But he has about 1% of the heart that Brewer has and it shows on the court. At least Brewer gives max effort. KJ clearly does not want to be here imo.
its the backup qb phenomenon. people like the guy who isn't playing better than the one who is. These same people refused to acknowledge that multiple coaches saw more in brewer than in kj, for good reason.
People speaks fast about heart, but it's difficult to accept only garbage minutes after a summer where you put a lot of hard work and a pre-season where you outplay Brewer (showing improvement and heart) and almost any wing on the team... Then accept your same situation ever and play your 3 garbage minutes with same intensity and motivation... You can demand that from a rookie, but you can't expect the same from an up-and-coming player who has repeated times passed for that situation. If you demand patience forever, at some point starts being unfair. I see KJ disappointed and unmotivated and I see it understandable.
KJ probably thinks he deserves playing time. Not being apart of the rotation when you think you deserve to stinks. He goes from playing a huge chunk of minutes in Philly and betting on himself to score a huge contract to being traded to Houston and being stuck behind better wings at the time in Ariza and Brewer. 2nd season passes by and he feels like he finally can crack to rotation in his 3rd season. I know he probably worked his ass off in the off-season to improve as much as he could. He still seems to try to be involved with the team as much as he can. I'm not sure what happened on why Brewer beat out KJ for minutes, but we all saw that when KJ was in rotation he was playing decent... KJ has played 7 garbage time games since November 17th with each garbage time game playing terrible averaging 1.1 points on 25% shooting on 4 minutes. On the other hand KJ played the first 10 games of the season averaging 5.2 points on 51% shooting. Something isn't right. It was around game 8 where he started to fall out the rotation where he only played 5 minutes. First 7 games he averaged 7 points on 55% shooting (65 TS%). Coach sees something that I don't see and I completely trust him on it. It does bug me though because I wish I knew what KJ did to fall out of rotation. KJ couldn't have been pouting already with less than 11 games into the season? That's the only thing I could see happen. KJ complaining about minutes around game 8 and coach not having any of it. There was a stretch where Coach was playing with rotations even having Brewer start a string of games together. Obviously he was trying to figure out what works while waiting for Beverley and even Motiejunas. It's not even like offensively Brewer was outplaying KJ during those first couple of games. In the first 10 games of the season Brewer averaged 15 minutes and 3.3 points on 34% shooting (50 TS%). It had to be either defense or KJ pouting behind the scenes before he fell out of rotation. I do believe KJ does have a place in the league, but it's obviously not here anymore. KJ was outplaying Brewer at the beginning of the season. Somewhere around the 8th and 12th games of the season KJ must have done something to upset the coach, and I'm assuming he complained about minutes which coach didn't like. I understand that KJ doesn't really fit Coach's system since he has no outside shot, but Brewer doesn't either. In fact KJ seems to be more reliable than Brewer from outside and he also gives Harden another option to pass to on back door cuts. It's just strange.
Anchel, I think you're a very good poster and member on the board, but I totally disagree with you. The same could be said for a vet like Brewer who mostly gets garbage minutes too. He may feel like he adds value and deserves time due to what he's done in the league. If you're an up and coming player, you give max effort at all times. You have to prove yourself everyday in practice and the minutes you get in game. Did KJ play well and earn minutes this preseason and early on in the season? Probably. That said, where is his defensive effort? He's too strong and athletic not to give max effort on D. He could make a nice living cloning his game after Beverly's, but he chooses to pout. KJ is talented and I had hoped for the best, but he's not helping himself here. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to trade Brewer if possible, but he's a professional and KJ could learn a lot from Brewer in that regard.
Remember T-Will? You sound exactly like him. To be successful in the NBA, attitude is almost as important as talent.
Brewer is part of the rotation, he's getting quality mintues every day. I'm not justifying anyones attiude, but when someone is on KJ's situation for long time, that's what you got often...at the least. To put it into perspective: we're only talking about his approach of his 2 garbage minutes. I think he's having a professional behavior day-to-day, at practice, cheering his teammates from the bench.... And I think the day his coach calls his name at a 2nd quarter, he's gonna be ready. But Brewer is at the opposite situation, rather. No matter how well or bad has he played, he's having the confidence and the minutes from the 3 coaches he's had at Houston. The strange thing it would be he not acting like a good pro! He can't complain about anything -playing time wise-. Still, I agree KJ should be smart enough to realize that his chance could be coming all of a sudden, attending to Brewer's low performance. Keep competing and showing a good body language at your 2 garbage minutes until maybe your coach changes his mind.
I'd like that opportunity too but KJ still can't stay in front of his man. Hard to be a lock-down defender when you get blown by lesser athletes off the dribble, consistently.
