You know what irritates me the most? It's not that we're losing games. It's that some of our guys don't even look that they want to win the game. The worst part is Tyreke and Thornton are two of these guys. Game after game I see Tyreke just giving up on defense once he gets caught on a screen. He has the tools to be a good defender, but right now he isn't playing like he wants to win. He strolls back on D, leaves guys wide open and doesn't even bother trying to close on them, etc. Now I know these don't happen the majority of the game, but the fact is they can't be happening at all if you want to win in this league. If a young player wants to win and their team is doing badly, they'll do all they can to try and help the team out. This is not what I'm seeing from Tyreke Evans. I'm seeing a passive player when he doesn't have the ball, and a guy who chooses when he wants to play defense. Tyreke Evans, you are not Kobe Bryant. Your team is far from as good as the Lakers. You DO NOT get to choose when you want to play good individual D.
Thornton on the other hand, simply gambles for steals way too often. We didn't call Kevin Martin a good defender for doing that and we shouldn't call Thornton for doing it either. Thornton just looks different from last year, he isn't as aggressive and is gambling a lot more on defense. He's also not crashing the boards as much. The play where he got stripped and hung his head got me really mad.
Everyone on this team seems to waste a good 2 seconds after every missed shot. Hickson/Tyreke/JT jump around in circles when they don't convert inside shots, Salmons stands there waiting for his 3 to fall (btw, so am I), Thornton hangs his head, Cousins looks at the ref and complains (I believe Tyreke does that too), or is often on the ground after trying to get a rebound (but I don't blame him for that).
On a young, inexperienced, bad team you simply can't be making all these small mistakes. Our offense is bad enough as it is, we can't be giving the other team any room to take advantage of us more than they already are.
The other thread showed in pictures how poor our spacing/ player movement is. My observation is that at any one time, only two guys on the floor are moving. This happens on one side of the floor and the other 3 guys just stand around. It's like watching amateurs rehearse a play for the first time. Everyone is following a script in sequence, so it's like *ok, pass ball to JT**JT moves to get ball*, next person: *ok now I move to top of the key*, next person: *ok now I go set a screen for guy with the ball*. Everyone is waiting for something to happen before they actually move.
I like most of the personnel on the team, but at some point enough is enough. You cannot have an NBA team with players that cannot screen, cannot fight through screens, cannot use screens effectively etc. I'm just waiting for there to be some change, and I understand the challenge the whole team has because of the lack of practices etc, but I just don't even feel like the players are playing hard anymore. Standing around on offense and taking your time on defense is not playing hard. Our team lacks that competitive fire that we had a few years ago, even if the team was less talented back then. I can assure you that the team we have now would never manage that comeback against the Bulls that we had. They all just hang their heads play after play instead of learning from their mistakes and making the necessary adjustments.
Ok rant over. Feel free to contribute anything you have ...
Thornton on the other hand, simply gambles for steals way too often. We didn't call Kevin Martin a good defender for doing that and we shouldn't call Thornton for doing it either. Thornton just looks different from last year, he isn't as aggressive and is gambling a lot more on defense. He's also not crashing the boards as much. The play where he got stripped and hung his head got me really mad.
Everyone on this team seems to waste a good 2 seconds after every missed shot. Hickson/Tyreke/JT jump around in circles when they don't convert inside shots, Salmons stands there waiting for his 3 to fall (btw, so am I), Thornton hangs his head, Cousins looks at the ref and complains (I believe Tyreke does that too), or is often on the ground after trying to get a rebound (but I don't blame him for that).
On a young, inexperienced, bad team you simply can't be making all these small mistakes. Our offense is bad enough as it is, we can't be giving the other team any room to take advantage of us more than they already are.
The other thread showed in pictures how poor our spacing/ player movement is. My observation is that at any one time, only two guys on the floor are moving. This happens on one side of the floor and the other 3 guys just stand around. It's like watching amateurs rehearse a play for the first time. Everyone is following a script in sequence, so it's like *ok, pass ball to JT**JT moves to get ball*, next person: *ok now I move to top of the key*, next person: *ok now I go set a screen for guy with the ball*. Everyone is waiting for something to happen before they actually move.
I like most of the personnel on the team, but at some point enough is enough. You cannot have an NBA team with players that cannot screen, cannot fight through screens, cannot use screens effectively etc. I'm just waiting for there to be some change, and I understand the challenge the whole team has because of the lack of practices etc, but I just don't even feel like the players are playing hard anymore. Standing around on offense and taking your time on defense is not playing hard. Our team lacks that competitive fire that we had a few years ago, even if the team was less talented back then. I can assure you that the team we have now would never manage that comeback against the Bulls that we had. They all just hang their heads play after play instead of learning from their mistakes and making the necessary adjustments.
Ok rant over. Feel free to contribute anything you have ...
