TripleThreat wrote:GustavBahler wrote:Disrespecting kids for their life choices doesnt really get into the spirit of things. Not when they're about to join the team.
From what I'm hearing around the league, promises were made that Robinson would attend and participate in the NBA Combine. Also apparently some people put their reps on the line to help him try to smooth out some of the issues from Western Kentucky, and deeper, from New Orleans. Not attending essentially burned those people.
I recognize it is a strategy at times to not participate in the Combine if you've got a back channel situation with a franchise already worked out in advance, but this was more akin to impulsive/irresponsible/out of touch.
The college thing is obviously a problem. Not attending the Combine was a much larger issue and started to establish a pattern of behavior.
Players who do miss the Combine typically don't have to answer for a situation like Western Kentucky. I mean the kid went AWOL. I don't care what was said in the open press, the kid went completely AWOL.
Argue all your wish if the Western Kentucky situation was overblown or good or bad or whatever. BUT NOT ATTENDING THE COMBINE MAKES NO SENSE. Again, I don't care what reasoning is given or what is said in the open press about it, it literally makes no sense at all if Robinson was committed first and foremost to being an NBA player........
Mitchell Robinson skipped the NBA Combine. That was just infinitely dumb. You can argue if anyone else is disrespecting him, but the end, the person who disrespected Robinson the most and his career aspirations was Robinson himself. 90 percent of everything in life is just about showing up in the first place.
Triple Threat - all that you say about Robinson is true. That is the bad news.
The good news is that because of all that, he fell to us at #36 pick. If he had attended W KY and/or the combine, we wouldn't have had the chance to draft him. He would have been picked earlier. It was a high risk; high reward choice made by the Knicks mgmt.
So now it is up to the Knicks coaches and mgmt to work with Robinson and bring him along as a mature adult and a first string basketball player. For me, I will cut the kid some slack. Root for him. Watch his development over the 2018-19 season and evaluate then. And hope for his sake as well as for the Knicks and us here on the forum, that he does well.
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
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