You know who they aren’t coaching hard?? Reed Sheppard. Sometimes coaches attention is a good thing. The coaches know Alpi is close to being an all star player who can be our centerpiece going forward. Unless they start benching the guy there’s no reason to believe they aren’t doing what they think they need to do to push him over the edge. Soft Segunatics obviously want the guy to be coddled but that’s not going to push him to be truly great. It might fool the league into putting him on the all star team once because of padded stats but it won’t help him in the long run.
Also Rockets coaches I’m sure could care less if the guy was born on Pluto. They just want to win. Maybe Ime’s comments the other day were a little iffy but I doubt they really care if he’s Turkish or if he’s from Alabama. They just want him to play like they want him to play.
Racism? That term gets thrown around a lot. I don't think that it is racism. Ivey grew up playing in NY, he then played 4 years in college and scrapped by and became a 10 year veteran in the NBA. He did that by being very physical - which is consistent with the type of basketball he was exposed to, which he played and which allowed him to have a long career over guys with more physical talent. The Rockets culture and identity is that of a physical team - and I think that is why the coaches are always pushing Sengun to be more physical. It has nothing to do with him being white. Being physical and aggressive are things that he can control, and that is why it is discussed. This also isn't the first coaching staff to say he needs to be more physical.
Assistant coaches/coaches usually have a canned response ready for the halftime interview - Ivey's was clearly about us not being physical enough as a team. I don't even think he said "he," or listened to the question about Bam vs Sengun.
Yeah - I have heard Udoka say that Jalen needs to defend better, get stronger ... and make better decisions. Also some of it is likely that different people are motivated differently. While Udoka has said some blunt things about Sengun about where he needs to get better, he has also complimented Sengun more than anyone else when he does give a compliment - and it isn't a forced compliment either. He said last year that he counts on Sengun, that he usually comes through and he continues to improve.
During football practice in high school we used to have these football chutes made of thick, old, rusty iron rods. The purpose was to work on blocking technique and keeping a lower center of gravity, I guess. If you weren't low enough, you'd hit your head/helmet against the bars and it would hurt. I recently went back to my high school and saw that they had replaced the iron rod chutes with nylon mesh chutes. Anyway, my point is that Jeff Van Gundy should've coached Vassilis Spanoulis even harder.
Alperen Sengun did say he wants the Coaches to be Hard on him, calls him out on mistakes. Versus Bam Adebayo, Alperen Sengun can't move Bam in the post, Bam is a very talented defensive player laterally quick on switches and in shot blocking. You can't move Bam Adebayo physically. This was a tough matchup.
Jalen didn't literally go to the Head Coach and ask for him to be tough on him. Alpi did. It's wild they're mad about the coaching staff treating Alpi exactly as he wants to be treated.
Some guys are coachable and some are not. You are right that every individual is different and progress at their own pace. One concern I have with Ime, that he is a one trick pony. You need to play tough. Watch these videos of guys starting fights. Tough, tough, tough. That's great. It is what this team needed was a defensive personality and guys playing tough. Now what? Our offense is putrid and getting tougher will not improve it. Either Ime learns how to coach offense or he needs to turn the reigns completely over to somebody that does. If he can't do either, he needs to be replaced. No team in NBA history has one a championship with a horrible offense.
I don’t think there is anything to be talked about a halftime interview. It is literally nothing. but being coached hard has nothing to do with interviews, at least I am sure this is not what alpi meant and what he asked for.
I don't want my post to be misconstrued here as putting me on one side, so I want to preface this by saying I think the outrage here is ridiculous and this does not warrant its own thread, nor is it a big deal. Now, having said that, is it really relevant here that Sengun wants to be coached hard? I don't think Sengun is watching the interview, it's not like he's standing just out of frame. They can still coach him hard in the locker room without ******** on him publicly. Sengun was 7/7 with 14 points and 8 rebounds at halftime, meanwhile Bam was 4/9 with only 6 rebounds (only 1 offensive rebound). Can't they say that Sengun is actually winning the matchup? Like if I didn't watch the game and only watched this clip I would think Bam was kicking Senguns ass, but it was actually the opposite. Sengun was very clearly scoring with ease and outplaying Bam. I don't know why they have to say this to the cameras, I don't think their on-camera interviews have anything to do with how they coach him.
