Who's Our Backup Center......Joel Freeland

It's a big NEGATIVE about our organization that this type of thing can happen, and it's why we have sucked for the last decade. It's exactly what eventually got Nate fired. You can't develop a player in practice and D league stints.

Development and experience happen on the court playing against superior players in games that matter.

 

I completely disagree. I also think Leonard will have plenty of chances to prove he's worthy of playing time. This was completely different than Nate, since Nate would not play a rookie, even if he was better than the starter. In this case, Leonard is clearly not the best back-up.

 

Nearly all dominant centers have an unstoppable offensive trait, whether it's an outside jumper (Duncan), a sky-hook (Kareem), the ability to direct a passing scheme from the top of the key (Walton) or referees who allow him to knock defenders down with his big fat butt without calling a foul (Shaq).

Leonard's shooting and passing skills are already better than most starting centers currently in the league. And he can do it all on the run, which is nearly unheard of for a guy his size. If Stotts and his staff can't teach him enough basic footwork and holding techniques to lift his defense above a scrub like Freeland then we need to get a new coach right now.

 

This 'working on the three point shot' thing is really tired and overblown. There are 24 hours in a day. A human can only lift weights for so long before it becomes detrimental. A ball player can only work on low post skills and defensive drills for so long, before the work out is done. There should be plenty of time left over in the day for a guy to work on just shooting the ball, including shooting threes in case it happens to come up in a game, or even just for fun. I don't see what all the brew-ha-ha is about. Working on Center skills and working on shooting skills are not mutually exclusive. I remember players routinely having half court shooting contests after practice. Did that distract or detract from their games?

Meyers 'sucks' at playing center in the NBA, in some people's opinion, because he isn't good enough 'yet' and he needs a lot of work on a lot of facets of the game over the next two years. Working on shooting the ball isn't the reason he 'sucks' as an NBA center, and I doubt it is a significant distraction from what is undoubtedly his primary focus of learning how to play the center position.

 

Tiresome? How about looking at the other angle? The only reports on "his workout" was lifting weights and three point shooting. If his "three point shooting" workout was like 5% of his time, then it probably would be worth reporting. The fact that this was someone Leonard specified what he was working on was disturbing. There wasn't "I'm working on defense and floaters" like Lillard professed this summer.

 

If you are hired to be a trumpet player and you practice the trumpet every day but your heart is in playing the guitar and you spend lots of time practicing guitar in your "off time", you're probably not going to become very good at the trumpet - especially if you don't have much of an aptitude for the trumpet in the first place, even if you can hit a double-C.

On the other hand if you're not very good at the trumpet but it becomes clear that you will lose your livelihood if you don't improve and you try really, really hard to improve and you have some success, then you should probably play in front of the other guy.

 

Wow that made a lot of sense!

 

Maybe I'm over-reacting and maybe it just really isn't his fault but does this reflect on coach Kim at all?

 

pick your poison. If you blame Kim for Leonard, then you must praise him for Freeland.

 

I thought of that after I posted.

 

Leonard's problem is court awareness, caused by lack of eyeball rotation, caused by necessity to wear contacts, caused by vanity of all players since Kurt Rambis.

 

Trail Blazers: Joel Freeland 'excited' about rotation spot, more relaxed in second season

 

Whatever these guys learned in the summer, helped Freeland and regressed Leonard. By the end of Summer League I was already posting that Leonard had gotten worse since the regular season.

Freeland's many years of pro experience allowed him to decipher the coaches' message. We forget how experienced he is. That's why he makes $3 million per year.

 

Who you think you son of a bitch?!?!

 

Now everyone has to read 3 full pages to find out who you're talking to.

3 pages clicked times 50 readers = millions for Denny

 

He must have meant to post it here.

http://sportstwo.com/threads/249432...HX-10-30-7PM?p=3131183&viewfull=1#post3131183

Whew. None of us in this thread are SOBs. That was a close one.

 

It was close enough to blow the toupee off that bald head of yours!