Remember when you were a kid playing in the drive way and you'd pretend that it was the last few seconds of a game and that you had the ball and had to take a shot at the buzzer? Wafer plays like that every single time he gets the ball. Geez. It wouldn't kill him to pass it, like, one time. It's not surprising that he is having a terrible series. Everybody on the floor and everybody in the arena knows exactly what he is going to do the second he gets the ball.
Van Gundy:“When Von gets the ball, I don't know what will happen, but I know what won't happen. He won't pass.”
Adelman gave him the most minutes in 3 games against Lakers, Wafer responded by shooting 2 for 10, 20%.
von has potential to be great but in his mind he thinks he's this superstar athlete like kobe or lebron when he's not
Battier probably has spent years, and recently, days, learnign Kobe's tendencies and hot spots, etc. I dont think he can really teach much to Wafer about that between games. Wafer is not a 30 mins plus player right now. Adelman has said it, morey, JVg, etc. The reason has been obvious and it's not just his spotty D, but also his offense. He's shown he won't pass the ball when he's in and tries to score too much. That's great for a span of 2-3 mins when u need points, but once the defense settles on him he doesnt have an opening and yet keeps trying to force it, resulting in turnovers or bad shots. A guy like that has to be controlled and selectively inserted into games. Yes, he had 2 good games against LA, but we also lost both games and that was before the league knew what a Von Wafer was. Now he can still catch defenses off guard for a few minutes, but over several minutes he becomes more predictable and his D gets even worse as the game goes on because he starts to forget about it.
I think Von doesn't have potential to be great. Great player must have above average basketball IQ at least, Von's basketball IQ is way below average. It's not like we didn't have Stromile swift before.
This thread is absolute garbage. If Von got the start, nobody else would get a FG attempt till the 2nd quarter.
thats what i mean by potential. the talent is there but the IQ is not. basketball IQ can be taught and improved but raw talent can not von really needs to check that ego of his tho :-/
Wafer being so offensive minded may not be such a bad thing. Right now kobe is not guarding Battier and conserving energy for offense. If Wafer makes kobe play some defense, his offense will be less potent. About Wafer being a ballhog, that can be easily change by the coach.
If it's so easy, why is it still a problem in the playoffs, after an 82 game season? And Wafer DOES NOT PASS. He's not just offensive minded, he's a BALLHOG. That's not good to have over a whole game, only in spurts. what's the point of him making Kobe play harder on D if he's going to take all the rockets out of the offense the whole game and therefore the Lakers won't even need kobe to score a lot to win. Kobe doesnt even have to guard wafer too hard, Wafer will put himself in bad situations on his own 25% of the time. Kobe can let Wafer loose and wafer won't get more than 20-25 pts, but Kobe will get 50.
IQ can't be taught. Similar with athleticism, height, court vision. You might improve a little by hard working or experience etc, but there is a limit.
No one...on the Rockets can guard Kobe even close to the way Shane can. Kobe is going to get his. Kobe didn't beat us tonight, and Shane did his job. Turnovers/not boxing out/not running any kind of set offense is what killed us.
Anyone that agrees with this needs to have their head checked. Von has played atrociously in this series, and the offense completely stops when he is in the game.
I disagreed. Wafer did not play bad. He shot the ball when he was open and created his shots by driving in. There was only one time he forced a bad shot in the whole game. I rather see Wafer take a open shot than a lousy pass or a careless over dribble that leads to a turnover. Any shot is better than a turnover.
