Unleash the Little

I was alive when Adelman was coach so I remember that his teams were making the playoffs at the time so it makes a lot of sense why he wouldn't play rookies over PERFORMING veterans. This team is going nowhere and is terrible which makes it a completely different situation and pretty much makes any comparison between the two asinine. Terry is in his own league of incompetence here.

 

Probably because Little has struggled lately and has been hurting the team at times. He hasn't earned the extra time. Hoard was more effective last night . Little is young and has plenty of time to develop his game.

 

Little's last 10 games he has line something like 27%, 16%, 44%. And he looks to me like he is playing a little bit scared. Problem could be he rarely gets to play more than five minutes and he has the pressure of knowing he needs to make some shots. It almost seems he would be better off getting regular minutes in G-league (seems to have helped Hoard) but would that hurt his confidence more?

 

What he needs to do is watch and study the game and continue working on his game. He has plenty of time to not have to rush him or force him. That's the problem with the one and done rule, not all of them are ready to make the next jump and could take them a couple years to be able to. My example of Siakam pretty much showed that and there have been many players with similar paths. Even Steve Nash struggled his first couple years as did Kobe and they are hall of fame level players.

 

Coaches who only worry about developing the rookies don't stay coaching to long. Terry's job is to try and win games. It is not in his best interest to be playing Little who is lost most of the time. Coaches who focus on developing are not usually around to benefit from them when they develop.

 

Stotts just got an extension, and the team has their built in excuse (injuries.) He isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Now would be the perfect time to focus on development. And if they’re not throwing in the towel on the season, then they should actually do their jobs, and find a big, for example.

 

no coach has ever been fired after signing an extension? I am not going to do the research but I bet they still get fired even if they sign extensions. Stotts job is to try and win games. Olshey now you can complain about him needing to get a big, but I doubt stotts is in charge of building or churning the roster, I think he is supposed to win with the roster he has available. I am sure he would rather not be playing Ant or GTJ either since neither of them are very productive, but he is working with what he has. I think the best thing for Little would be going to the G league and getting some run, but that won't happen since the blazers are having to call up their g league players just to fill out the roster.

 

Isn't player development also part of a coaches job?

 

Yes it is, and I bet they are spending a lot of time working with him in Practice and pregame. Player development can take place and the player still doesn't play in games.

 

If Stotts would have been developing instead of leaving CJ and Barton on the bench, we wouldn't have had to trade for Afflalo. The biggest problem with not developing your young talent is that you don't know what you have as a franchise and you end up trading a good piece that could really help. We need a guy at Little's position but he's getting no opportunity. We've seen him put together a string of good games before.

 

he shot 20% last week breh he sucks.

I swear if Little got 20+ minutes every night like Bazesnore does, we would have a better player by now.

 

Not sure that's the case. Ant's best games were early on in the season, started getting more minutes and has been struggling for any kind of consistency and making mistakes. It's the nature of young inexperienced players.

 

Absolutely true. The question is at what point are you willing to live with that in return for giving Ant a chance to learn by playing against the best competition? The obvious caveat is that the team needs to have faith in the young guy's future to make that trade-off.

IMHO, Ant's struggles haven't cost the team any wins and the experience he is gaining is worth it. Would the same be true if Trent and/or Little played more? I may be dead wrong, but I believe it would be.

 

There are so many examples of players who don;t get a chance till maybe their second or 3rd year and had limited playing time till then. This isn't a Stotts issue, it's an NBA issue and a product of players coming out after 1 year of college. Players do no have to be in a rotation their first couple years to develop is all I have been saying and several examples can be brought forth. My Steve Nash was an example and he was a 4 year college player that I watched several times in college and he was amazing, but had limited opportunity his first couple years. Ant, Trent and Little are still very young and have plenty of time to develop.

 

As I said in an earlier post, it isn't a Stotts issue or even an NBA issue. It is common in MLB and to a lesser degree in other sports.

 

Little has a really good handle that will only get better. That's what separates good players from great players. He still needs to work on other parts of his game obviously, but having that handle gives him a higher trajectory.