Well, I thought was just about as positive as a rout loss can be. It's fun being able to see Mirotic's offensive game start to come together. I think he's going to be better once he learns NBA personnel. He looked so much more confident playing against Joel Freeland, who he knows from the ACB, than he did other players. Over his last five games, Mirotic is averaging 9 ppg, 5 rpg, 15 min, .471 fg%, .375 3pt%. I think that is close to exactly what Rosenthal predicted on the season. That's real honest to goodness bench production. And not for nothing, but 24 pts is 2 pts off of Taj Gibson's career high. Dougie M is struggling. His timing is off and I think he's regressed a little from the start of the season. I feel like he needs extended minutes to regain his form. Those should be available somewhat soon because Dunleavy looks injured.
This is interesting: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=11910520&ex_cid=espnapi_public David Thorpe did a segment at ESPN on how/why rookies have struggled this season and in the recent past. He uses Mirotic and his lack of understanding of personnel as his explanatory example. Thorpe's theory is that there's more info and its easier to teach that info to experienced players, so rookies who are not aware of opposing personnel are being consistently put in bad positions. Neat stuff.
You ain't lyin', that was interesting. Thorpe certainly demonstrated that, as Stacy King likes to say, "Know Your Personnel" is very important and something that puts rookies at an immediate disadvantage vis a vis vets. It seems to me that this applies more to defense than offense though.
I haven't seen a formal study of this, but I wonder if rookie production has slowed in the last five years due to the advent of Big Data and IT in game preparation. Maybe the schemes and scouting reports are a lot more complicated now. I've heard anecdotes about this from players, and it'd make sense that a rookie would have an especially difficult time with everything. That being said, I'm still not worried about the rookies. When I watch both I get the feeling it's not a matter of if, but when. Doug has a little more of an uphill battle since his tools are worse. Mirotic looks like he'll be a force as soon as he can tone down the stupid fouls and pump fakes, but you have to figure that will fade with time.
