i am really starting to hate the anti-jvg crowd. jesus, people! do you watch the games at all?? as soon as our bench gets in the game...no...sorry...as soon as yao ming goes out of the game, our team plays like warm dookie! still, he has to - and does - get rest. we consistently go 9 deep!! yet you guys want to focus on the 3 players that did not play??? my god, the board iq is plummeting quicker than tmac's ft %.
Mark Madsen and Jennaro Pargo? Aside from the merits of why these two can somehow be considered success stories, go back and tell me who Van Gundy's first subsitution this season was vs. Utah.
I don't see much PT for Novak/VSpan considering the schedule this week. JVG is already playing a 9 man rotation & that doesn't include Bonzi.
Maybe the other team was able to come back in the 4th quarter because our starters were gassed. It's a fine line between going hard for wins and wearing out your starters. Look at the Pistons last year: by giving their starters huge minutes, they finished the regular season with the best record in the league. But when the playoffs began, you could see that their starters were completely worn out. I think it's better to invest in our younger players now. We will need them to carry some of the load later in the season. JVG is just too short sighted.
The problem with putting rookies earlier even if we lead by 20 is that our opponent might see it as if we're sure we got the game already. I'd rather play them when it's a close match, when the game's intensity is high. That way we'l be able to use fresh legs.
I too would love to be able to rely on Novak and VSpan in crunch time. But we won't get them to that stage unless we play them early and often.
I totally agree with you: 1: In the NBA you play about 4 games per week. It is just normal that the starters start weakening in the 4th quarter. 2. If you don't give some minutes to your hopefull talents like Noak and Spanoulis, when you lead by 20, why do you have them in your team? How can Span learn to get more rebounds, to adjust his passing game to his new team mates? 3. Instead, if JvG manages to integrate them into the team, he will have more alternatives. This will cause much more problems to our opponents, since we will be more incalculable. My conclusions: JvG is definitely the wrong coach to promote talents. As long as JvG is the coach of our team, we should trade all our pics immediately for ready NBA-veterans.
so close in monikers, so different in ideas... the day tmac allows yao to sit on the bench without us regressing faster than jvg's hair line is the day you'll see those younger players. why? because we'll be blowing teams out. as is, yao is in and we are up. yao goes out, and the lead whittles. thus we keep our best players in. our proven players. our players that don't play like deer in the headlights. are you ready to sacrifice wins in todays WC? i'm not. every win counts.
Good to see you again. If we do fall behind, we can catch up in a hurry if we have a bomber like Novak on the floor. But even if the training of our kids costs us a win or two in the early season, I am absolutely willing to pay this price. If our kids can learn to give our starters quality rest, our early investment will pay off hugely in March. It's unfortunate that our coach is someone who has never been tolerant of rookie mistakes. This is why JVG's starters have always played too much and consequently have tended to end the regular season hurting and exhausted. Examples: Bob Sura and David Wesley in 04-05; Yao's broken foot last season, when he didn't even need to be in the game. We desperately need to plan our season differently.
It sounds like we all want wins. It's just a disagreement on how to develop this team to get them consistently. We've snuck out with a couple of close ones after being up by 23 and about 20. Now what is going to happen when we lead at the end of 3q's by 4 pts and JVG has to run in Juwan - because Novak has no experience? And he relies on Head and Rafer to guard that night's new all star guard in the 4Q of a back to back? And Mr. all star starts punching us up for 15-20 pts like a pinball machine? GAWD I HOPE GUNDY DOESN'T DO SOMETHING STUPID LIKE PUTTING IN NOVAK AND VSPAN!!! (SARCASM DEF ON). Novak's D won;t be any worse than JHo's and I think Vspan's will possibly be good enough to rattle the opposing new Kobe. And THEN Novak might hit a couple of 3's rather than do a JHo and get blocked twice. But Hey, let's watch Van Gundy's 4Q rallies fall a little bit short a few times and maybe everyone will remember this conversation.Let's see what things look like by Jan 1. Of course everything is helped if Bonzi ever reappears.
I guess Yao has to play 48 mins every game in order for the other teams not to have any chance to come back.
Exactly. Depth has to be planted and carefully raised. JVG refuses to do any planting early in the season, then wonders why his harvest is so barren year after year. (Has JVG ever developed a rookie unless he was forced to do so by injury?) He reaps what he sows, always.
I'm not that sure. It might be that the first eight (except Yao Ming) is running out of gas at the end of games. V-Span and Novak might have provided fresher game legs.
Maybe, but if the bench guys would stop losing leads whenever the starters rest, I'd feel more compelled to rest the starters. As for Novak and Spanoulis... we saw Span in preseson and Novak in Utah. These two are not ready. They need to learn the game and prove themselves in practice. As for developing young players, again, Charlie Ward and Marcus Camby are two guys who gradually developed as young players in NY. You can't expect to "plant and harvest" a young guy in the same season.
That was Detroit's philosophy last season: they played their starters until they dropped. Consequently, the best team in the regular season folded when it really counted (in the playoffs). I thought at the time, and stil believe, that if their starters had been a little fresher when the playoffs began, they would have won the championship. Yao really sucked in his first few NBA games, but fortunately, Rudy T was the coach that year, not Gundy. Rudy gave Yao some minutes every game, and the young giant developed rapidly. I am not saying that Novak and VSpan have anywhere near as much potential as Yao did. But if they never play in real games, they will never develop. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Camby developed in Toronto, Ward was already an accomplished starter when JVG took over the Knicks, and Yao was already a fixture on the Rockets when Van Gundy came over. The question is: who did JVG develop? And the answer is: absolutely nobody. If JVG continues to neglect his youngsters, as he always does, by February this season our starters will begin showing clear signs of wearing out -- as happened in 04-05 with Sura, Wesley, and Howard -- and we will probably start cursing our coach's lack of foresight.
I probably should amend "who did JVG develop?" to "who did JVG develop when he wasn't forced by injury to do it?" That should take care of Luther Head.
Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Phil give Kareem Rush minutes as a rookie? He knocked down some 3's for the Lake show right? Sure would be nice to have Novak doing that for the Rox!! Bynum also got PT in spots as well if I remember right. Against Shaq. Throw Vspan in there every now and then too!!
Yup. Last season, Ronny Turiaf got quite a few minutes too, and probably would have gotten more if he hadn't needed heart surgery. Even during the Shaq 'n Kobe threepeat, when Phil Jackson would have been forgiven for concentrating on "winning now", his rookies got plenty of minutes. See Devean George and Mark Madsen.
