people that still argue in favor of bonzi just lose all respect. the guy is a time tested and proven punk, idiot and malcontent
Yes he is, there is no doubt of that, however, he was a contributing player at EVERY single other place he has been. JVG should have found a way to get something out of Bonzi....every other coach he played for did.... JVG's "My way or the highway" approach is one of his biggest faults, good coaches find ways to get all personality types to contribute. JVG will alienate players and just puts them at the end of the bench, even though they may ultimatly help the team. The problem as I see it, is that IMO, the team comes before JVG's ego...not vice-versa. DD
Overwhelmingly agree with you here. They went out on draft day and got Battier who plays the same position as does Tmac: SF but with the expectation that Battier will play PF which made no sense then and now but that's what passes for logic in the Carroll Dawson era. But I suppose, folks here will point to this being JVG's fault because he was unwilling or unable to magically transform Battier into the PF they've lacked for 3 years now. No argument with you here. In fact, I'd like to add that this guy stayed over in Greece for all those years because he simply was not ready to play in the NBA. He still isn't ready and it's been 4 years now. It baffles me how so many people can fall so much in love with a guy taken at the end of the 2nd round in basically a throwaway move. Good riddance to bad rubbish...Again, this is JVG's fault because it was his job, no, it was his responsibility to transform Bonzi into a better teammate and a better person. His Dr. Phil credentials should be permanently revoked... Snyder appears to be Stromile Swift, Part Deux. That's why both NO & Utah let him go. He has the size and physical ability they need at the 2 but he simply cannot pick up their offensive and defensive systems. This has happened now for 3 organizations but all blame has to go to JVG for not making Snyder smarter. Maybe if he'd used more crayon drawings in team meetings... Amen to that. In retrospect, folks are mad at JVG for trying to win as many games possible given the circumstances of the season. He got this team to 52 wins with Yao missing a huge chunk of the season so I guess it really WAS his fault after all.
Thank you for pointing that out and might I add that the so-called "contraints" that DaD mentioned were the result of CD's own actions as GM.
Most teams only play one power player, be it a center or a PF these days. San Antonio for instance has Duncan as a PF and Ellison as a Center, Battier could never guard Duncan but he could guard Ellison......JVG gave up on the plan too early, and mixing in a little zone could help on nights there are bigger matchup problems. Okur or Boozer is the same thing....Battier could not guard Boozer, but he could guard Okur.....don't get caught up in terminonlogy, it is more about matchups. A throw away move? They drafted him hoping he would develop, he did, and now he is NBA ready. It takes PLAYING time to get comfortable, JVG buried him on the bench, and played a horribly inept Rafer Alston to try to save his job.....it failed. Now V-Span is back to square one as a rookie again....where he could have been this year's Sam Cassel, or at the very least we would know whether he is really going to be a contributor, right now, all we know is it was a year wasted. Every other coach got something out of Bonzi, why couldn't JVG? Is it asking too much that he be able to get something out of a quality NBA player? He may indeed be a little slow on the uptake on the system, but he was a starter at the beginning of the year, and after the injury he was just pushed aside, yet he is far and away our most athletic player on the perimeter, and THAT is our most glaring need. Yes it is his fault, but management is just as copable, they should have forced him to develop his bench some......and they didn't so they all get the blame. DD
Span was hesitant with his shot and had trouble finding his range because he was played out of position and asked by JVG to take those shots and BOTH have mentioned this. He did not consistently blow layups because he hardly took any. His layups were less than 30% of the total shots he took and guess what, his % on those was WAY higher than his jumpers. Whenever he drove to the basket he could make things happen. A lot of bad passes I admit, yes, but that was PT with the team. I'm sorry but I can't blame anything but PT for a turnover caused by a behind the back no-look pass to Deke for example ... I'm sure even Span (being sarcastic cause he's a very smart player...) would realise very quickly that Deke wouldn't expect those passes. And look back and you'll see how many of those turnovers were good passes to the wrong people. (Nothing against Deke or Howard, Deke is a legend and Howard has been solid for the most part for what he is meant to do...I wouldnt expect those passes to work for them even if it was Nash making them) And the draft positions for Euro players are a joke.... No way to judge european players. The top european players right now are players who never made a noise in the draft or haven't even entered it. I see people going crazy about Marco belinelli or Luis Scola when there are players way better than them by common consensus playing in europe right now
I think you're right, this Sene guy was a lottery pick in last year's draft for crying out loud... Ginobili was drafted in the end of 2nd round, Garbajosa went undrafted and so on... I think that nba scouting in Europe has still long ways to go, you can't use the draft position as your sole argument for judging a Euro guy... It may work out for american players who are very accessible by the media but not for Euros...
I've been thinking about this for a while and was considering making a thread about the bad scouting..For example I was really surprised when I made a thread the other day in NBA dish about Theo Papaloukas that most people had no idea who he was (because he's never entered the draft) when he's been the best Euroleague player for the last 3 years and last year's FIBA player of the year and he's won pretty much everything there is to win in non-NBA basketball
Great post DD. Also alot of people forget and it's what JVG loves, is V-Span in my opinion played some damn good ball hawking defense. Still wondering why he didn't get to play. Everyone new this guy was going to struggle at the beginning of the season coming over from europe. I want a new coach that is not as short sighted as JVG and someone willing to experiment and trust his younger players with different lineups even if it costs us a few regular season games, but always keeping an eye on the big picture. If you replaced Rudy-T with JVG as the coach of the veteran 93-94 rockets team, would the erratic and somethimes turnover prone rookie Sam Cassell have gotten any real minutes with JVG?
Scouting of Euros has become more of a gambling process, the game has differences, media coverage is limited in the US and there also are other important factors like the marketability of a product.
Everyone knew this going in to the season. Don't know why it would be any different. He only quit because it wasn't working out and didn't quit until the last 2 weeks of the season. It would have been different if he was playing from the beginning. He would have made some kind of difference. Jvg didn't allow him to.
The ultimate problem of this team is the mental toughness. Dallas has a much better roster than us, they were still eliminated. Sometimes the stepping up guy needn't to be our superstars. Maybe the distance between this team and a real contender is just a healthy Sura. When the Rockets management makes move this summer, pls consider gritty players first.
I agree that JVG didn't develop VSpan enough, but your incessant posting about him and how great he would have been has started to make me dislike him, DD Would he have helped us in the playoffs? Maybe. Would he have stopped Boozer and Okur from hitting shots? Nope
No, but he might have been able to hurt their PnR by at least staying within breathing distance of DWill. Look, by the playoffs it was too late, I did not mind him not playing in the playoffs...but Snyder should have been playing. He knows all their plays for crying out loud...... JVG is a problem, and it is time for him to go...... I am ready for a more up beat motivating coach....Can Joel Osteen coach basketball? DD
I am primarily talking about Synder in regards to the playoffs.....especially since JVG wasted V-Span's rookie year. DD
A better question is would the 93-94 team beat the 2006-07 team in a game with no coaches? I doubt anyone would say otherwise. The fact is that Rudy's performance over the last 6 years of his tenure was worse than JVG's first 4 here. And that is with Jeff inheriting the mess of a salary cap and poor draft picks that Rudy's teams had compiled. That doesn't mean there aren't things that JVG could have done better, but let's stop with the rose colored glasses Rudy love.
