With all the commotion of coaches getting fired in the NBA right now you kind of wonder are coaches really that important? At the end of the day the players are obviously the one that are playing and trying to win. Coaches are the people that do what players don't do like substitutions, positioning, clutch plays, and majority of all the plays you see in the game.
You can see already see that coaching isn't as easy as you think especially when you have to deal with massive grown men on the court that may or may not be in a good mood. Sometimes they end up just babysitting players because they are playing that well. Have you ever played street ball with subs it never goes good because everyone isn't going to agree on the same thing. When playing ball you always wonder who you are going to guard, coaches do that. The most important time coaches are utilized in a game are timeouts and clutch moments. They spot things their team sometimes doesn't notice that they have to discuss about and resolve. Clutch moments need coaches to make up a play to get the basket they need. In conclusion coaches are needed and should not be looked down upon. There are 3 stat lines everyone focuses on points, assists, and rebounding. It is so focused on that there is a special name if you get 10 or more on all three stats, a Triple Double. Some people although think that assists and rebounding don't mean much.
Point are obviously the most important because that is the whole point of offense to put the ball the through the basket. Assist is what happens before that when you pass to the person who scores. Which is important because you indirectly scored. Rebounding are what the big man usually get and is also important because it either starts your offensive play or continues it. I grew up playing basketball outdoors and I have barely ever played actual organized basketball. To clarify what street ball is it doesn't mean, playing basketball outdoors or in the ghetto (even though that is what I played) because even that could be organized. It is essentially pick up basketball, playing horse or other games, or practicing by yourself. Organized ball is playing on your high school team or another rep team.
Street basketball is where a lot of people start playing and it is more for the fun than it is winning. When you play pickup basketball you can play a lot more aggressive and get away with foul calls. This can lead to a lot of bad stuff in an actual game because of obvious reasons and lack of refereeing. There is a lot of benefits to playing street ball, better 1 vs 1 and more craftiness. Organized basketball can lead to softer players but obviously you need to know how to play with a team if you ever want to play in a big league. The man with 11 rings is considered to be one of the best players if not the best player to play basketball. The whole point of the NBA is to get the championship for the year and Bill Russel has done it more than the amount of finger he can hold those rings. He clearly is the best winner but is he the G.O.A.T.
Let us take a look into the league back when he played, it consisted of 11 teams and was a very high tempo game. The myth back than was that it was just consisted of 5 foot white guys, the height for players wasn't that different from the league now. Hall of Fame Players had to have a lot of stamina to play back than because some of them played up to the whole game. Now how did Bill Russel fit in with the league apparently he was one the best defensive player to play the game. It is hard to find the statistic because it wasn't recorded but I will take the word of older people. His offense was never that great so his credibility to be the G.O.A.T. is falling off. Let us take a look to the Celtics best year 1964-65 with 62-18 season with Russel. All he did was play defense he only put up 14 ppg that year and these games were rare to see below 100 so this is horrible for a hall of famer. In conclusion he was never the best player but still did a lot in his role. The 1 or Point Guard position in my opinion is one of the most important positions in the game. They take up the basketball and choose what plays are going to happen in the game. There are a couple of players that come in mind when talking about this topic. There is obviously Oscar Robertson, Magic Johnson, Jerry west, John Stockton to name a few.
Magic Johnson is probably the best point guard embodiment so he would be the on the top of my list. He has 5 rings and an 11 all-star player. He was the craftiest player around the rim and put staggering numbers. In my opinion he wasn't the best player to play in that position, I would give that to Oscar Robertson. He was the only player to average a triple double in a season. He had better numbers than Magic would ever dream of even adding an MVP and a championship. Civic Mirror
I made a blog a little while back about why a "Dream Team" would never work, and here I am talking about it. This list follows a certain criteria (each player has to play native position) and follows what my previous blog said about a realistic "dream team." My list is Stephen Curry (at point guard), Michael Jordan (at shooting guard), Kawhi Leonard (at small forward), Kevin Garnet (at power forward), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (at center).
The reason I put (current year) Stephen Curry has nothing to do with all the hype of him. In reality I actually don't like him that much because of the way he plays but it the is exact reason to as why I have him. I want a volume shooter who can score efficiently and with a good 3 point shot. He fills all of these requirements but you might be wondering why I didn't choose the other amazing point guards. I could have picked Magic Johnson or Oscar Robertson but neither of them had an amazing 3 and I need that considering that the only other player that can shoot behind the arc is Leonard. How can you not include the G.O.A.T. MJ (1995-96), well I almost didn't include him, on purpose. Jordan was never a good 3 point shooter but if we look at all of his other achievements it would be dumb of me not to put him in. If there is ever a clutch shot needed it's going to him no matter what whether it be a 3 or a shot within 0.10 of a second. If I were to put another shooting guard it would most likely be Kobe Bryant. Kawhi Leonard (current year) would be my small forward and I know that it would be stupid for me to not put Lebron or Larry but hear me out. I wanted the most well rounded player for my SF position and Leonard can basically do anything on the court. With the phenomenal and historical 3 point shooting he is having now it would be dumb of me not to put him on the team. The main reason I want him is because of his defense and how he can guard basically any position. I have two players for offense and and I need a player that is mainly a defender. The power forward I almost wanted to put a center but I think that would be cheating so I picked the second one closest to the type of center I wanted. I picked Kevin Garnett (2007-2008) and I would have picked Tim Duncan but he is not as athletic or as good of a defender.The KG I picked was the one when he one defensive player of the year because I think I would need him to guard some big men. KG would also be very great on the pick and roll with either using his mid range or driving to the basket. Center was probably the hardest one to pick mostly because I think it has the most amazing players for a position. I could have gone with Hakeem, Wilt, Shaq, and wouldn't have made much of a difference. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971-72) is the one monster center I picked because of his ability to score on almost anyone with his unblockable sky hook. This was my Dream Team this does not mean that this is the best team you could make because you could never know for sure. decisionsThere is two things that can change on how a player's skill level. Your physical state when you play and your mental state, if one is off it could change everything. Clearly one is not better than the other because both rely on each other whether it be making a layup, taking a shot, and defending.
When your body is a complete mess and out of shape it is very hard to play basketball even with a great IQ or mindset. Your body is not fast enough to do the things you want it to do. It goes vice versa if you are not a 100% in the game you can't make that open layup. I was always confused as to why I always miss the easiest shots and I figured out that I get a little cocky and than I lose that easy shot. If you can make the shot once than you can make at every single time after that it just depends on how much your mind is connected with your body. There is a feeling all sport players go through and it is called the "zone." This is when the body and mind is so connected with each other that it becomes second nature. This feeling does not mean you will make your shot or be able to defend that depends on you and the opponent. There are other several feelings that you go through playing basketball that can affect your play style. When you are angry, you can tend to be a lot more aggressive and may not make rational decisions. When your mind is clear you will make more rational decisions but may take more time to do things. Pressure from either fans or the situation can make you act differently like on the free throw line or a clutch shot. There is also the feeling you get from making shots or blocking, and that is the confidence boost. This can greatly improve your game but if you get over confident, it can lead to something I like to call a JR shot (JR Smith a player who take not the smartest of shots). JR Smith even says himself the reason why he does "stupid" stuff on the court is because he is not focused on the game and that can lead to bad plays. Your mental and physical state is very important to play any sport. You can improve both by eating right, exercising, and most importantly the right amount of sleep. hiIn the NBA community you always here the question "What's your Dream Team?." It's fun to talk about, you name players from all sorts of decades and it's usually a starting 5 with all players playing there native position. In reality this wouldn't work for some key reasons.
Now a Dream Team usually has "Hall of Famers" and many of those players want the ball in their hand. This will cause many problems because clearly not everyone will have the most touches. Players will be frustrated because they are not getting the ball enough and will start to do bad. Many of these players also won't be able to heat up because of the same reason. You see this effect on the clippers where players like Stephenson and Josh Smith are making them worse because the lack of minutes. The Clippers changed their line up to players that aren't nearly as skilled and it ended up in a 10 game winning streak without Blake Griffin. There is also the factor of overpay and wanting trades. You will rarely see a team with 4 amazing players because of those reasons and their stat line goes down. You can see that Lamarcus Aldridge's skill didn't go down on spurs but since their is so much talent on the team and how they run it he doesn't drop 24 a game. In reality a real Dream Team would need to have unselfish and humble players. To make an actual team like this you would most likely only need 3 Hall of Famers with only 2 of them being scorers and the other an unreal defender. The other 2 players would be all around players which can clean up, spot up, and hustle for plays. These two are key to this team because they will do all the dirty work and can let their other teammates preserve their energy. Your team of Stephen Curry, MJ, Lebron, Karl Malone, and Shaq would never work (this would never be my Dream Team by the way). In reality a team like 1995-1996 Bulls would be fine and it did. Don't expect any team in the NBA to ever have ludicrous teams like this. |
AuthorIt's ya boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
January 2016
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