Impressed With Coaching North of the Border

I’ll be a lot more impressed with Mitchell if he can get O’Neal to shut his mouth and maybe perform on the court a little bit.

OTOH, what does it tell about your GM skills if you are forced to “rebuild” your nº1 draft pick? Mitchell up, Colangelo down. Or maybe he has drafted Bargnani with the intention of making him a different player, but in that case, why has he waited 2 years?

I saw Bargnani playing yesterday. He has added some bulk, but he looked pretty much the same player. Generally, I don’t buy the “he is what he is” mantra. Players can, and should improve. However, label me skeptical about the Bargnani revolution. He was never that good to start (I was appalled when he went 1st in the draft) and probably will never develop the instincts of a post player.

Toronto has three 7 footers, and none of them is a post player. That’s their biggest problem.

The Celtics have less size, but more guys willing to get dirty in the paint (e.g. Perkins, O’Bryant, Powe, BBD)

He’s no Dirk.

And I disagree Brick, O’Neal while he may have a nice jumper can definitely play in the post. He gets a load of boards and blocks while manning the middle when healthy.

Mitchell has done a very good job with the Raptors …

I wouldn’t be surprised if Sam Mitchell is fired sometime in the next 12 months because Toronto’s chances of winning a series in the playoffs are poor, and if they pick up a major injury (not out of the realm of possibility with Jermaine on board) they’ll fall back into the chasing pack fighting for the eight seed. From everything Colangelo has said about his team this summer he clearly has an overinflated opinion of the squad’s capabilities, and when those hopes do not come to fruition someone will have to answer … and I think Colangelo is going to deflect the blame onto the coaching staff to save his own hide.

As for Bargnani. I want to see more rebounding from him. He needs to be a better rebounder to stay on the court. The second thing I want to see from him is a midpost and midrange game. The rest are mainly long term issues. One go-to low post move to keep the 6-7 guys away is necessary too.

Dave, Bosh has the skills but doesn’t have a criminal background Cuban obviously covets so he won’t fit in Dallas. Hopefully for your sake, Bosh takes the money and stays.

But I can’t imagine he’d want to stay when they’re trading for and paying a blithering idiot not to play. Because that’s what they just did when they went after O’Neal.

O’neal blocks shots. He does not rebound particularly well, and he is a jump shooter on offense. He has no drop step, no hook shot, no up and under move, nothing. He will occasionally get a dunk on a weakside offensive rebound.

As for Bargnani. I want to see more rebounding from him. He needs to be a better rebounder to stay on the court. [/quote]

How much more? Anything is possible, but I don’t foresee more than a marginal improvement (on the defensive rebounding, he can improve the OR just by playing closer to the basket). He was always a poor rebounder, even in Europe, where it’s way more easier to rebound for a guy of his size. He doesn’t have the instinct, the intuition to read the flight of the ball. And then, there’s genetics, his hands are small (one of the reasons he’s a good shooter, unlike Rondo). And that can’t be changed.

[quote]The second thing I want to see from him is a midpost and midrange game.

Agreed. They shouldn’t try to transform him in a post player because it’s here that he can excel (besides a single go-to move, as you said, to keep the opponent coach minimally honest). He could be lethal running the pick’n’pop. The most important thing, in my opinion, is teaching him to set good picks. He’s a fairly bad screener, because he lacks technique and is clearly afraid of though physical contact, but having this skill in his game would help him a lot.

————

O’Neal doesn’t have the lower body strength nor the foot work technique (I never understood how a guy who was coached by Mark Aguirre couldn’t learn this; is Aguirre a lousy teacher or O’Neal a real bad student?) to play consistently in the low post. He struggles to hold low post position for long (and during the past seasons, he didn’t even run hard enough to gain it). However, he plays deeper than Bosh, will be matched with slower guys and that team has great feeders. I think that regarding offense, a Bosh/O’Neal combo can work pretty well, unless Mitchell tries to force O’Neal to play as a typical center.

On the defensive side, he’s similar to KG. He’s way better when he can play along a big body who makes the dirty work and guards the bigger guys. I think this is going to be a problem to Toronto; Bosh is no Foster.

I think Toronto’s greatest weakness is the lack of a dribble penetrator who can create for himself.

Cordobes,

I want Bargnani to get to a stage where he’s not hurting his team, so that he can stay on the floor and use his offensive skills. So I’d like to see him become an average rebounder. If he doesn’t become prolific at grabbing the ball he can always improve at keeping his own man off the glass.

Interestingly enough, in the first preseason game Bargnani grabbed 8 boards in 25 minutes against Cleveland. Only the 9th time in two years he got that many rebounds. It was a good start but he’s fallen off in each game since. In about two months we should know if he’s made any headway in the rebounding department.

Yeah, teaching him to box out is a more attainable goal, I think. No reason why he can’t do that almost flawlessly, but he’s real bad right now. If he improves on that, play him in a frontcourt featuring two athletic players (O’Neal, Bosh, Moon is the right type) and the team shouldn’t suffer too much. As a pure rebounder, I’m very skeptical that he can become even average.