov play more this season? A team source told me that Pecherov stopped rebounding. He said that when Pecherov came to the team, he was a shooter who'd mix it up under the boards. For whatever reason -- despite what coaches were urging him to do -- he decided that he'd be more likely to get playing time by making himself into a 3pt specialist. When he finally got back on the boards in practice, he started getting some court time in games.

- One amusing story: Apparently league-wide rookies often have trouble with something very basic -- recognizing opposing players. Most do okay with the stars, but many take time to pick up some of the lesser known players. Well, there was at least one case of a rookie who was able to recognize his matchup for the night's game because he'd played against him that morning on NBA Live.

[fishercob]

Good stuff Kev. Out of curiosity, how many unnamed sources did you speak to for this story, and how many different ones are quoted?

[ZonkertheBrainless]

I don't know, I've seen a lot of examples lately of big athletic guys who didn't get any minutes early in their career. They move on to another team and guess what? they're just not very good. Kwame. Milicic.

What was Bynum's story? Kobe was ready to run him out of town, and now all of a sudden he's the keystone to their championship run? Was he forcefed minutes or was the coach forced to play him because he was just that good?

Definitely starting to believe the NBA just does not know how to teach fundamental basketball. The last three decades they've relied on college coaches to teach the fundamentals, and they just don't have the culture set up to do it.

[TheSecretWeapon]

Good stuff Kev. Out of curiosity, how many unnamed sources did you speak to for this story, and how many different ones are quoted?

You want me to go back and count?!

10 current NBA front office personnel representing 8 different teams. I also spoke to the former player development exec, who's no longer in the NBA. So 11 total.

[fishercob]

I don't know, I've seen a lot of examples lately of big athletic guys who didn't get any minutes early in their career. They move on to another team and guess what? they're just not very good. Kwame. Milicic.

What was Bynum's story? Kobe was ready to run him out of town, and now all of a sudden he's the keystone to their championship run? Was he forcefed minutes or was the coach forced to play him because he was just that good?

Definitely starting to believe the NBA just does not know how to teach fundamental basketball. The last three decades they've relied on college coaches to teach the fundamentals, and they just don't have the culture set up to do it.

The NBA is a professional league -- the highest level of professional leagues. They shouldn't have to teach fundamental basketball. To make that amount of coin, you need to at least have basic skills. If Blatche or McGee had more college experience and more refined games, they'd both have been lotto picks -- possibly high ones.

With as much money as there is at stake and with the pressure that there is to win now or get fired, how can NBA teams possibly be expected to have the time and resources to teach basic fundamentals that should be learned in high school, college and the minor leagues?

[fishercob]

Good stuff Kev. Out of curiosity, how many unnamed sources did you speak to for this story, and how many different ones are quoted?

You want me to go back and count?!

10 current NBA front office personnel representing 8 different teams. I also spoke to the former player development exec, who's no longer in the NBA. So 11 total.

Thanks. That's quite a thorough sampling. Great job.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

If you pick someone you know can be an all star if he just gets some basic fundamental instruction, with all the money at stake and the pressure to win championships how can you NOT spend some time and resources teaching basic fundamentals? Realizing that if the kid had gotten those fundamentals in college, you wouldn't have been able to pick him in the first place?

It's this arrogance that the nba has developed, if you don't know how to play you don't deserve to be here. Well that's fine but it's not going to get Blatche to develop his potential.

[TheSecretWeapon]

The "should the NBA teach fundamentals" issue is another area of debate within the NBA. Doug Collins used to tell me (and probably anyone else who would listen) that they don't have time in the NBA to teach the basics. Eddie Jordan, Tom Young, Phil Hubbard and Mike O'Koren each told me independently that they thought it important to work with young players individually on the "basics" and that they'd always find time to do it. Mark Cuban says he prefers to get young players with raw ability so that they can be taught by his coaches without distractions of school work, going to class, etc.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

How do the spurs approach this question?

[fishercob]

If you pick someone you know can be an all star if he just gets some basic fundamental instruction, with all the money at stake and the pressure to win championships how can you NOT spend some time and resources teaching basic fundamentals? Realizing that if the kid had gotten those fundamentals in college, you wouldn't have been able to pick him in the first place?

It's this arrogance that the nba has developed, if you don't know how to play you don't deserve to be here. Well that's fine but it's not going to get Blatche to develop his potential.

It's not that cut and dry. When you put it that way, you seem to shift the entire burden of Blatche's development on to someone other than Blatche.

In reality, if Blatche had been smarter and more conscientious in general, he probably would have gone to school for at least a year or two. To boot, we all would have liked to see him take his development more seriously when he became a professional.

Coaches and development execs want to work with guys who want to work. It's the concept of "co-production" from my MBA services marketing class (taught by a world renowned marketing scholar). You're going to get better service if you do certain things. Blatche would get better coaching if he had a better approach to his job.

So yes, there is some responsibility on the part of the NBA and its teams and on the part of the young undeveloped players to develop. Expanding and better organizing the D-league would certainly seem to make sense. But given the resources required to do so, I'm not sure if that's plausible in this economy.,

[ZonkertheBrainless]

The NBA is setup to encourage mediocrity. If you are lousy, you get some draft picks that make you mediocre. From that point on you get to pick in the midteens and really can't significantly improve your starting five, since there are usually only about ten or starters in each draft. You have to swing for the fences and draft kids like Blatche in the late teens. If you want to get a championship you have to have the resources in place to teach these kids the basics.

Get what you say about "co-production" though. It takes two to tango.

[fishercob]

FWIW, Blatche was viewed as such a high risk of ever reaching the potential of his talent that he didn't go under the middle of the second round -- not the late teens.

[closg00]

Great read TSW. I've always been a big advocate of using the D-League for developing players, as-well as finding talented players who have slipped-through the draft.

I find the Wizards excuse for not using the D-League to be weak at-best. Pech could have been sent there, but the Wiz didn't bring him over sooner for cap reasons, and when they did bring him over, they never sent him to the D-League. No attempt & no excuse.

I hope that McGee is sent to the D-League next-year given 5 other bigs that we have. No need to have him wasting on the bench they same way the did to Pech.

[LyricalRico]

How do the spurs approach this question?

Yep, I was thinking the same thing. However they do it is probably the best way to do it. Although, I'm sure things are much easier to figure out when you have Tim Duncan...

[doclinkin]

I don't know, I've seen a lot of examples lately of big athletic guys who didn't get any minutes early in their career. They move on to another team and guess what? they're just not very good. Kwame. Milicic.

What was Bynum's story? Kobe was ready to run him out of town, and now all of a sudden he's the keystone to their championship run? Was he forcefed minutes or was the coach forced to play him because he was just that good?

Definitely starting to believe the NBA just does not know how to teach fundamental basketball. The last three decades they've relied on college coaches to teach the fundamentals, and they just don't have the culture set up to do it.

Bynum had a Hall of Fame nanny and babysitter and personal Big Man Coach in Kareem. Few other teams have that sort of resource. Sending a guy for a week to an offseason Big Man Camp in Vegas or Hawai'i ain't the same as a daily session on footwork and positioning with a guy with one of the most unstoppable shots ever.

On player development LA does it right, with their cash pool and resources they even have their own personal D-League team, using it regularly. Recall a couple years back when Jordan Farmar played a game for the LA Defense then later that day suited up for the Lakers.

[doclinkin]

How do the spurs approach this question?

The Spurs get many of the best trainers in the world to drill their players on fundamentals, and allow their youngsters to play only a single game a week while they're developing. They have the best system in the world for developing the young puppies, and they get it for free. How? They simply draft Euro talents and stash them overseas until they need 'em and can afford to bring them over.

Also in adding players to the team they tend to select fundamentally sound and --key-- _smart_ players. Otherwise the guy just will not play for Popovich. You play right or not at all. I understand the Spurs were a franchise that EJ looked up to in trying to build a coaching philosophy.

An athletic talent like Ian Mahinmi still has seen no significant PT for the Spurs while Fabricio Oberto holds the spot. (Despite Mahinmi having experience coming up in France). I'd expect Ian simply doesn't learn as quick as they hoped when they selected him in 2005. (Though now i read there was an injury setback this year as well, whatever an 'avulsed bone' is).

[TheSecretWeapon]

EVERYONE talked about the Spurs as being a model organization. I didn't ask them specifically about how they work with young'uns with the big club, but everyone agreed that the Spurs do a first-rate job with the D League.

[doclinkin]

While we're in TheSecretKevin appreciation thread. Here's quotes from the blog re: the Wiz' MVPOALT rankings (most valuable player on a losing team):

* Places where guys have lower MVP scores despite playing more minutes than guys with better scores. Dominic McGuire, for example, ranks sixth, but played the third most minutes. Javaris Crittenton and Mike James had the same MVP score despite James playing 11% more minutes.
* The biggest “game changers” were Gilbert Arenas and Etan Thomas. When Arenas played, the team’s efficiency differential said the team would have won 26.5 more games over an 82 game schedule. With Thomas on the floor, the team would have lost 16.4 additional games. Cast a skeptical eye on those numbers, of course — Arenas played just two games, and the fragile Thomas played just 306 minutes.
* While Javale McGee appears to be a promising youngster, the team was significantly worse this season when he was on the floor. The on/off differentials point to 10.1 fewer wins over an 82-game schedule when McGee was on the floor. The team allowed opponents to score 117.6 points per 100 possessions while McGee was on the floor — they were worse only when Oleksiy Pecherov (121.4) and Antonio Daniels (122.4) were playing. They each got just 7% of the team’s minutes. McGee got 28%.
* Five of the top 8 players are the team’s young’uns — Nick Young, Andray Blatch, Dominic McGuire, McGee and Crittenton.

The TSW blog.

So right, if we'd played McGee heavy minutes instead of Songaila, well we may have won 9 games in total. Hmmn, not sure how well that would have factored in our player development...