Re: Young-uns

[6166kkver@umbsky.cc.umb.edu]

DEVONlOUS@aol.com wrote:
> 
> How could a coach be disappointed and want to trade someone, or become
> disappointed of someones performance based upon someone 20 years old..in 4
> games...trying to conceive a very difficult style of basketball? I dont
>  uderstand it.

Well, imagine the following scenario: You're a world-class track coach
whose goal is to find sprinters that could win the Olympics and/or break
the world record in, say, 100 meters. You get this young kid who you
heard is very promising. After working with him for a while, you, being
an excellent talent spotter, realize that the kid can the 100 in, say,
10.2, but will never break the 10 second barrier no matter how much he
trains- he just ain't got enough fast-twitch muscles fibers to do that.
What do you do? Keep him or move on? (I'm not claiming this is
necessarily the situation with Pitino and Billups; all I'm saying it is
possible for the coach to know THIS EARLY)
Now, basketball isn't track, and is not based purely on physical
abilities, I may be oversimplifying with this analogy etc.,  but.... I
am not Billups's coach, and I'm no Pitino, but I have seen certain signs
of concern : 1) Billups can't jump (by the NBA standards)and is not very
fast, which may not render him useless, but certainly does not help. It
is also a deficit that is not easily, if at all, corrected; 2)unlike
most other NBA players who aren't athletically gifted, he's not (yet?) a
smart basketball player - how many times does he have to turn the ball
over by jumping and THEN looking what's available before he realizes
he's not Michael Jordan? He has done this in every game he's played for
the Celts, several times. The good news, that's something that can be
corrected; the bad, why hasn't he realized this simple fact by now?; 3)
he does not appear to be a "natural" PG, but rather a playground pick-up
game-type of leader, who's mostly concerned with scoring. We saw the
difference between a real PG and a plain 'guard' (neither a PG nor a
SG), which is what Billups appears to be, last night. 
That said, he already is a better 'guard' than Dee, and there is nothing
wrong with having a good 'guard' who can play a little of both ( a la
Dumars). The problem is, if he does not eventually develop into a real
PG, we have no starting point - Edney is too small to be playoff-caliber
starting point, though he'd a great sub PG.
I, personally, am not particularly wedded to either trading CB or
keeping him. He has talent, but I am simply not in a position to know
whether he has enough of it, or the right kind of it, to be our PG of
the future, and I doubt that any fan could. Those who are very convinced
either way (trade/keep) are basing their position on faith, not
knowledge. It's quite posssible that even Pitino doesn't know what he's
got in CB.
K. Kveraga