2006 - 2007 NBA Season Discussion Thread

[Green Kool Aid]

on the issue of "should they go to college," i speak from experience as a fan of a team (the celtics) who have four heralded high-school to pro players:

al jefferson, sebastian telfair, gerald green, and kendrick perkins.

i think perkins is naturally limited by the fact that he's fairly uncoordinated and not that quick, but i think he will have a nazr mohammed type career. (backup center on good team, starter on a bad team).

jefferson, green, and telfair are all HIGHLY skilled/quick players, and all three of them would have benefitted from college.

jefferson is way too eager to block shots, as opposed to just playing defense and moving his feet. he also has no idea how to seal his man on the offensive end of the floor.

green does not move without the basketball. period. he also is beyond lost defensively, and struggles to do basic things like rotate his vision between ball and man.

telfair has an excellent handle, and he passes very crisply, i just doubt his ability to run a complex offense. in high school he was a scoring point guard because he was so much better than everyone else, and had he gone to a year of college under coach pitino i think he would be a better player than he is now, as well as a top 5 pick in the past draft.

[Assani Fisher]

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Football has different intensities for obvious reasons: If you practiced all out every day, everyone would be hurt by the time the season started.

In baseball, a pitcher can't really throw a ton of pitches every day so they can't really simulate a game without tiring out their staff.

A basketball team can have a ton of intense practices in a row, have one day of an easy practice, and then play at game at 100% full strength the next day.

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Actually in spring training simulated games are extremely close to actual games and this isn't even counting actual spring training games. The point isn't throwing live off the mound everyday (you throw everyday, just not off the mound--in-season and before the season) but to throw live to hitters on a schedule that simulates what your schedule is like during the year. If you are a starter, when you get to spring training you will throw simulated games before the spring training games every 5th day and the innings will progressively increase until your stamina is built up and relievers throw every other day an inning or two.

Pitchers still throw with the same intensity and by the end of simulated games starting pitchers will usually be on a 80-90 pitch count.

Still, you can throw 100 pitch sides/bullpens twice a week for months and then throw 40 or so pitches in a game and be more sore than you have felt in those previous months. The game speed is the reason why.

I am just not understanding how an NBA practice could be as beneficial as an NBA game, this just isn't registering for me. Every sport is geared toward game experience and I am not seeing why the NBA is different.

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First of all, who ever told you that you can't learn just as much in a baseball practice as in a baseball game? I was just on the phone with my old college roomate who played college baseball, and I brought it up. His answer:

"I got much better in practice and it wasn't even close. In a baseball game you spend 3 hours, get to hit 4 times, and get a handful of fielding opportunities. YOu don't really get any better at all from that limited work. However in practice you get a ton of repititions."

Now he never played in the MLB although he did play in some independant league(the name escapes me right now...I could find out if you really wanted), so I do value his opinion.

And his opinion on baseball was pretty much teh same thing I said about basketball.

Obviously football is another matter since you cannot simulate game speed on a daily basis without severely tiring out your team.

[Taraz]

With regard to the college vs. straight-to-the-NBA debate:

1. Assani, how can you not see how playing in college against inferior competetion would boost your confidence? You are destroying your competition, so you feel like you are the best player on the court. Your first game in the NBA you get destroyed and think, "wow, I suck."

2. I could be completely talking out of my ass on this next point, but I would assume you get more team-oriented coaching and skillwork in college. Once the regular season starts in the NBA you have a game every other day and it would seem that you have to spend most of the time tailoring your practices to a specific opponent. In college you only have two or three games a week and probably have more time to improve on how to play within the team concept.

I'm sure you get more individual skillwork coaching in the NBA, but it's one on one with a coach. The rest of the team isn't going to hang out to get your skills up to speed. Learning how to take that pullup jumper or make that dropstep doesn't necessarily translate over to game situations where there is help defense. I would also imagine that you might not learn how to screen and cut effectively. In college practices you have the whole team on the court and can work on how and where to shape up, when to make certain cuts, how to play against a zone, etc.

3. There are probably several reasons why you don't see PG prospects jump to the pros. PG's are usually smaller and aren't the freakish athletes that you could see playing against humongous men. Scouts want to see that you can manage a game as a PG and might not be sold when you are playing against HS competition.

[tdarko]

Assani,

I am not de-valuing practice at all and I know exactly how much you get better through repetitions and refinement of your swing etc. I also know that you can take a million swings in a cage or in BP and step in the box and the game can overwhelm you until you get your timing down. It is a fact that when you get to spring training and most of the way through spring training, pitchers dominate hitters--b/c hitters can PRACTICE all they want but they have to see a 90+ fastball coming at them over and over to get used to it again...yes even big leaguers get dominated by low A ball players until they get their timing back.

Once you get to a certain level of play your swing mechanics are nearly muscle memory and BP etc. is to refine little tweaks here and there but mostly just to keep your mechanics/memory. This entire thread I have been talking about big league/NFL/NBA level not college. Sure in college and before you learn a TON during practice but get to the minor leagues, the learning is over--unless you are top 3 pick in the system, then they may hold your hand a little bit.

[Hornacek]

Case study about young players getting better through practice:

Darko.

/discussion

[tuq]

H,

It's been like four hours since you called the discussion over and there have been no posts since! I've never seen that work before.

[AllenIverson]

I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game last it's my last but we're talking about practice man. How silly is that?

Now I know that I'm supposed to lead by example and all that but I'm not shoving that aside like it don't mean anything. I know it's important, I honestly do but we're talking about practice. We're talking about practice man.

We're talking about practice. We're talking about practice. We're not talking about the game. We're talking about practice. When you come to the arena, and you see me play, you've seen me play right, you've seen me give everything I've got, but we're talking about practice right now.

[Aloysius]

AI - [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

-Al

[Green Kool Aid]

If any of you have Insider, Hollinger's recent article on the rookies is hilarious and really well researched.

[Aloysius]

From the Hollinger rookie article:

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J.J. Redick, Magic: A back problem, the Magic's fast start, and the unexpected health of Grant Hill have conspired to keep the college player of the year bench-ridden for all but 12 minutes.

Smart-aleck comment: Orlando's lottery picks from 2005 and 2006 have combined to score six NBA points.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ahahaha - nice. GG with Fran Vazquez, Magic front office.

-Al