van Gundy working color for the Pelicans/Jazz game Thursday night:
"JJ Redick wasn't much of a free throw shooter when he came in the league. I took him aside and had a talk with him; now he's developed into a 90% free throw shooter"
JJ credits Van Gundy for forcing him to be a more balanced player to get more minutes. Pretty sure that was tounge in cheek.
Also, where's the Duke players in the NBA thread? We could wear it out in this game.
Right here!
perhaps you guys are right:
I have to admit that I've long held a grudge against SVG because I thought he never appreciated JJ. I could have been projecting. I'll listen again...
on the plus side:
He did say JJ is one of the best (if not the best) conditioned players in the league
He also gave him props for reliably being in position on defense...
Ingram, on the other hand, actually improved from 66% over the first three seasons to 86% now, which is pretty amazing.
I don't pay attention to the NBA much, but I did follow JJ's early career with interest. I've got no doubt that JJ would not be the player he is today without Stan sitting him on the bench until he rounded out his game.
JJ did, and became a star with longevity in the big league because of it.
Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."
SVG was def kidding but after his less than glorious stint on the Pistons bench I'd have to give him a one star review.
Nothing incites bodily violence quicker than a Duke fan turning in your direction and saying 'scoreboard.'
That's one read of the situation. Another is that SVG was unfairly forced out in 2005 when Pat Riley saw an opportunity to coach a contender and wanted it for himself.
Here's how Shaq described it:
"Stan got fired because Pat (Riley) wanted to take over, not because I wanted him out. I had no control over it — not a smidgen of control. We all kind of knew it was coming because Pat and Stan were always arguing. Pat would come down and tell Stan how to do something and Stan would want to do it his own way, and that was a fine game plan if you wanted to get yourself fired."
At the time SVG resigned to "spend more time with his family" the Heat were 11-10, but Shaq had missed 18 of those 21 games. Sure looks to me like Pat Riley was just looking for any excuse to force SVG out.
SVG then went to Orlando and implemented ahead-of-the curve offensive schemes and rotations to get a team headlined by Dwight Howard, Hedo Turkoglu, Rashard Lewis and Jameer Nelson all the way to the NBA finals. That's impressive.
Brandon Ingram shot 68.2% from the line at Duke, and a good 41% from 3-point
https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb...-ingram-1.html
Which was a little better than the free throw shooting of RJ Barrett at 66.5% or Zion at 64.0%
It’s tricky. Shaq says that he didn’t have SVG fired, but he has also admitted that they would not have won the title without Riley. SVG says that he resigned, but he was so depressed afterwards that he couldn’t even come out of his room.
I would say that the guys who were running the locker room were Wade and our old friend Alonzo Mourning, so Shaq didn’t need to get involved directly in the coaching change. So technically he’s right, but I Imagine that he went along.
All speculation and educated guesses of course.
And I agree that SVG has a really good basketball mind, but he can really rub people the wrong way. In this case he had three hall of fame alpha males on the bench and another in the front office, so he was in a tough situation no matter what. You would need a Phil Jackson or a Popovich to survive that situation. Maybe even a Red Auerbach.
Red definitely knew the secret. He's just take a few puffs of his cigar, blow the magic smoke into the room, and everyone would become compliant quickly.
*Note, I was an old-time Celtics fan who grew up cheering for those 70's and 80's Celtic teams. So I'm only kidding. Not throwing shade or anything.