All Star? I'm not convinced he's a starter in this league. I see a guy who could be an outstanding bench player. A dead-eye 3 point shooter, & pretty good passer/finisher in the open floor. But He has no ability to get his own shot. He doesn't have a step back jumper, a hard dribble/pull up jumper - in fact he doesn't have a mid-range game at all. And He can't get to the basket either. Even if he does get by his defender, he has no moves at the rim. I've seen him try to flip that underhanded thing, and that ugly tear-drop . . . it's not pretty. If he DOES become a starter, it will be on a team that doesn't need their SG to create his own shot. A team like Oklahoma City for instance, who already has KD and Westbrook. There are a few teams like that, but not many. Most teams ask their starting SG to create offense for himself. Rudy can't do that. He needs to be set up. It really bothers me that Rudy is negative about his role. Does he not see the flaws in his game? Does he really think he can be an elite NBA SG? IMO - he needs to add more to his game before he starts whining about not getting PT. Right now, if he's not shooting well he's not worth much out there (there are exceptions - I can think of a FEW games he was 1-9, but did some other things to help the team) And he hasn't been shooting well recently. So what's his problem? Our team needs outside shooting to spread the floor. If we don't have it, we are too easy to defend. We have no interior scoring, so if our shooters aren't knocking down shots it gets pretty ugly at times. As good as Roy is, he needs Batum/Rudy/Martell to knock down 3's to keep defenses semi-honest. If Rudy can start making shots, he'll play - it's that simple. Lock back at the box scores from the beginning of March when he was on fire. MPG: 31, 20. 26, 27. But since March 19th, he's 6-37 (16%) and 5-26 (19%) on 3's. What does that have to do with the way he's being used by Nate? He can't hit the broad side of a barn right now, and it's not like he's making up for it by getting to the FT Line, or playing lights out defense, or setting other guys up. Shut up and let your play speak for you Rudy.
I'm sure he thinks he can be. Self-confidence that borders on the delusional is what drives many/most professional athletes to the heights that they've reached. I remember reading something an old ex-baseball player (who had been good but not great in this career) said (paraphrased): "Once I lost the belief that I was the best, I lost the edge that allowed me to play at the major league level." This was at something like age 33, not 25. Basically, it seems that to reach a level that like 0.01% of all athletes will reach, you have to have extreme, extreme confidence in your abilities. On that note, if it's true that Webster has great talent but his mind holds him back, then my guess would be that he doesn't have that enormous confidence in his own abilities. He doesn't think he's the best. I'm not at all convinced that he is, actually, highly talented...but that's a possibility.
Have you stopped beating you're wife? I never thought he would be an allstar but I thought he'd be better than he's shown. Of course, he's played a lot of games with a bad back and lately a bad leg, and he's not exactly a featured player on our team. I'm going to withold judgement until he starts a season healthy and rested (please no summer euro games this year). OTOH, he clearly should be available for trade, so it might not matter.
I swear Rudy and Sergio have the same interpreter. "I don't know why, but the coach doesn't have confindence in me anynore" Isn't that what Sergio was saying for the last two years. Then he is traded and really doens't do much with his other teams. I wish Rudy would look at his game and look at how Sergio was blaming Nate and how he is now doing on other teams. Rudy doesn't need a new coach, he needs to pick up his game. What better place to find his game than in a city where fans adore him no matter how he performs . . . I wish he would get that.
Absolutely. Sergio could not have been presented with a more ideal situation than starting at PG on a Knick team going nowhere, at least in terms of showing off his "famed" open-court skills. Instead, he was benched with a few weeks due to lack of production. Amazingly, Sergio average more APG in Nate's system, while playing less minutes, than he has in 22 games of D'Antoni ball this year.
