Post#208 » by JohnStockton » Sun May 1, 2016 6:18 am
Furthering some conversation in this thread--I do think Jeremy has a mentality/confidence problem. Mainly though, I feel that he has issues with his approach of the game--namely that he has a very rudimentary way of approaching the nuances of the sport.
For example, he was (IMO) undeniably timid last game in the first half when he elected to take all of those shaky looking jumpers instead of driving. Did he play like that because he's a pansy? Nah, of course not. If he was soft, games 3+4+5 would have never happened--and if he was mentally weak, he would've obviously never made it in this league after being undrafted. He's a tough player, tough guy--and he's historically never gotten a fair level of credit from the NBA audience for his high level of perseverance both in-game (when he takes all the hits he does), and also just in an overall sense of who he is.
That being said, when he comes out and lays a stinker game, it used to confuse me--because most of his stinker games involve him settling for a style of play outside of his strengths (like Game 6). Why did Jeremy consciously elect to shoot jumpers right at the start of his stint until the end of it, especially when his J is completely broken? Why not just keep driving? Even more perplexing to that decision is that Miami actually put more pressure on him on the PnR by trapping him in Game 5 (and he responded well)--but here comes Game 6--and they did not trap, so he should've theoretically had an easier pathway to driving hard. But he didn't... What the hell? Makes you wonder if his ankle was messed up--but then he seemed to be pretty fast still in the second half, and drove plenty of times. Too hard, actually. So what was going on?
What can you say except it was probably a mentality issue? What else would lead a guy to do something so tactically stupid? The worst part is that I've seen this story before. Some games he comes out of the gate, and he's going to play to his strengths all the way, whether it works out or not. Other games, he just sits back and it seems like he's waiting for the game to come to him--then it doesn't happen--and he's already wasted his time being invisible, never having gotten into a rhythm. Sometimes he tries a happy medium (like Game 6), and is this fake aggressive where he takes his shots, but they're all from the perimeter and he visibly shoots with zero confidence. It's like he's taking his shots just to tell himself that he stayed aggressive--but I never had any faith that those jumpers were going to go in when he shot them--and it looked like he felt the same when he shot them.
So what's with this guy right? He's not mentally weak inherently--otherwise he wouldn't have gotten to this point in his career (while dropping his semi-regular great performances)--but he's also not consistently strong either. One could make an argument that he's mentally average, but I don't even think you could even say that he's a middle of the pack type of guy--because he has these great games semi-regularly where he's completely in the zone and the most confident guy on the court--and then he has games with zero swag.
So is Jeremy just a nutjob? Prototypical sixth man?
Over time, I've come to think that the answer to all his mentality issues is just that the guy is REALLY CONSCIOUS of his strengths and weaknesses at all times. The main problem is that he just thinks too much. It seems to me that even in-game, he's always conscious that he's very good at driving to the rim, and he also knows that the other team knows this, so he's always trying to recognize when the opposing team is packing the paint against his drives. He's always thinking--sometimes not reacting--and in that mind, he is also aware of the scary fact that his shot is subpar. He knows all that stuff. So he saw Miami packing the paint against him, and he thought the logical thing to do was to shoot his midrange J to counter them. Problem is, of course, he also knows his shot is worse than subpar right now--it's broken. So the mind**** occurs. He doesn't drive because of inner-logic and reasoning, and then he shoots a J, but his Js are going to brick before he even shoots them because of his inner-critic. He screws himself up way too often like this--and so in the second half--he forcibly tried to turn off the logic brain and just tried to drive recklessly. Didn't work. He wasn't in any flow. Had no feel for the game.
This is half of the reason I'm on the verge of giving up on the guy as a top-third level Starting PG. He has a tendency to defeat himself before the opponent even gets to him. The other half of the reasoning is because of the lack of tremendous growth in his skill-set over the years--I've just been very disappointed in his approach to learning the game.
To me, it's always seemed obvious that Jeremy feels out of place in the league because he's Asian, and that his response to that has been to keep his inner-circle of bball connections pretty closed off. He's been with his no-connection agent, his personal bball trainer (also an Asian guy), and his High School coach (for shooting) since his Undrafting. You can call that loyalty, but it's also a failure to step outside of his comfort area to grow. It's only been last off-season where it seemed like he started to accept himself and his place in the league more, and actually tried going out of his circle a little bit to find some help with his midrange game and handles--and guess what--now his mid-range actually exists, and his handles have improved the most visibly since any other season.
Who would've thought bro? People who exist outside your inner-circle can teach you things they can't.
So why did this dude wait to go outside of his circle until now? It's probably just because he felt socially out of place in the NBA landscape (which he's talked about plenty of times) to seek help among the established landscape, but that's a choice that has been insanely stupid and hurtful for his growth.
Case in point, In regards to his previous 3 off-seasons (before this last one)--the training his inner-circle gave him has always been focused intensely on shooting spot-up 3s, and finishing on drives off the triple-threat--the former is something I have no issue with (since it was a weakness), but the latter was something he's always been good at--and the fact that they didn't regularly make it a point to drill post/iso/midrange moves is what really damns their process in my eyes. What the hell was the point of such a limited regimen? Even his (recent) inclusion of a mid-range moves (which he should've been working on since his Drafting) only came to pass because he had to play in Byron Scott's antiquated offense where those were the only shots he could get--so really--Jeremy only chose to implement the midrange game in the middle of his Lakers season when he had no other option. And only after that wreck of a season, did Jeremy (by himself) actually understand the value of a midrange game, and add it to his game. How ridiculous is that, that his inner-circle of trainers didn't have the basketball IQ to realize a driving-point guard needed a midrange counter to his drives (not a major dose of spot-up 3 point drills?!?). This total lack of intelligence in approach (to me), would typically come off as incredibly lazy to me--except that it's well documented that Jeremy puts hard work in every off-season--so I know he's not lazy, but that just leaves the option that he's always been training incredibly stupid in favor of staying inside his niche.
It's just annoying as a fan of basketball to have watched this guy's journey, wanting him to grow into a talented Starting caliber player, but seeing such a poor approach along the way. For a Harvard grad, the guy has always trained so narrow-mindedly--which pains me, because he also works very hard. Just very hard in a stupid way--inefficient. But back on topic, for someone's comment in this thread, he's a lot better than Jarrett Jack--and especially Larkin (Come on dude, seriously?).
I think Jeremy is already an average starting caliber PG in this era (a golden era of PGs), so that's pretty good--but I also think his potential has always been higher than this--and I'm disappointed that he's probably not going to reach it because of his poor approach (which have always been fixable). I really wish he would have had a HOF-talent level coach to help him out when he was younger, because I think that could have taught him a broader vision of what the game really is. As is--Jeremy has always had a mindset that is too literal--too un-nuanced. He's never developed the eye to see the nuance of the skills he actually needed to acquire for his game.
TLDR: Jeremy sucks, but I think he'll have a great game tomorrow.
On October 31, 2009, against the Kings, a bat descended onto the court causing a stoppage of play. As the bat flew past, Ginóbili swatted the bat to the ground with his hand. He then carried the creature off the court, earning the applause of the crowd.
