Posted by islesfan:
Posted by Bippity10:
D'Antoni is more concerned with evaluating his players and determining who will fit his system a few years from now then he is in changing his system and trying to maximize wins for this current sorry squad. LB was the same way. We fired him though. Kept the players. Good choice. I say we do it again.
[Edited by - bippity10 on 12-01-2009 11:44 AM]
Evaluating how? In his short practices? In the games where they play disjointed and without any appearance that they're being coached?
Larry Brown tried to practice them and implement his style and what he wanted on the court. Of course the team was a bunch of lazy players and jackals that were enabled by a sabotaging GM, Team President and Owner.
Isles, I'm shocked at how little realization there is on your part of how low this team was before this season. I'm shocked at the overall lack of understanding of the psychological component of the game. 34 games with a team that has 3 years of the worst habits in the NBA. Not sure what you expected. Let's try reducing it to the absurd. I wish I knew he the coach was that you respect, but let's just use Phil Jackson as an example. Let's say you give Phil Jackson a line-up of Eddie Curry, Darius Miles, Oliver Miller, Frank Williams and Steve Francis. Do you think Phil Jackson could turn that team in to a defensive squad that ran his system to perfection. Do you think he could turn that line-up into a hustle unit? Do you think that at any point in the season that squad would be running an efficient offense with the ball zipping around, all 5 guys touching it for open lay-ups? Do you think they would look much better after 34 games then they did at game 1? It would be absurd to think that would happen. How long would it take for that team to become a cohesive unit? The answer is that they would never change. Eight seasons with the greatest coaches in NBa history would not change that team. Why? Because their habits are set.
The only thing that seperates this team from that team, is youth and a wee bit more motivation. We don't have quite as many years of bad habits. But the truth is Nate, Wilson, Al, Jared, David, Eddie have played for losing teams all their careers. They have been mentored and learned the game from other losers. From other selfish players. When it all breaks down they fall back on these habits that they learned from Steph and Stevie and Eddie. It's amazing how few people realize how difficult it is to change these habits. These are the same players, making the same mistakes they did under LB and/or Isiah. At some point you have to realize that there is no magic coach to change them.
Now the question is why is it that as the seasons go on our teams don't improve? The answer lies somewhere in the LB season where everyone said it was okay for the players to quit. I told you that would haunt us for years. I told you it would be near impossible to get rid of. The mentality for all our players is the same. When the going gets difficult............retreat. When the defense gets tight, go one on one. This was taught by Eddie and Steph and Steve etc. It was passed on to Nate and David. It still stays to this very day.
We all know that noone is changing their minds on where they stand right now. That's fine. But the reality is, that no matter who is coach, you will not see much change until you change the roster or give it a heck of a lot more time. But this is NY so it doesn't surprise me that for the 3rd time in 4 seasons we are saying that the coach is quitting on the players. We continue to be in denial that this team is in the same class at the Timberwolves etc.
: Ok, guys we need to take more 3s.
1/12/2009 2:54 PM
