Say it ain't so.. DJ shooting jumpers??!!!

[nickhx2]

i know you like to hang on to the idea that dj is a dummy or doesn't have the mental level to do these things. but honestly sometimes people are just really bad at certain things. doesn't mean you're smart or dumb or don't have the brainpower, or awareness, or lazy, necessarily. you know how some people are just disasters while driving? i think of it like that. really, it's just people being human.

another way i look at it is that everything in life is about learning. some people are terrible audio listeners. but write it down and they'll immediately get a complete handle on things. that's me. say something to me 10,000 times and i'll probably never understand it, and it's not for lack of trying. deandre might very well be the same way where, no amount of reps in the world will cement his muscle memory and make him a better ft shooter. in fact he's probably godawful at anything that requires any kind of coordination or synchronization that involves precision with his body. contrast that to a guy like stephen curry who is once in lifetime and i think that you can see that if people can be blessed, they can also be cursed.

[Ranma]

You have a well-reasoned take, nick, but I'm not buying it. If it's a matter of a different approach to learning, then why hasn't he taken it upon himself to discover that about himself? It's not like he has dyslexia. His mental fragility pre-dates his tenure with the Clippers and has been documented during his time at Texas A&M, which is why he fell into the second round of the 2008 NBA Draft despite being talked about as a top-5 prospect previously.

Vinny Del Negro didn't think much of him to an absurd degree, but Doc also wasn't inclined to keep him upon his arrival when he would have dealt him for an aging Garnett before the NBA nixed it. Now obviously, VDN and Doc's talent evaluation skills are not something to hang our hats on, but it took Doc massaging his ego and blowing smoke up his butt to get him to play more up to his potential.

Obviously, DJ is more effective with the carrot over the stick approach, but he comes off as more soft and stupid than he does as misunderstood. Despite his physical gifts, he's been an over-rated defender since Doc's defensive schemes cover up for his lapses in coverage. That doesn't mean he hasn't been good, but I feel that he coasts on his athletic ability, which is certainly tremendous. However, his lacking mental acuity keeps him from being a dependable player outside of his iron-man streak of being available to play games. Griffin has even had to sublimate his own rebounding instincts in order to appease DJ's on-court ego and help his board totals.

Having said that, I recognize that he does put in the work to stay fit enough to play full NBA seasons. I'm not saying he doesn't work hard on certain things. His athleticism is his bread-and-butter so he certainly focuses on maintaining that aspect to a high degree. Professional football players do that as well, but the majority of them are not thought of as intelligent.

This is a guy who still thinks that he needs more offensive touches despite not showing a consistent offensive game outside of dunking. The Mavericks even used that misguided desire to sell him on the idea that he'd be the focal point of their offense. Does that sound like an Einstein-level intellectual to you?

Speaking of which, this is a dude that committed to signing with the Mavericks after being wined and dined by Cuban and Parsons only to have cold feet and reach out to his teammates in order for them to have to come out and visit him in Houston to smooth over his insecurities and keep him from talking to other teams because he couldn't even trust himself to not change his mind again. Just because it all worked out in our favor doesn't change the fact that the guy is an overly sensitive mental midget.

[nickhx2]

As someone who's done a lot of things competitively and has learned many different skills, and also someone who has enjoyed teaching and coaching some of those skills, i've never once found it to be even remotely as easy as you seem to suggest. If you know the secret to conquering something simply by taking a different learning approach by all means tell me, cause i'd be literally the richest and most powerful person alive on this planet. I wish it were as easy as just trying different methods till you get there.

Learning requires effort yes, and different approaches when others fail, yes. But someone who is learning also has to have a certain aptitude to learn, absorb, and then apply that as well. You know how some people in life are just really good at everything they do? Those are the guys who have that aptitude. But they're way ahead of the game, because others don't carry the same aptitude to learn multiple things easily, and some are just hopeless. Jordan's not hopeless in everything he does but in certain aspects he very well may be. You could never in a million years train him to do what hakeem could do because he doesn't have that affinity.

Let me be clear. I think jordan works hard. But i also don't discount he maybe isn't working as efficiently or as intelligently as he could be, because maybe it is that. But on that same token i find it absurd to reduce his problems to just that when he could very well just be someone who doesn't have the ability to learn precision muscle skills.

Anyway, this whole conversation is extremely sour and while i'm no jordan fan it's borderline pointless to discuss this with you because you're so far into hating him that you'd rather believe he's just too dumb and lazy to learn skills. My take ends here.

[Ranma]

My apologies, nickhx2. I didn't mean to sour the conversation for you, but yeah, I'm not going to hide my disdain for DJ. I've followed his entire NBA career since he's been a Clipper throughout and I've given him the benefit of the doubt early. However, time and again, he's disappointed not just in offensive production but also his approach.

Look, I'm not unreasonable enough to think that any athlete should do whatever basketball skill is out there such as a center being a passing magician, but we're talking about free throws here. It is one of the most basic and fundamental skills out there. You can even have bad form and still be passable at the free-throw line as long as you repeat the same motion with consistency. So for a fluid athlete like Jordan not to be able to solve that issue when his buddy Blake and other notable players like Karl Malone have made significant improvements along with most NBA players regardless of position can make at least 70% of their free throws and with about 80% of active NBA players being able to hit at least 65% from the charity stripe, it sends a red flag to me. Of course, you can point to Shaquille O'Neal or Wilt Chamberlain as great players who are bad free-throw shooters, but just like he's not Bill Russell, DJ ain't Shaq or Wilt.

You also mentioned Hakeem Olajuwon, which reminds me of why he (and Blake) would choose not to enroll in his big-man camp when "The Dream" offered them both an inviation to do so. Like you said, it'd be unrealistic for DJ to be the next Dream, but Olajuwon was able to get improvements from other NBA players at the time, so it was curious to me for DJ not to want to learn from an NBA great when he's talking about how he deserves All-Star recognition and wanting more offensive touches nowadays.

I've already detailed the numerous examples of his mental shortcomings but even then I didn't even mention the incident where he didn't even have enough court sense to put a shot up underneath the basket with time left in regulation despite Chris Paul frantically alerting him to do so. Come on. Certain people just are not that sharp and DeAndre Jordan hasn't really given off the impression to think otherwise.