SFCityBear said:
OaktownBear said:
SFCityBear said:
socaltownie said:
RedlessWardrobe said:
SF City, you make valid points. The majority of us realize that this is a difficult situation. But did you see the Santa Clara game? My negativity doesn't stem from what we have, but after watching that last game, it really appears that this team is regressing. Hope I'm wrong about it.
That is my point. Get past the numbers SFC - it is EYEBALL tests
Lars just can not jump. You don't really teach that (oh you can work on/put on core strength to help) it but it is twitch reflex muscles and generally speaking guys have it or not). Dude can not even DUNK when given the ball or rebound a FOOT from the rim. The announcers have ALL noticed it - PLEADING with him to go up strong. Perhaps learning but I fear that is who he is.
KK and DJ can't crack the line up even with the challenges we have. Fox is supposedly a taskmaster. My goodness, wouldn't you think the umpteenth time that Lars got owned we would have seen those guys for some extended minutes? The fact that not suggests that Lars is BETTER. That is, at best, concerning and at worst all the reason for all the negativity I can muster.
Brown is going to have to break down and start over on his shot mechanics. So we have ANOTHER point guard (cause he is the heir for a while) who teams will simply sag off of. The good news is that he can already defend so PERHAPS he can contribute at Pac-12 levels.
Again - I am NOT sure that Fox should have not simply held 2 rides back.
Look, the first 4 games were "fun" but it is so clear from watching the next 5 that coaches are not stupid. Cal, right now, is EXTREMELY easy to scheme.
1) "OK guys. Feed the post. Even marginal players can own their bigs. If they double kick out to our wings who will get to step into wide open threes because their help defenders other than Matt Bradley are slow. WHomever Bradley is guarding go weak side and, get this, look at the tape how SLLLOOOOOOWWWW grant is getting out on you. Bubba....enjoy your loooks.
2) Defensively is really simple. WHomever on Bradley go over the screen. The rest of you go under. DOn't worry about Grant. He isn't a shooter who can hit off the dribble and his handle is weak. NO NEED to help down. THey can't score in the post. Don't worry about the pick and pop. No one can do that either EXCEPT Grant so take that away. Probably just switch when he is screening. Feel free to let them drive so you can body because they don't have front line players that are capable of finishing on the dish.
Seriously - that is the pre-game walk through against us ALL year. That is why I am negative.
SocalTownie,
I understand your frustration and your points. I'd like to say a few words about eyeball tests, about which you are correct in feeling that eyeball tests are more important than cold stats in evaluating a player or team.
First, you and I are watching the games on TV. We see what the cameramen and director want us to see. They will focus on the game from up high in the stands, with some close up and/or slo-mo video of individual plays. To evaluate a player in a game, see all his tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses, you need to see a lot of his minutes, and commercial TV won't give us that in a single game.
I went to the Pepperdine game and sat behind a basket. I was 15-20 feet away from Lars and Grant in the post. I focused a lot on both of them. Grant was very impressive in that game, Lars not very much. Still I saw a lot more that close in person than I ever see on TV, even though I can rewind the DVR and look at plays over and over.
So I think watching in person, I can learn more than watching on TV, and TV is better than listening on radio, and that in turn is better than watching intermittent streaming video. I like radio because we have pretty good announcers.
Now coach Fox and his assistants have seen every game and dozens of practices, all up close and personal. They have so much more data than we have. We aren't allowed to watch practice, so we don't know what players are working on, and then judge if they are successful in doing that in games. I think I trust Fox and his assistants more than I trust myself or any of us fans to evaluate our players, especially as to their potential for next year and beyond. Just my opinion.
As to your overall evaluation, we need to consider the health of our players, about which I know very little. Cal began this season with two key players on the bench with injury, Thorpe and Kuany. A third player, Klonaris arrived at Cal injured from play or practice in FIBA games. Those players missed a lot of practices and some games. Was Jacobi Gordon's recovery farther along than last season, so he is able to play as he was advertised as a recruit? During the season so far, JHD got injured and had to miss some time. Brown came down with the flu. So when we write this team off, write off the talent, and write off the coach, are we sure all of these players were fully recovered from their injuries and were in top form, able to play 100% in the last few games before we say they are not good enough to get playing time?
My thought about coaching is to always play to a player's strengths and have him learn how to overcome his deficiencies. I doubt that there is as much dunking on German playgrounds as there is on Oakland playgrounds. Lars has not learned to be aggressive or dunk. He has a nice looking hook shot from short range. The hook is a very high percentage shot, because the shooter is perpendicular to the defender and has the whole width of his body plus the full length of his extended shooting arm, and his hook is almost impossible to block. He has a soft touch with it. I would teach him that rather than dunk when doubled, turn and shoot a hook. I'd run plays for him to shoot hooks, and also be teaching him putbacks and dunks. When he gets hit enough times, he will turn aggressive, or he will wash out. Players can increase their vertical leap.
I would not break down Brown's shot during the season. I wouldn't let him shoot threes much. That can be a project for summer. He has to be taught how to finish at the rim, and how to use floaters. Maybe we bring Allen Crabbe's coach to Berkeley next summer, the guy who taught Crabbe floaters with either hand during one summer, which helped Crabbe immensely.
Right now Cal does not shoot and make enough two pointers. We live and die by the three, and in some games the entire team doesn't make many threes. When we have a game where threes are not falling, we have to be able to make some twos.
Cheers.
In my opinion, I disagree with Socal's evaluation of the trees, but I disagree with your evaluation of the forest.
I would never write off a Freshman. My example is always one of my favorite Bears Keith Smith who I would place as #3 PG in the last 40 years and who I think is underrated because he came right after KJ and a couple years before Jason Kidd. Not a good freshman at all. Very good career.
So I'm not going to write off Lars or say that Brown will never be able to shoot at a high level.
However, there is a difference in going down the list and talking about what each guy could possibly do and looking at a list of 9 guys who have major deficiencies and act like most of them will cure those things. Each individual might. As a group, you are lucky if 2 of them do.
I think we like to look at European players and envision that they just learned basketball yesterday. European basketball is no joke and Germany has produced some really good players. I really doubt Lars' issue is the frequency of dunks on the playgrounds of Germany. I think you should assume he has been a reasonably coached youth basketball player to this point. Yes, players can increase their vertical leap. How often do players like Lars increase their vertical leap that much? How often do players do most of the things you are hoping he does? Don't get me wrong. The issue isn't Lars. The issue is Lars being our number 1 center this year, and likely next year, and likely the year after with no help on the horizon.
And with Brown. We are discussing a PG who needs his shooting mechanics broken down and rebuilt after his freshman year in college. How often does that work? Talking about teaching Crabbe floaters? Crabbe already had a great shot. It is easier for great shooters to add to their repertoire. Generally great shooters are not made in college. Sometimes great shooters struggle their freshman year with the speed of the game and getting their shot and getting it off. But they don't have their mechanics built in college. Again, Brown MAY do it. He's working against the odds. The issue isn't Brown. The issue is Brown being the number 1 PG this year, next year, and likely the year after with no help on the horizon.
You are really speculating about impact of injury here. And I would say if Gordon isn't close to 100% now, he probably never will be. The other guys you are talking about normal minor injuries.
These are just examples.
Point being that any one of these guys could surprise, but we need like 6 of them to surprise.
Basically, we have one player who has shown Pac-12 level play - Bradley. He is by far our best player. And I know you don't put any store in recruiting ratings, but uncoincidentally Bradley is also by far our highest rated recruit. And he is much higher than what we are adding next year. They could surprise also. But again, balance of probabilities, how many of the 12 guys not named Bradley are likely to surprise to the extent we can be competitive, let alone will they be dispersed across positions to the extent that we have everything covered?
So you can detail how each guy MAY develop, but if you are honest each guy has maybe a 10% chance of doing what you are saying they MAY do. You are betting on quite a parlay to just get us to respectability.
What in the world are you writing about? Trees and a forest? I have no idea what you are saying. Does tree mean bigs? Or does it mean each player right now? Does forest mean the players other than the bigs? Or is it all some reference to "can't see the forest for the trees"? I'm lost. You assume too much from this reader's ability in reading comprehension.
And what "evaluation" are you taking about? I never evaluated a single player this season. I wrote only about Lars and Brown, and I did not evaluate either one, except maybe by implication, when I said here is how I would use them and teach them going forward this season. I think I mentioned that Lars seems to have a pretty good short hook shot and a soft touch with it. I haven't seen enough to evaluate any of these players, except maybe the veterans, who I saw last season.
What is this list of 9 players you are talking about? Later, you say the list is 12 players. I have no list. That is your list. These evaluations are all yours and Townie's, not mine. I have no evaluations yet.
You say you will never write off a freshman, and later in the post you all but say the words that you are writing them off. Lars and Brown. When you judge a player as having little or no chance to improve over 4 years based on seeing him for a handful of games, and a a handful of minutes in some of those games, you jump to conclusions, based I guess on your vast experience in judging freshmen. You are not evaluating, you are speculating. And you are making it all up. I believe this is currently called "fake news". Because we have not seen the future and what the players will look like in the next week, month, or year.
And who is "we"? I was writing about playgrounds, and think players will grow up more aggressive on a playground in inner city, USA, than in Europe. The other choices for a lot of inner city kids are school, a job, drugs, gangs, jail or worse, or trying to make it in sports. This scenario may be coming to German playgrounds, but I doubt that it is there yet. Of course players can increase their vertical leap. The video presented by Hoop Dreams of Lars throwing down a dunk showed us that Lars has enough vertical leap to dunk a ball and that will give you and Townie one less thing to be pessimistic about.
As to floaters, shooting mechanics are different for each type of shot, and different for which hand you will shoot the shot with. The jumper is a two hand shot or a mostly one hand shot, shot off a vertical leap. The floater and the hook are totally different shots with different mechanics. The hook is one handed, either hand, and shot either stationary or when moving away from the hoop. The floater is shot on the run toward the basket with either hand. Want a player who learned a floater without being a good shooter with great mechanics? Try Tyrone Wallace, one of the worst perimeter shooters I've seen at Cal, and had maybe the best floater I've seen at Cal. The jumper and the floater are totally different shots with different mechanics.
As to injuries, I am not speculating. I merely want to know if these players are in playing shape, able to go 100%. You can't evaluate a player accurately if he is playing injured, can you? Along with your basketball evaluations, you are also as competent as a medical doctor, in making a prognosis on Gordon's injury recovery, presumably without examining him. And also declaring that the other players' injuries are "normal minor injuries". Did you examine them, and if not, how do you know this? Try and tell Thorpe his injury was only normal and minor, when he apparently took 11 months to recover from his injury.
My feeling about recruit rankings is based on facts. I spent weeks making a spreadsheet of the top 100 recruits for one class, and traced their careers for 4 years. Only 40 players in that class achieved any personal or team success in those 4 years (or less, if a player left school or got injured, etc). That was one class's data, and other years might be different, so my conclusions are anecdotal. The spreadsheet was posted on the forum. So I have faith in the rankings of 40% of the recruits as living up to their rankings. For other years it could be 10-20% or higher or lower, I'd guess. I did the spreadsheet because most fans seemed to think recruit rankings were absolute truth.
I did not predict anything, speculate on anything else. You say our players must surprise to be good enough for you. Most players improve under a good coach. Monty's era was like that. Read Thurman, Jorge, Wallace, Solomon, Crabbe, even lowly Bak Bak, and many others. It is something I enjoy seeing.
What do you mean by saying Bradley is the player who has shown only PAC12 level play? Have you forgotten Kelly? He had a pretty good freshman season, and led the PAC12 in FG% or 2pt FG%, I can't remember, for most of the season. How do you know the new players or any of our other players will not "show PAC12 level play", when Cal hasn't even played their first PAC12 game? How do you know these things? You are a soothsayer, I guess. Wow
Finally, there are these options for a Cal fan after a handful of games:
1. Be optimistic and hope this season will be a good one, and the future even better
2. Be pessimistic, and prejudge the new coach and the new recruits, as having little chance to be successful this year or any other
3. Be open-minded, and watch the games, processing the good and the bad, and not reading too much into the future. Just enjoy the games.
4. Stop watching the games and find something to do with your time other that will make you happier.
I prefer option #3. I think to be optimistic is not being realistic, and if you are a Cal fan, that would mean being disappointed too often.
Option #2 is the one I argue against. Why post negative post after negative post, perhaps too harsh a critique of players or the coach after only a few games? Why post speculative posts, making things up, predicting the future for all these players and coach. Does it give the pessimist good feelings about himself next season or the next, to be able to say to his fellow posters, "I told you so'? Or to be the first and most pessimistic fan? Why would someone post opinions which could eventually help drive fans away from Cal basketball? What is their ax to grind? Do they want to get fans to stop buying tickets? Are they trying to influence someone in the Admin to make decisions to turn this program around? Honestly, do you think you or any of us can do anything to change anything about our coaching recruiting or performance? Or are these fans just cynical, feeling that if they are not enjoying Cal basketball, they don't want anyone else to enjoy it either?
Quite honestly, many of my friends have stopped going to games. I may stop, not so much for that, but for the near-constant pessimism and even cynicism I read on this board. It is not everyone, but it is getting louder. And for no good reason, IMO.
I was trying to have a discussion with you. I expressed areas of agreement and disagreement. You seem to have approached my post with predetermined hostility and that has lead you to attack out of lack of understanding. I'm choosing not to treat you in kind. Let me explain some points.
There is a common expression. "You can't see the forest for the trees." I looked it up to see if I used an expression that postdated your youth, though I did not think it did, just in case that was the source of the confusion. I found that it was first documented in 1546. I think I was reasonable in referring to the expression, but I see that the way I used it created a lack of clarity. Let me explain the intent. The trees in the expression represent details. The forest represents the whole. The expression represents focusing on the details so much that you miss the big picture.
In this case I was saying that I disagree with socaltownie in his view of individual players and writing them off. That was the trees. The details of each particular player. I agree with you when it comes to the details. However, I think your focusing on the fact that each player could possibly develop leads you to miss the potential development of the team which is really the important issue. Maybe I misspoke in using the word "evaluation" with respect to your view of the big picture. You really weren't evaluating the big picture. I guess that was my area of disagreement with you.
Here I have to point out that I was trying to engage in a dialogue. When you do that, it is not necessary for the second person speaking (or in this case writing) to confine themselves to the points the first person made. Let me explain the 9 and 12. Initially in my post I referred to 9 guys who I believe at this moment have major deficiencies that need to be cured. I'm talking about this year's team with an eye to the future. There is a graduate student and a senior who will be gone. They aren't relevant to the discussion. There is Bradley who is a very solid player. There are 9 other scholarship players. When I later talked about 12, it was in context of next year's team. Bradley + the aforementioned 9 + the 2 committed incoming frosh + 1 as yet unnamed frosh.
I wasn't claiming that you evaluated any of them. My point was that you and socaltownie were arguing about Lars. I completely understand that socaltownie was drawing conclusions about Lars. I completely understand that you were not drawing conclusions and saying wait and see. I was agreeing with you that when we discuss the question "Will Lars be any good" the answer is not available yet. That is the trees question. I'm saying you are not dealing with the forest question "Will
CAL be any good". The way I would go about answering that question would be to look at each player and compare them to past players of similar abilities, not anecdotally, but as a whole and consider the odds that a player will improve to a certain level. I'm not the only one to do this analysis. Mark Fox in his speech to the players last spring talked about the odds of players making the NBA. In saying the odds are long that they make the NBA, he wasn't telling any one of them that they couldn't do so. When I say the odds are against a non-shooter learning how to be a great shooter in college, I'm not saying they can't. But the odds are long. This is pretty common knowledge. You seem to want to just leave it at they could develop. But that doesn't help you evaluate the health of the program. I understand you may not be interested in evaluating the health of the program. I disagree. I am interested in doing so.
I did not jump to a conclusion about Lars and Brown. You misunderstand my discussion of odds. I can't see the future for either guy. I can tell you that the percentage of past guys like Lars developing a good vertical leap and past guys like Brown becoming great shooters is not high. When I say 10%, that doesn't mean they can't. Many guys before them have. In the case where there is a 10% chance of a guy achieving something, somewhere along the lines of 1 in 10 people actually do it. I'm not writing off their ability any more than Mark Fox did when he discussed the odds of getting to the NBA.
My point about Germany was that there is plenty of high level training there and they have plenty of opportunity to hone the skill of basketball. I don't think that growing up in a 1980's movie about the hood makes one a better basketball player. As for Hoop Dreams video of the "throwing down", I didn't comment about Lars, but I don't think socaltownie meant he literally can't dunk. I think he meant he is poor at doing it against tough defense. I doubt that video cured him of his pessimism on the point.
Ty Wallace notwithstanding, we will have to just disagree on the issue of floaters. I stand by my contention that guys who are already good shooters, like Alan Crabbe, can learn other types of shots much easier than guys who are not good shooters. Thank you for making sure I understood what a floater is. I did, but I appreciate the effort.
Regarding your feelings about recruiting rankings and that they are based on facts, I am going to have to tip toe on this because I'm afraid I will upset you. The type of analysis you did with your spreadsheet is really not your strong suit. Your methodology was very flawed. I know you worked hard on it, but your data at best showed that top 100 recruits do not guarantee success, and that is a conclusion no one doubted before you did the work. (and it really didn't show that). It in no way indicated that the lower ranked recruits have an equal chance as higher ranked recruits of developing into highly performing players. My statement was that higher ranked recruits have higher odds of doing so. Your prior work did not contradict that. Many studies have supported my contention.
Most players improve under a good coach. The question is do players of a certain level improve enough to give a program good odds of success. You mention Bak Bak. I think it is great individually that Bak Bak improved. However, he was never the type of player that gave Cal greater odds of success. I'm sorry if you think I'm cold for saying so.
I stand by my contention that Bradley is the only player who has shown Pac12 level play. I don't know if anyone else will. My point was that the odds of enough of them doing so to get Cal to a successful level are slim. Judging odds does not make one a soothsayer. I don't know the Warriors won't win the NBA title this year. The young guys could develop. The old guys could get healthy. They could go on a tear. Odds are they won't. I don't need soothsaying abilities to say that.
Now as for your options. I don't accept them. I especially don't accept a multiple choice quiz where you set yourself up to be the reasonable one. Fine. You are number 3. Great. And where does that lead you.
3 days before Wyking Jones was fired you defended him vigorously and talked about Cal fans vilifying him and his critics not knowing a basketball from a beach ball.
2 weeks after he was fired you said you couldn't say you would've fired Jones.
You were talking about a coach who was 16-47. Maybe you like the process and just enjoying the games. You don't get to define how to be a Cal fan. I don't think your attitude is good for the health of the program when you refuse to hold the program accountable for 16-47. I don't understand you. You have been on this board excoriating the younger generation for participation trophies and talking about how tough you guys were and your coaches were. And you let a million dollar coach go without being able to say, yeah 16-47. Maybe we should fire that guy. That million dollar check is one mother of a participation trophy.
Since you want to tell me how I should be a Cal fan, let me tell you about how I actually became one. My grandfather went to Cal and that was a source of great pride for my Mom and she knew all the football players dating way back. She met my Dad when he was a student at SF State and quickly transmitted that passion for Cal football to him. When I was 4 years old my parents bought season tickets to Cal football games for the first of many seasons. I still remember my 37 year old father throwing a nerf football to me on the grass field at Memorial after games. As I grew up, as was common at the time among fathers and sons, we communicated through sports. My father and I had occasion several times a year to take long drives, just us. The topic was always the same. How Cal was going to do that year. Me being a boy, I always thought it was going to be the year we got to the Rose Bowl. My father, being a man and not an idiot knew it wouldn't be, but he never let on.
That 4 year old is 50 now. My mom passed away a few years ago. I missed the Big Game this year. That day, my father had a heart attack. For most of the game, I was in a hospital room watching my father sleep. At one point he woke up for 2 or 3 minutes. He asked how Cal was doing first thing. I looked on my phone and told him Stanford was up by 7 but Cal was driving. From that point I followed on gamecast and here so I could tell him what was going on when he woke up again. Even posted a couple of times. When my father woke up, I told him "the Axe is back in Berkeley". A few days later he was given a choice of high risk surgery that could kill him or going home and entering hospice care. He chose the surgery. Thankfully it was successful.
People make fun of your fixation with Pete Newell. I get it. That was a special time. But it's fine for you. You have a basketball championship and a Rose Bowl in your pocket. Few of us have that. Fine. Just enjoy the games. Process the good and the bad. Unlike you, we don't have our Pete Newell to relive.
I have come to grips with the fact that it will take a miracle for my Dad and I to see Cal in a Rose Bowl or a Final Four. I get that I'm not owed anything, but it would have been effing nice to spend one day sitting next to my Dad watching Cal in a Rosebowl. They've had 47 chances.
We lost Goldenbear71 a few years back. We lost Greybear. There have been others. Do not tell me that I should "Be open-minded, and watch the games, processing the good and the bad, and not reading too much into the future. Just enjoy the games". That right there is bullshyte especially coming from someone who had their time. Do not tell me I shouldn't hold Cal accountable for their failure.
My great sin, the thing that made me so negative it was nuts, was setting a standard of winning 5-6 games in conference. I did not prejudge. I set a standard. I stand by the standard. I intend to voice my opinion if we do not meet that standard no matter how many times you tell me I should watch games like you do. I'm calling that option #5. I think the 99% of the people on this board who have been Cal fans for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,
SIXTY years without getting what you got have a right to that option.
By the way, I submit that posts like the one I'm responding to drive at least as many Cal fans away as posts that hold the program accountable for its results.
