Why So Difficult to Find the Right Players Around Yao ???

I'd love to have some young players with that sort of attitude like Sam Cassell had during his rookie year. I'd love a young Horry type player too. All those guys were quality role players with winning mentalities. The problem is if we get players like that do they get benched by Van Gumby? He isn't one to really take attitudes that greatly.

 

Well, the thing is Yao is not the most flexible player and the type of system Yao needs to be successful in is not the most flexible system. He needs very specific types of players around him.

Yao’s lack of mobility kind of makes it necessary for us to be primarily a half court team. But at the same time, he needs great athletes to compensate for his lack of athleticism. So what we need are great athletes that can thrive in the half court game and can shoot a high percentage from the perimeter. It’s hard to find players like that because most great athletes need to play an uptempo game to be successful. And most great half court players that shoot well from the perimeter are not great athletes.

Last year we had a lot of great half court players on the team that could shoot well from the perimeter, but come playoff time, their lack of athleticism was really exposed. This year our athleticism has improved with Swift, Alston, Head, and Bogans, but our outside shooting in the half court has taken a huge nosesdive.

 

This is an astute observation, I had never thought of it that way. The team must find a combination of shooters and athletes. Talent at what is an important distinction.

 

I disagree with you.

Obviously, Yao is more fitting for a half-court game, but I think he can also thrvie if you put him into Sun's system (of course they will change their gameplan accordingly.)

The problem is not the inflexibility of Yao, but our scouting and trading efforts simply fail. For example, our guards can't shoot or run. It looks like Alston is quick, but he couldn't finish around the basket very strong. Head's quickness is just all right, but he is short and can't jump. The simple fact is that in a fast break, we even can't find a premeter play who can dunk strong and easily. To put it simple, there is no athleticism, or shooting skill in our guards.

The only real addition of athleticism is Swift. He can run and dunk, but he can't convert his jumping into good rebounding skill. This has nothing to do with what kind of system rox is playing. I am not sure how Swift can play offensively in a uptempo system like Sun or Nets, but the fact is that if the intention of rox is to add a PF to hustle and rebound, the athleticism of Swift can't help him a lot in those areas.

 

Agree, pretty good scouting report on Alston, Head and Swift. After 4 years we still don't have a swing man that can dunk, hell even 5'11'' Speedy Claxton can dunk the ball.

 

Perhaps the question should be, "Why so diifficult to find players to fit in the JVG system???"

 

I disagree. 38 in 5 (7.6 avg) is a big difference from 46 in 4 (11+ avg), especially if you consider that the roster size is only 15. Think about it, we have had an 11-player turnover rate per year on a 15-player roster.

There are many factors for the high turnover rate. Yao's slow development is a big factor. As some pointed out, it's only weeks ago when Yao has really developed into a dominating player. You can't be sure of how to build around a player who you don't even know if he will be dominant.

That said, JVG obviously has a goal in mind in developing Yao. They should assemble a team with that goal in mind. I don't see any evidence that they have a long term plan in term of player acquisition. They either bring in old veterans who wouldn't stick around for too long, or young scrubs who could only be fringe players at best.

The turnover rate indicates that we either have poor scouting or have no long term plan, or both. It seems that our method of building the team is trial-and-error.

But the biggest problem for us is the failure to get or retain good shooters. With 2 stars that command double teams every game, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the need for good spot up shooters.

 

And this is unacceptable at the "professional" level, very poor management. This organization wastes more money than the Federal Government and gets about the same results. I am amazed that Les Alexander is good with this performance. Injuries, the excuse of the day, don't even begin to explain this year, much less the last nine in terms of personnel decision-making.