Slice it however you want. But it is much easier to find a good shooter/athlete that cannot defend and teach them how to play defense than it is to find a good natural defender that can't shoot and somehow teach them how to shoot. If they can't shoot by the time they're 22, they're never gonna be a very good shooter. Conversely though, if they are a good shooter/athlete at 22 that can't play defense, in a lot of cases they can be taught how to play much better D. You, on the other hand, are coming close to saying that JVG is only a good defensive coach if he is working with the Ben Wallace's of the NBA. I don't believe that. I believe that Van Gundy is a good enough defensive coach that he can improve the defense of previously poor defensive players. Remember Francis and Cat last year. Look what Van Gundy worked with in NY. How many of those guys were known as defenders early in their career? Ewing was. Sprewell, no. Starks, no. Houston, no. Kurt Thomas, no. Kurt Thomas was the nation's scoring leader I think in Div II, maybe it was Div I, can't remember. Camby, no. Mark Jackson, no. Larry Johnson, no. Rice, no. Ward, Childs, Strickland???? Dennis Scott, definitely no. Ahhhh, we come to Chris Dudley. They did have the Dudley. We've got Ryan Bowen. Enough said. We only need one of them kind of players. And they did have Oakley. But Oakley was not a dud on the offensive end. He was pretty good on both ends of the floor. You can take poor to mediocre defensive players and make most of them better if they want to be better and a coach like Van Gundy is working with them. But rarely, very rarely, can you take a poor shooter and turn them into a good shooter.
The same thing happened in Species and the X-Files. Can't we have some alien-human hybrids that mature slower? Back on track. I'm not a fan of JVG but I agree that we can't pin everything on him but rightly or wrongly the coach gets blamed or praised more than fairly for what the team does. Sorta like the President and the economy. From what I've seen of JVG last year and so far this year I'm not impressed. Even though he now says he actually likes an uptempo game I'm not seeing that consistently. He still seems unable to run an affective offense or inspire his players to play consistently well. These are things that are expected of a coach.
Mr. Spock. One day the Vulcan will reflect on Les Alexander's hiring of Jeff Van Gundy thusly: "Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
JVG can't expect his players to go all out for him if he keeps squelching them. Last night against the Warriors was a perfect example. Both Sura and Yao were heading for career games -- a potential triple double for Sura, and a 20/20 for Yao. So what does JVG do? He benches them for nearly the whole 4th quarter (though Sura came back briefly). If a benching is the reward for playing well, why would anyone bother? Sura and Yao will say all the diplomatic things, of course, but both of them must be burning with resentment. JVG needs to pay some attention to the morale of his players. He doesn't have to baby them, but he does have to recognize that they are human beings, not machines. If Yao is unfairly in foul trouble, JVG should argue with the referees. If the players are doing well, JVG should reward them and praise their achievements. These little things are important because morale is important. Being negative all the time, as JVG appears to be, has the advantage of keeping the players cowed and malleable. There is a big disadvantage though: they will underachieve. And eventually, they will rebel.
Hesitancy is the #1 killer i think 1. It means they unsure of their shot instead of just stroking it 2. The window of opportunity closes so we have to wait another 14 seconds for another one 3. allows the defense to recover Rocket River
Good point The Rudy T Rockets never hesitated. Hakeem=Nope never hesistated Vernon=Doesnt hesistate on or off the court. Mario=looks like he does, but his shot takes like 5 seconds to setup, so no he doesnt Horry=hesistates only in the regular season Sam=nope Bullard=nope
No bonus in JVG's system. Everybody is robot who should do exectly what their are told to do. To him, the only reason for losing a game is that the players haven't played hard.
