Channing Frye- My favorite player on the team love the work ethic and improvement. He clearly needs to work on his defense, which is borderline pathetic. He clearly needs to get stronger. I'm not worried about these areas because he has not shown me he does not have an urge to improve. What scares me about him is how his head immediately goes down when we start to lose. This is a confidence issue, a "oh here we go again" gesture. We have to be relentless in beating this out of him. This is not an attitude we can have on a winning team when we do start winning. To improve this we must be aware of this and unfortunately he must be subbed out at the first sign of it. No compromise

David Lee-see above

Nate-Love the guys enthusiasm. Most guys that have posted with me for a while no I love the underdog. I love his unbridled enthusiasm. But that flexing during a 33 point loss bothered me immensley. These were the guys I played against that I knew where mentally fragile. These were the guys I knew all I had to do was say one thing and they would be more concerned with showing me up than winning the game. This mentality is the mentality of a guy that has lost focus. We must beat this out of him. LB has already reminded him that Qyntel was out of the league even though he was drafted at the same spot. Clearly a message to Nate not to get comfortable and realize that it's a priveledge to be where he is. He must refocus or all his talent is going to be in Europe and we are going to be wondering what happened to him.

Qyntel-Isn't it funny how the guy that was booted out of the league seems to be the most obedient and hungriest. He could become complacent and back to the old Qyntel, but right now he is a magnifying glass on the rest of our players.

Jackie Butler-Fundamentally sound. Plays hard nightly. Never loses confidence. Talks to the coach instead of whining to the press. No coincidence that he had to earn his way into the league as well. Guys like him, Kevin Ollie, Raja Bell never seem to have to have guarnateed minutes to play the game the right way

Trevor-This guy is headed down the path of Frank Williams. Luckily for him he has a better built in work ethic. IN the olden days 19 year olds stayed in college(like most should so we wouldn't have to have these conversations), then they got drafted and kept their mouths shut. Now 19 year olds with no jump shot and minimal fundamental skills are no longer soaking up knowledge to become great players, now they are whining and complaing about hall of fame coaches.

Curry-Only plays hard 35% of the time. But this is understandable considering he has never had a coach that challenged him. I have faith that LB can turn him but the jury is still way out. He still has the opportunity to be a great player and he still has the opportunity to be what Islesfan says he will be. The more we blame the coach the closer we get to Islesageddon

Jamal- A few years ago I made a pact not to say anything about Howard Eisley because when I did it just made me sad/angry. I"m getting to that point with Jamal. So I will not say anything about him. But I will scold the fans who claim that this guys defense has gotten better. How bad was he before?????? Watching him, it really doesn't even look like he is trying. People keep saying that LB took his confidence, well if this is true does he really have a chance of ever becoming a good basketball player?????

Let me know if I"m missing anyone. Talking about Jamal has gotten me all bent out of shape.

Bip, I am pretty much agreeing with you on everything you said, but I have been trying carefully to pay attention to a couple of things on the court.

Channing on defense. I really think he is working hard on it, and hasn't been "Pathetic." Not good at all, but not pathetic. He certainly is trying his hardest though and is ALWAYS putting a hand up. But I think it's mainly just his hesitation on the help b/c he doesn't know WHEN to do it. I think a big thing though, is that the guards have to keep their guys in front of him, or else the frontcourt wouldn't be flooded with driving guards all the time.

I think the same goes for Lee.

I still am keepin' the faith in Jamal and hoping that he can become an at least adequate defender. But currently, he's making H20 look like a friggin' all NBA first team defense. He's that bad right now.

I'm not down on Channing. It's clear that he and David have great work ethic and are struggling because they are being asked to guard players that they never have been asked to guard before. But if you watch the way he plays angles it's pretty sad. IT's clear he's never played the perimeter before. Unfortunately when you play angles poorly it puts other teammates at risk, leaves you out of position for help defense, rotations and back door cuts. Some baskets are made and it's his fault but unless you were watching the d closely you won't see it. He'll get better but right now it's this lack of knowledge on basic defensive concepts that are killing our team.

As bad as he is. As much as we don't want to see them on the court, these basic defensive concepts are why AD and Malik still walk on the court every night.

allanfan: I'll give you an example of what I mean right now. I'm watching the Hawks game. Channing is guarding Pachulia at the top of the key. Harrington has the ball even with Pachulia about 22 feet from the hoop to Channing's right.

Instead of dropping off Pachulia he is overplaying him like he is a leading 3 pt shooter. Pachulia proceeds to go back door and is wide open. Curry rotates and picks up the foul.

Next play same exact scenario. Pachulia goes back door again and beats Channing. Fortunately Mo Taylor and Curry recognize the situation and rotate and prevent the pass. Unfortunately the rotation allows Harrington to finds Josh Smith open who then swings it to JJ for a wide open shot. Two trips later it has become obvious that both LB and the Atlanta coach recognize what is going on.

The Hawks for the fourth time in a row set up their offense with the exact same scenario again. This time you can clearly hear someone(sounds like Brown) yelling at Frye to drop off. He does. There is some ball movement around the horn and magically(or by design) we are set up in the same positions again. This time Channing oges back to his habits and overplays yet again, almost like he is playing post defense. Pachulia cuts again. Channing makes the adjustment and cuts with him. But unfortunately he cuts with his back to the ball yet again because he was overplaying. Harrington recognizes that Channing is almost fencing off the help defense as he cuts through the paint and starts to penetrate. Channing turns at the last instant and commits the foul almost in self defense.

LB subs him out and immediately goes down to have an animated conversation with him. He's going to learn, but unfortunately these little things are what keep you off the court from time to time.

Yeah, you're right with that one Mck1. That was probably the first coach to do it to him. It will be a disservice to trade a guy like that again without ever giving him a chance to play a couple years for a coach that will challenge him. Or firing the coach and bringing in a coach that will guarantee him minutes in a "set rotation". Either way Curry will never develop until he is faced with a sitution where he is forced into accountability by the coach to play to his potential instead of being spoonfed minutes so that "he can have confidence"

Sports are really starting to mirror our society.

yes. Thanks. This was good.

Anyone know what kind of defenses Channing and Lee played in in college? Zone? Man to Man? Those 2 probably sat in the middle of the lane for most of their years.

In that scenario if Channing takes two steps off his man, puts a foot in the paint, he stops penetration from Al and prevents the backdoor cut without effort and forces Atlanta to try something new. "see the man, see the ball". Most of us should have this down pat by the time we are in the 5th grade. So simple, but so valuable. He does this he probably also plays 35 minutes instead of 25. Little things like this can destroy your defense without people noticing it is your fault. Allanfan I have no doubt he will pick it up. NO doubt that 2 years from now we won't be having this conversation. But right now it is just one of the things that are killing us. Our guys simply do not understand basic concepts. Some will learn them, some will not and be traded, either way we cannot reward them with guaranteed minutes when they don't grasp these concepts.............Yes I know that you already know this.



[Edited by - bippity10 on 02-02-2006 1:20 PM]

[Edited by - bippity10 on 02-02-2006 1:22 PM]