[Official] The whipping boy thread

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Fez Hammersticks

Fez Hammersticks

スーパーバッド Zero Cool
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GO!​
 
I've lost hope with this kid. Hopefully he would just slow the fuck down. He rushes everything.
 
I think Meyers and TRob are more talented than Freeland but Freeland has put in a lot of hard work during the off season and it shows. So far in preseason Freeland has earned more playing time. Meyers and TRob have not.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
I think Meyers and TRob are more talented than Freeland but Freeland has put in a lot of hard work during the off season and it shows. So far in preseason Freeland has earned more playing time. Meyers and TRob have not.
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In an interview with Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins, Bryant bashed the AAU system and said he's glad he circumvented AAU ball by growing up in Italy.

"I was lucky to grow up in Italy at a time when basketball in America was getting f----- up with AAU shuffling players through on strength and athleticism," Bryant said. "I missed all that, and instead I was taught extreme fundamentals: footwork, footwork, footwork, how to create space, how to handle the ball, how to protect the ball, how to shoot the ball."

Bryant isn't the first current or former NBA star to come out as a critic of AAU. Charles Barkley has been railing on the system for years.

"AAU is the worst thing to happen to college basketball ever," Barkley said in 2011. "I hate AAU more than anything in the world. These kids aren’t getting good coaching. They're playing too many games and not working on their game enough."

Bryant's words also touch on the hotly debated issue of development in the United States versus development abroad. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, a noted admirer of foreign systems, has said that in the United States players can become "coddled." Overseas, Popovich says, there is more of a focus on fundamentals.

It should be noted that several of Bryant's formative years were spent in the United States -- he played high school basketball in Philadelphia. But by that time he says he already noticed a difference between himself and his American-bred opponents.

"I wasn't the strongest kid at that camp," Bryant recalled of an ABCD summer camp he attended in 1994. "I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the most athletic. I was probably the most skillful, but that didn't matter. It was all about the 360 windmill dunks."



I very much agree with this
 
SlyPokerDog said:
I think Meyers and TRob are more talented than Freeland but Freeland has put in a lot of hard work during the off season and it shows. So far in preseason Freeland has earned more playing time. Meyers and TRob have not.
Click to expand...

T rob has shown he can produce and earn time. And he doesn't need to play big minutes. Leonard really hasn't shown much IMO. I think freeland should be our back up center and Leonard should get left overs
 
I'm not ready to write off anyone. Meyers is annoying as shit, but I think we will regret it if we give up on him this soon.
 
Treaty_of_Batum said:
In an interview with Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins, Bryant bashed the AAU system and said he's glad he circumvented AAU ball by growing up in Italy.

"I was lucky to grow up in Italy at a time when basketball in America was getting f----- up with AAU shuffling players through on strength and athleticism," Bryant said. "I missed all that, and instead I was taught extreme fundamentals: footwork, footwork, footwork, how to create space, how to handle the ball, how to protect the ball, how to shoot the ball."

Bryant isn't the first current or former NBA star to come out as a critic of AAU. Charles Barkley has been railing on the system for years.

"AAU is the worst thing to happen to college basketball ever," Barkley said in 2011. "I hate AAU more than anything in the world. These kids aren’t getting good coaching. They're playing too many games and not working on their game enough."

Bryant's words also touch on the hotly debated issue of development in the United States versus development abroad. San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, a noted admirer of foreign systems, has said that in the United States players can become "coddled." Overseas, Popovich says, there is more of a focus on fundamentals.

It should be noted that several of Bryant's formative years were spent in the United States -- he played high school basketball in Philadelphia. But by that time he says he already noticed a difference between himself and his American-bred opponents.

"I wasn't the strongest kid at that camp," Bryant recalled of an ABCD summer camp he attended in 1994. "I wasn't the fastest. I wasn't the most athletic. I was probably the most skillful, but that didn't matter. It was all about the 360 windmill dunks."



I very much agree with this
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much that applies. If I remember correctly Freeland didn't start playing basketball until his late teens. He was very raw when he played in Spain and his first season was unremarkable. I think he's just used to playing catch up skill wise with players who have been playing longer and working his ass off in the off season.
 
Natebishop3 said:
I'm not ready to write off anyone. Meyers is annoying as shit, but I think we will regret it if we give up on him this soon.
Click to expand...

I loved how his post was presented. Your post below accentuated the positive and here comes Fez with the but...Let's address the big ol elephant in the room.

I agree I think you have to be patient with Meyers
 
I still have hope - He's a long-term project.

Though, I don't like that he's looking to shoot a long jumper about every time he touches the ball.

He's 7'1" (and change) 260+ lbs. but he doesn't play anywhere close to his size.
 
Fez Hammersticks said:
I still have hope - He's a long-term project.

Though, I don't like that he's looking to shoot a long jumper about every time he touches the ball.

He's 7'1" (and change) 260+ lbs. but he doesn't play anywhere close to his size.
Click to expand...

100% this. He's jumping like he's playing against players 4" taller than him. He only needs to hold his arms up and only jump when the player jumps like normal centers do.

It's so fucking frustrating man. A player can juke him out of position and fuck it up for the entire team trying to recover
 
No reason Freeland shouldn't get all of the backup 5 minutes.

The less Leonard plays the better. I'd send him to Idaho.
 
Nate, I don't know what you mean.
If you mean give him minutes to "develop" him, then I don't agree.
If you mean don't trade him while he still has some trade value, then I don't agree.
What does "give up on him" mean?

Natebishop3 said:
I'm not ready to write off anyone. Meyers is annoying as shit, but I think we will regret it if we give up on him this soon.
Click to expand...
 
Wizard Mentor said:
Nate, I don't know what you mean.
If you mean give him minutes to "develop" him, then I don't agree.
If you mean don't trade him while he still has some trade value, then I don't agree.
What does "give up on him" mean?
Click to expand...

He hasn't even started his second season. He has some tools that can be developed. The Blazers looked at him as a project coming in. Nobody thought he was going to be a polished star. If they had wanted someone that was polished and NBA-ready, they would have drafted Zeller. Leonard is a project in every sense of the word. If we deal him now, we could be having the same kind of regretful and whiny conversations about him that we have about Jermaine O'Neal.
 
I partially blame AAU ball for the amount of leg (specifically knee) injuries that players are seeing these days.
 
SlyPokerDog said:
I'm not sure how much that applies. If I remember correctly Freeland didn't start playing basketball until his late teens. He was very raw when he played in Spain and his first season was unremarkable. I think he's just used to playing catch up skill wise with players who have been playing longer and working his ass off in the off season.
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I think Joel is more a product of Europe (emphasis on fundamentals) while Leonard is more a product US (emphasis on strength and athleticism). Meyers knows how to dunk. Joel knows where to be on defense.

It kind of sucks for Meyers being so young and thrown in the NBA where the focus is no longer on developing fundamentals and he never really got much training in that in AAU and only 1 yr in college.
 
MickZagger said:
Year round basketball for guys who's bones are still growing. Not good.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. I also think that they're not strengthening the muscles in their legs enough to take some of the stress off their joints. So many guys are super skinny like Will Barton. Shaun Livingston was a twig and his knee finally just gave out.
 
Natebishop3 said:
Why do you say that?
Click to expand...

What Mick is saying. Too many games. I know you can get hurt practicing but these kids should be spending more time practicing and working on footwork than playing 2-4 games a week . . . more during tournament season.


"AAU is the worst thing to happen to college basketball ever," Barkley said in 2011. "I hate AAU more than anything in the world. These kids aren’t getting good coaching. They're playing too many games and not working on their game enough."
 
Natebishop3 said:
That's a good point. I also think that they're not strengthening the muscles in their legs enough to take some of the stress off their joints. So many guys are super skinny like Will Barton. Shaun Livingston was a twig and his knee finally just gave out.
Click to expand...

But those guys are skinny all the way through.

Guys like Oden, Rose, Westbrook were all built solidly and suffered leg injuries.
 
MickZagger said:
But those guys are skinny all the way through.

Guys like Oden, Rose, Westbrook were all built solidly and suffered leg injuries.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but Westbrook's injury was such a fluke.

[video=youtube;bH2kv0MfoSU]

Rose on the other hand was something that could be attributed to too much stress :dunno:

[video=youtube;jo1UlzDeY-o]
 
Yeah Rose just seems injury-prone. Like Wade sort of, but much more serious.

None of those guys were solidly built on the inside, their injuries did not look that bad.
 
Last edited:
RoyToy said:
No reason Freeland shouldn't get all of the backup 5 minutes.

The less Leonard plays the better. I'd send him to Idaho.
Click to expand...

This. I think that Leonard does need game minutes to develop--but not on the big squad. If a big goes down, then bring him back, but for now I think we're covered at the 4/5 spots with LA/RoLo/TRob/Joel/Claver. Seems to me that project players like Leonard are exactly what the developmental league is for.
 
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