Nice article on Yahoo Sports. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-w...ov=ap&type=lgns I'm liking the instant credibility Nelson has. He's immediately setting some guidelines and implementing his plans. Discipline and decision-making skills are the two most important additions the W's have added to the team through the hiring of Nelson. Looking forward to the next month of training camp.
<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"The biggest problem they had in not winning games is their free-throw shooting," Nelson said Thursday in an interview at the Warriors' training complex. "You're never going to be much of a team if you don't make your free throws.</div> Amen. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"Unfortunately, two of my best players don't shoot the free throw (well): Jason Richardson and Baron Davis. There's no reason that they don't. ... The onus is going to be on the player, for sure, to make his free throws. You're not in the game (if) you don't make your free throws."</div> Hallelujah! <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">"It's their decision-making that's my biggest concern," he said. "If these players think we're going to launch as many 3's as they did last year, they're mistaken. We're going to shoot (fewer). We're going to be penetrating more, passing more. We're not just going to be shooting 3's at every opportunity."</div> Preaching to the choir! We'll just see how Nelson's out of the box thinking can help a roster that is heavily flawed. I think he's crazy to have joined Mullin because Mullin held a lot of the power and made the hard-to-fix mistakes for offense and defense. We're going to need divine intervention for this one. Can I get an "amen"?
I don't know if these guys are going to handle the pressure this year going from Monty to Nelson. Nelson will be a harder ass. They couldn't even handle Montgomery's light pressure as a coach. If they need a kick in the ass in order to get things done... well, I guess we know what kind of players these guys are. Unmotivated, individually undisciplined, with a weak mental game. Hopefully the screaming, the rigidness to learn how to be flexible as ball players, the "whatever Nelson teaches" can change this team's game and mindset.
If the Warriors imrove free throw shooting and Baron stays healthy, we will have a big chance of making the playoffs.
If Troy Murphy develops a post game or a passing game and plays some defense, theoretically, that could do it for us too as we would have a near-star player doing the job his position role is supposed to do. If Dunleavy could just make better shots to open up the rest of his game, that could help the guards out too. Lots of ifs and hopes. I want to see what Vegas has to say about our odds. I'm guessing instead of numbers and probabilities, it will be a picture of the devil throwing a snowball in his backyard.
I want to stay positive, but free throws are hard to fix for guys like Jrich and Baron. Their type of finesse skills are not too good without leaping. If they have to shoot while standing still and other people watching them, they choke. Guys like Foyle and Biedrins are in a league of their own. While both have some excuse because they are big men (big men typically stink at anything beyond 10 feet of the basket), they are just attrocious. Guys like Erick Dampier and Brendon Haywood shoot better than them and arguably they have more effect than either of the two on most nights. And that's either catching or trying to stay out of foul trouble.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting custodianrules2:</div><div class="quote_post">I don't know if these guys are going to handle the pressure this year going from Monty to Nelson. Nelson will be a harder ass. They couldn't even handle Montgomery's light pressure as a coach. If they need a kick in the ass in order to get things done... well, I guess we know what kind of players these guys are. Unmotivated, individually undisciplined, with a weak mental game. Hopefully the screaming, the rigidness to learn how to be flexible as ball players, the "whatever Nelson teaches" can change this team's game and mindset.</div> I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that the players couldn't handle Montgomery's pressure as a coach. I believe the players mostly didn't understand what he wanted. Sure someone can say I want the team to play good, clean, fundamental basketball. But if that's all you say, maybe like Montgomery did, then you aren't going anywhere. This is where the players, I believe got lost. Unlike Montgomery, we are seeing Nelson talk about how the team will play good basketball and what they will do to play better basketball and to compete. If somehow you are saying that players not understanding what their role is given by the coach as not being able to handle Montgomery's pressure, then you may be correct, but I don't think the two are compatable. I am pretty sure that if not all of the players then most of the players have good working attitudes when it comes to improving their game. The only players who possibly don't are Dunleavy(most times), Foyle, and possibly Baron Davis at times. Otherwise I see Jason, Murphy, Ike, Zarko, Andris, Ellis, and pretty much most of the bench guys as being sufficiently self-motivated to improve their game.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Clif25:</div><div class="quote_post">I don't understand how you came to the conclusion that the players couldn't handle Montgomery's pressure as a coach. I believe the players mostly didn't understand what he wanted. Sure someone can say I want the team to play good, clean, fundamental basketball. But if that's all you say, maybe like Montgomery did, then you aren't going anywhere. This is where the players, I believe got lost. Unlike Montgomery, we are seeing Nelson talk about how the team will play good basketball and what they will do to play better basketball and to compete. If somehow you are saying that players not understanding what their role is given by the coach as not being able to handle Montgomery's pressure, then you may be correct, but I don't think the two are compatable. </div> I think the two are comparable for a few reasons. The bottom line is that a coach like Montgomery prides his team on cerebral play, free throws, making passes, shooting, ball movement (we saw this with inbounds plays and only inbounds plays... why is this?). We didn't have a point guard as a floor leader not even Fisher was a good on court leader than he was a locker room leader. We didn't have any good centers that could catch, finish, pass, or stay on the floor. When our point guards or our centers are all f-ed up it starts to not resemble the style and teams that Montgomery assembled at Stanford. He's had to figure out how Mullin's crappily put together team could win more games than we lose. Unfortunately Montgomery is not that good of a non-traditional lineup coach, he likes a system that can make motion offense work against teams that cannot respond to its plays. They had mediocre bigs like the Collins twins and Mark Madsen that will do their job to pass, rebound, do dirty work, make shots, play smart along with point guards that can shoot, dribble, pass, and play smart. Our centers and forwards can't even do this. Same thing with guards. 4th quarter collapses are pretty evident that when the pressure is on, these guys start missing even the easy ones like layups or free throws. Nobody is guarding these guys and Montgomery isn't pressing the issue to make them worry about it more in order to avoid making guys even more terrible at the foul line. Maybe they need to worry about it more, but that means more pressure and it's better to start the pressure early before the season starts. Something that I'm glad Nelson is doing. I just think they could not handle the pressure of motion offense, not because it wasn't a good fit for them in terms of style and strengths, but they just weren't mentally strong enough to understand what they had to do when they knew it was their play coming up or when the point guards like Fisher and Baron had to be in charge of executing the strategy within that playset. Now maybe Monty was learning a lot too, but he's no dummy when it comes to basketball. The guy was as good as every college coach who inherited a crap team and blamed unfairly by fans and critics. He's just a very different personality and that personality might have conflicted with guys too complex in team chemistry and spoiled, dumb guys who need an ass-kickin to get going. I think it's guys like Nelson who can turn teams around because he can deal with those types and he's Gm-ed before to know how to improve the team over a period of time. A guy like Montgomery is just going to follow Mullin. A guy like Nelson will take charge, I think. He can possibly find some way to win until we get sick of small ball tactics that don't advance us in the playoffs... But that is too far ahead... <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Clif25:</div><div class="quote_post"> I am pretty sure that if not all of the players then most of the players have good working attitudes when it comes to improving their game. The only players who possibly don't are Dunleavy(most times), Foyle, and possibly Baron Davis at times. Otherwise I see Jason, Murphy, Ike, Zarko, Andris, Ellis, and pretty much most of the bench guys as being sufficiently self-motivated to improve their game.</div> I think as much as some guys improve their games, it's all about upside. How much better can some guys become? Will they be stars. if we don't have stars, I don't know how we can get much better unless more guys are well rounded and doing the jobs their position is supposed to do in most offenses and defenses. Also, I forgot to mention that athleticism and cerebral play were both missing last season. We were slow and stupid.
Yeah tough to play a motion offense when you put a player out there who ends up handling the ball a majority of the time. Who prefers to walk it up, dribble, dribble, look for a pass, too late to react, dribble, shoot a fade away air ball. Oh, i am sorry, you did mention him. Slow and stupid Fisher.
... and Dfish's backup is a guy who probably hasn't played organized college ball or as a point guard to know how to do it either (Ellis figured it out on the last game during summer league that he needs to distribute to make everyone else better). oh well none of our guys played organized except for maybe Dunleavy who played at Duke and Jrich at Michigan, but Dunleavy isn't very good as a pro and Jrich's path to play shooting guard instead of forward has been slow. (Understatement). I just want to see smart, fundamental basketball like how the Spurs, Pistons, Kings (4 years ago), and Nets (4 years ago) play. The teams that play great defense together don't need to shoot free throws that well. The scoring and faster paced teams hit their free throws because defensively they will probably lose a few points in the +/- production if they can't get to the line to make up for it. Once the D gets softened up because of foul trouble, they can usually go on huge scoring runs this way. This is extremely obvious, but I think the Warriors do not get it.
