Jonas Valanciunas Summer Discussion II

[ATLTimekeeper]

2 more games left and he's ours. The coach is a moron. I want to see what he does with VAL against USA.

10 minutes - 5 pts - 4 reb anyone?

No, he'll get minutes. Kemzura will hang him out to dry against the US. Book it.

[Y0DA]

Lately this thread reminds me of Italians who come on RealGM and whine incessantly about how the coach doesn't subjugate the good of the Raptors to make Bargnani's individual performances seem better.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

Nervous about this matchup. Are his feet good enough?

[HSOB SIRHC]

Can't wait to see Davis vs Jonas for the first time... assuming it's a blowout and Lithuania coach decides to put JV in for garbage time?

[Clementine9]

Long time reader, first time poster. I know there has been a lot of talk about Kemzura and his decision not to play Jonas significant minutes so far in the Olympics but I watched my first Lithuania game today and I was just wondering... Did Jonas sleep with Kemzura's wife, daughter, and sister? I've never seen such blatant hatred of one player. That was my first time ever seeing Jonas play. I don't know a heck of a lot about him but I look forward to finally having a legit centre on our team. Unfortunately I didn't get to see a lot of him for... whatever reason.

Out of the two fouls he got, the first one was something that could have gone uncalled and I'm still trying to figure out what the second foul was for. But after the second foul Kemzura laid into him like he had ran into the stands to play defence. He may have missed some rotation but it didn't look like he really did anything wrong... definitely not anything that warranted a benching for the rest of the game (is it worth even counting the 2 minutes in the 3rd). By the end of the game the most exciting part was the anticipation of Jonas standing up from the end of the bench and walking over to throttle his coach. Whenever they showed the bench I was like "Oh man, here it comes!!" I had chants and everything just hoping it would happen.

Things I noticed in the few minutes he played:
-He doesn't set good screens. This is not a good thing but it's ok in that it's something that you can easily learn.
-He doesn't look too sure how to use his strength yet. Again, I feel with good coaching this will come.
-He rolls to the basket super quickly and I would love to play point guard on his team. That being said, the Lithuanian guards avoided him so many times when he was wide open that it looked like they were freezing him out. It was actually that bad.
-I've read multiple posts that said Jonas wasn't so great with his back to the basket. When I watched the game today, he seemed to recognize he was the tallest player on the court and was able to post up anyone. He looks very fundamental down low and reminds me of Tim Duncan in that sense (though not as good, of course).

Anyways, it's hard to take much more out of the 7 minutes he played or whatever it was. Mostly I want someone to explain to me if there is actually a reason the coach hates him so much. It's really not his fault that he's beautiful. So if Kemzura's wife wants to leave him for Jonas, then they have to work on their marriage, not punish the Raptors fans that are trying to get a glimpse of their draft pick.

If the simple reason is that the coach wanted to play small ball then the coach is dumb. That's quite simply it. Jonas looked like, given minutes, he could have dominated the French down low. Go small with everyone else, and let Jonas play it out. Looks like he can run just fine.

[MEDIC]

Lately this thread reminds me of Italians who come on RealGM and whine incessantly about how the coach doesn't subjugate the good of the Raptors to make Bargnani's individual performances seem better.

I was thinking the same. Fans of the player.....not necessarily the team. Aggrivating for fans of the team.

[Clementine9]

Lately this thread reminds me of Italians who come on RealGM and whine incessantly about how the coach doesn't subjugate the good of the Raptors to make Bargnani's individual performances seem better.

I was thinking the same. Fans of the player.....not necessarily the team. Aggrivating for fans of the team.

Oh did the Lithuanian coach do something for the good of the team today? Serious question, maybe I missed something when I watched it.

[MEDIC]

Lately this thread reminds me of Italians who come on RealGM and whine incessantly about how the coach doesn't subjugate the good of the Raptors to make Bargnani's individual performances seem better.

I was thinking the same. Fans of the player.....not necessarily the team. Aggrivating for fans of the team.

Oh did the Lithuanian coach do something for the good of the team today? Serious question, maybe I missed something when I watched it.

No. Just commenting on all of the Raptors fans calling for the coaches head simply because of JV's playing time & the Lithuanian fans defending the team/ coach.

[Clementine9]

haha ooooh ok. Is the coach generally liked by the Lithuanians? Obviously I'm biased because I do want to see Valanciunas get a chance, but at the same time I want to say my objective mind saw a cranky old man playing old players and benching what looks to be a talented centre (who also happened to be the tallest player on the court). It was actually uncomfortable to watch. I felt bad for Jonas and I was confused as to what all the coach's emotion was about, including the passive aggressive emotion in the form of a permanent benching.

[Dennis 37]

During the time up until Val got assessed the phantom foul, he was no worse than anyone else on the team, yet he is the one that gets yelled at. When he walked past the coach without stopping to listen, I said to myself, "he's not seeing the floor any time soon."

I don't see him playing for this coach again. You don't pick on the young guy, when you've already sat your guard for getting three fouls and said nothing to him.

Remember when the Smitch used the 'I'm not talking to you' strategy with Bargs? This seems almost as stupid.

[Clementine9]

During the time up until Val got assessed the phantom foul, he was no worse than anyone else on the team, yet he is the one that gets yelled at. When he walked past the coach without stopping to listen, I said to myself, "he's not seeing the floor any time soon."

I don't see him playing for this coach again. You don't pick on the young guy, when you've already sat your guard for getting three fouls and said nothing to him.

This.

I thought Jonas handled it very well. I was just thinking that if a coach did that to me I'd flip out. Again, I'd love to know why Jonas was targeted like that. I'm confident Lithuania will want him on the team in four years, but if I was Jonas and Kemzura was still the coach, I'm choosing the Drew League.

[Dennis 37]

During the time up until Val got assessed the phantom foul, he was no worse than anyone else on the team, yet he is the one that gets yelled at. When he walked past the coach without stopping to listen, I said to myself, "he's not seeing the floor any time soon."

I don't see him playing for this coach again. You don't pick on the young guy, when you've already sat your guard for getting three fouls and said nothing to him.

This.

I thought Jonas handled it very well. I was just thinking that if a coach did that to me I'd flip out. Again, I'd love to know why Jonas was targeted like that. I'm confident Lithuania will want him on the team in four years, but if I was Jonas and Kemzura was still the coach, I'm choosing the Drew League.

He could always apply for Canadian citizenship. The Canadian women were beaten by an American-Russian.

[MEDIC]

If Barack Obama was 1/4 black like Kris Humphries and looked caucasian, don't you think all the black people would still be voting for him because he's "black"? It has to do with background, not looks.

Hmmmm........that's a tough one. Comparing it to a government official that will impact your life in some way is kind of tough to compare it to. If Hump was a golfer, I don't think african americans in general would show up to see him specifically. Hump is like a white hick from Minnesota. There really isn't much to relate to there.

If Lin didn't look Asian (like Humphries doesn't look black), it's hard to imagine seeing the crowd at the ACC that night.

My son is 1/4 asian. If he had a Jeremy Lin type situation, It's hard to imagine Asian fans in NYC lining up to see him play. He looks like a white kid with a slight hint of asian in his eyes.

Let's use Australians. If you had a 3rd generation american with Australian background, do you think Aussies in the GTA would line up to see him play because hie grandparents immigrated from Australia?

I don't think they'd care. The kid would be purely a white american kid. Not much to relate to there.

[Clementine9]

During the time up until Val got assessed the phantom foul, he was no worse than anyone else on the team, yet he is the one that gets yelled at. When he walked past the coach without stopping to listen, I said to myself, "he's not seeing the floor any time soon."

I don't see him playing for this coach again. You don't pick on the young guy, when you've already sat your guard for getting three fouls and said nothing to him.

This.

I thought Jonas handled it very well. I was just thinking that if a coach did that to me I'd flip out. Again, I'd love to know why Jonas was targeted like that. I'm confident Lithuania will want him on the team in four years, but if I was Jonas and Kemzura was still the coach, I'm choosing the Drew League.

He could always apply for Canadian citizenship. The Canadian women were beaten by an American-Russian.

Much better idea. I wouldn't mind him considering it .

(That Canada-Russia game was awesome by the way).

[JWiLL02]

I'm hoping the US team blows Lithuania out in the 1st half, so we can get some extended Jonas-Anthony Davis time during the second half.

Seems like that's just wishful thinking though, since it doesn't sound like this coach would give JV major playing time even in a blowout.

[Regulio]

Well Kemzura was praised a lot after winning bronze in WC2010, but now more and more critics emerge. I am almost sure that after Olympics he will leave. We definitely have much much better coaches than him.
Sad situation for Jonas though. In Eurobasket he had more opportunities. Now 1 year later he is getting 5 MPG and his self-confidence is shot.

[Clementine9]

Well Kemzura was praised a lot after winning bronze in WC2010, but now more and more critics emerge. I am almost sure that after Olympics he will leave. We definitely have much much better coaches than him.
Sad situation for Jonas though. In Eurobasket he had more opportunities. Now 1 year later he is getting 5 MPG and his self-confidence is shot.

Lucky for him he's only a couple months away from a situation where everyone wants him to play a lot, step up, and succeed. The Raptors organization seems to have a lot of faith in him. Kemzura's faith in Jonas yesterday lasted a couple minutes at best. I'm interested to see what happens in the game against the United States.

[rmnts]

kemzura is stupid, he let go motiejunas, now he doesn't let valanciunas to play. embarrassing to watch how NT plays.

[Patman]

We should hire Kemzura for training camp, and have JV play against him in intra-squad games. He would destroy. Lol.

[FluLikeSymptoms]

So, can Sabonis fire Kemzura? Maybe he could no-look pass him out the door. I thought Arvydas had a high-level position in LTU basketball.