Carroll Dawson background = http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Dawson_set_to_end_a_27year_ru-221038-34.html -Has one of the most storied careers within the Rockets organization. -Well known as the big man coach who worked with Hakeem as far back as his days with UofH, and worked heavily with Yao Ming during his first years in the NBA. As for them "forcing indirectly" Hasheem to work in the offseason, there is no way, legally for them to have any communication with any of there players outside of the courtroom, much less setup training for them in the summer. They will not be allowed inside the training facilities of the Rockets during the lockout.... hence the word Lock. 6 months with no training or communication with the organization will likely take a heavy blow without a doubt on players that rely on the organization for training and coaching without a strong personal work ethic among these players. Most of them have been told daily since high school how to train, schedule your day, etc. Some players will fall off dramtically. Thats why it will be a good year to be involved in the FIBA tournament. players will have access to all of the training and coaching available within your country's ability. Players like Scola & Dragic should be much more sharp at the beginning of the season due to this. Its a real shame that Tanzania does not have a national team, because Hasheem is out of luck when it comes to summer basketball. Lets hope he has a strong work ethic.
What I mean by "indirectly" is to tamper with the rules a little bit, like, before the lock out, asking Thabeet to hire a certain guy to work on certain things. Maybe I'm being a little naive with this, but guys like Thabeet and Williams need guidance in this critical stage of their careers.
Question for anyone who actually watched him when he got minutes in Memphis: What specifically about Thabeet keeps him off the court so much? Coming into the league, everyone knew he brought literally nothing to the table offensively and that any offense he got would be garbage points. That still held true when he got minutes in the NBA, but just looking at his stats (I haven't seen him play in the NBA much at all, admittedly), he doesn't seem to kill the offense. His FG% regressed a good bit this year, but he still finishes 55% of the shots he takes for his career and only turns the ball over about once every 20 minutes which isn't absurdly bad. So it would appear that if you just park him under the basket, like they should have assumed would they would have to do, that he's atleast not a complete offensive liability and would be able to log minutes if he played good D. Am I wrong and his offense is even worse than expected and worse than the stats indicate? Which brings me to his defense, which is supposed to be the only thing that got him into the league. Taking a quick look at his defensive onn/off numbers, he killed them defensively this year and only marginally helped them last year despite blocking a ton of shots. Having not really watched him since college, I don't get this at all, what is it about his defense that is so bad now? He's ridiculously tall, has atleast above average leaping ability, and he had a reputation of being very mobile for a 7 footer. And to top it off, the guy just had great shot blocking instincts in college. Those physical gifts seem like they would easilly translate to the NBA and regardless of how hard he worked, just sicking him in the paint defensively would make it a ton harder in opponents to score inside. This obviously hasn't been the case. Why? Is he just too weak right now and penetrating guards are just able to get into his body and knock him back enough to get space to finish at the rim? Does his lack of strength cause him to get manhandled in the post 1-on-1, despite his shot blocking ability? Or are his rotations just so horrificly slow that by the time he notices a player driving and steps over to help, the ball's in the bucket? Finally, are his problems fixable? If strength and catching and finishing are his biggest weaknesses, those should be easilly fixable if he's willing to put in the time and effort. Ive heard he's pretty lazy, though, so if those are the things holding him back, it's possible that he'll never develop. Conversely, if it's things like rotating properly defensively and finding open space near the hoop offensively that are his biggest weaknesses, I think just throwing him to the sharks on a nightly basis for a year or two will fix those problems on their own. They just seem like a speed of the game issue that is quite often the biggest problem for young centers, but easilly overcomable. Maybe it's just that I want him to succeed so badly because the player he was supposed to be coming out of college is exactly what we need right now, but I just can't help but think the guy is somehow going to be a solid contributer one day. With as many physical gifts as that guy has, it doesn't seem like it would take that much work to get good enough to help an NBA team.
I think with Thabeet its more mental and conditioning....gettin moved by smaller guys is unacceptable....The mental aspect just has to do with proper techniques for a man of his size...He has more advantages than disadvantages on the defensive side of the ball...He needs a career confidence boost.....With all that I say he'll be outta the league in 3 years and that only because his height is a virtue in practices...
That makes him sounds so fixable! Can we hire Deke to coach him? And by coach him, I mean throw elbows at his jaw every day in practice until he shapes up.
I could be wrong, but I have never heard of Thabeet being lazy. A 24 year old athletic 7-3 kid that averaged over 4 blocks and almost 11 rebounds in one of the toughest conferences in country is not flukie. Its hard for me to fade Jerry West in saying that this kid should have a long NBA career. A change of scenery can do wonders for players and hopefully thats the case with Thabeet. He needs time on the court and Thabeet is one of several reasons Adelman is no longer coach of the rockets. The rockets should already be directing Thabeet in who he can privately hire to help with his player development over the offseason and coming lockout.
I agree that Thabeet is a big reason of the falling out between Morey and Adelman. When Morey got Thabeet, he said in the news conference following the trade, that Centers don't come cheap - He made a point to say how much he tried trading for one. So, the reason that Thabeet was available is that his stock was down - way down (just one year removed from being the #2 pick overall). Memphis now had Gasol and Z-Randolph, they didn't have time to tinker and nurture Thabeets development. But there is a lot of potential there, "A LOT", no matter what people say (MY Opinion). Then, shortly after the trade, you have Adelman flat out criticize Thabeet and his play. I read a quote here on Here on clutchfans.net; though I don't know if true or not, but it was about how "Hakeem at 50 is a better option than Thabeet". I think this was more a slap at Morey. Let's face it, Adelman though a great coach did "man love" for Battier. {It was clear to me that Budinger / Lee combinnation were better than Battier / Budinger} But coaches get infatuated with Battier (I think his defense if over-rated, his basketball IQ is that of a coach tough)... I think Thabeet can be groomed into a all NBA first or second team defensive Center. I'm not saying he is the next Mutumbo, but if Thabeet becomes even a all NBA third team defender, I think Morey scored big time here...... We all know too well what a shot blocking defensive center does to any offense. It all of a sudden forces NBA guys to shoot the ball from the outside. And when a defense forces shots from the outside, it did a good job, whether the shot goes in or not.
I don't care about him scoring more than Yao. The real question is, will he have more blocks than Yao? This is what we should be worried about.
Don't know till he is on the floor! He had a 7 for 7 game in the D-League, so he can score! Also, there are highlites of him scoring in various ways; slams, turn-arounds, etc. I think the man needs TIME! Once again, you can't teach height! As good as Chuck Hayes was this season, he is only average at best. If Thabeet was to produce 10/10/2/2, we would think he is a God! Look at Marc Gasol. He looks like the 2nd coming of "The Whopper"; bad built,slow of foot,can't jump but effective! he has been playing ball since before he was 10 yrs old. Thabeet started 6 or 7 yrs ago! Experience and patience is golden!
Regarding why he couldn't see any consistent minutes for an extended period of time - I'm afraid it has alot more to do with his bball IQ than physical strength. I think we can all agree that any offense from him is gravy, and as such his defensive production (or lack thereof) should be the determining factor when measuring his playing time. Going back to his days at UConn, I'm worried that his stats were inflated due ONLY to his dominant size. And its not like he played regularly against elite slashing wings/guards (ironically, probably the best from the big east that year was TWill). The biggest/most physical front line he faced was Pitt circa dejaun blair. Im not saying he doesn't have any skill to speak of, but I think the problems for him have been more of a perfect storm of factors than any one specific drawback. Late rotation, inability to guard a variety of post players, lack of strength, lack of experience against elite athletes, and for that matter lack of bball experience (only been playing since 15 like JHill) all are reasons why hes been back and forth between D league with no real significant burn to speak of. I'm not saying bust, but we should check our expectations and keep it realistic. Edit: MEM's draft position should have no bearing on OUR expectations of the kid.
Thabeet will never be a good center. But solid rebounder, solid shot blocker, and solid "I have have 1-2 pathetic offensive moves, but I'm huge and you can't defend it" role player. 15-20 minutes a night. But I'll absolutely take it and love it. Put some muscles on this summer kid.
Sorry about the bump, but i had to say, this is the Thabeet that we need. <iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HRFftJqL2xk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This was while Gasol was hurt. He looked like a totally different person. If he could play like this 70% of the time, we would be set.
Agreed this kid has very little basketball experience and was the second pick in the draft for a reason. People here want to throw this guy under the bus and he has yet to have a off-season with Mchale and CD and possibly work with Hakeem again. Give me a break Thabeet will shock all these haters and be a quality NBA big when its all said and done.
He's a young athletic center on the roster and we are STILL looking for a young athletic center... Yeah, no high hopes for him...
