Tom Moore has a
great piece this morning detailing how Doug Collins and his staff are taking a hands-on approach with their new players this summer. This team has a long, uphill journey ahead of them, but stories like this can't help but make you feel a little bit better about the future.
Definitely read the article. The highlights include assistant coaches visiting players all over the country and Collins developing a close relationship with Iguodala, which is something that apparently hasn't happened between Iguodala and a coach to this point in his career.
I have serious doubts about the makeup of this roster, their chances in the short term and their management in the long term, but I will say that if Collins can get some of these players to overachieve, to go from being athletic guys who don't quite get it, to legitimate developing players who are making strides toward becoming something more, I'll feel a whole lot better about this team.
Collins is a hands on, "play the right way" type coach. I definitely see him connecting well with Iguodala and probably Brand and Turner given their style and approach to the game.
I'm interested to see how is works with Jrue, Thad, Lou, Hawes and Speights. Those guys are young, not established and have had questions raised about their ability to respond to or adapt to coaching.
Thanks for the kind words, Brian.
Think Collins' approach is interesting -- essentially the opposite of Eddie Jordan's laissez faire attitude. And the players seem to be responding.
Collins says when he texts Speights, he usually hears back within 30 seconds. Another good sign.
When I think hands on i don't think communicating by text. Not sure how hands on he could be spending his time in San Diego, but sure, he dishes all the right platitudes, he had a decade or so out of coaching to work on them.
The roster is still the roster.
And there are still useful pieces on the roster. This season may be an abject disaster, but how Collins works with Jrue, Iguodala and Turner is important, no matter how bad the team as a whole is.
I'm more interested in what this 'play the right way' 'hands on' coach gets from guys like Speights, Hawes, Young. These are the guys with giant flaws that excuses (numerous ones) are made for but who have yet to show improvement in certain aspects of their game. If he can get Speights to commit to defense, get Young to learn how to rebound, to get Hawes to commit to basketball more, then i'll be impressed.
This is a year about development, and the guys who have 'slacked' in the past are the guys I'm watching to see what Collins and his staff can really do. (It should also be a good indicator if Collins has been out of the game too long and can't communicate with 'today's' player, which wouldn't surprise me.)
I see the development of those guys as a nice to have, but not really critical. I wouldn't shed a tear if none of their options were picked up/no qualifying offers were made. If you have to clear the deck and start over w/ Jrue, Turner, Iguodala, I'm fine with that. I just want those three guys developed and utilized properly.
At least with Collins (and Thorn?) in place, I'm more comfortable that the team can make good judgements on whether those guys are worth keeping and whether they should be part of the teams long term future.
More confident, yes. Completely confident, though? I'm not quite there. Just thank God Stefanski isn't making the call.
I don't think Collins is "the perfect coach", but IMO he is very competent to install a solid, non-gimmicky scheme on both ends of the floor. That should be enough to gauge these players. In the same way, Thorn is a competent F.O. guy who is not attached to any of these players.
Detachment is a good thing, in this case.
I think what Collins can get out of those three guys this year is critical because it will show me what kind of NBA coach he still is, much more than what he gets from the guys I know are going to work at it and give it on both ends of the court.
or a bad sign. Why does Speights have his phone on him all the time, assuming he's spending his time working out and practicing? haha
By the way, is this new font easier to read or a pain in the ass?
Well since you asked (and sadly I did notice the switch), to me it seems a little narrower and a little hard to read but that might just be me.
Making it bigger helped, yes :)
It could just be me being old though
Don't like the font.
Is this one better? Worse?
Getting sick of the standard web fonts, so playing around w/ this thing called TypeKit. Only problem is, I don't think I have a great eye for fonts.
Well, something to keep in mind is that while you might have access to tons of fonts, peoples browsers may not. The reason there are only a 'few' web fonts is because all browsers usually can read them.
I like these better.
If you want to play with fonts and have access to them, check out gotham and hypatia sans pro (i have learned a lot of fonts at my job :) )
Yeah, this loads the fonts. Works on all newish browsers, w/ a fallback for older ones.
Back to normal now. I'm overdue for a redesign, I'll work the new fonts into it.
I like what Iggy said of Collins. I do have hopes that he will turn the team in the right path. I think he is limited in terms of the quality in the roster, but if he can get Turner, Iggy and Jrue to improve, get more out of Brand and make Speights, Lou give consistent effort on defense then he's worth his weight in gold. That's what I'm looking out for this season, not a certain number of wins.
I love it! I love it! I love the delegation. I love the results of McKie working with Holiday. So, I think he'll have good success with Turner and his outside shot.
I'm getting pysched for the year!
Agree. About time this team starts overachieving again. Last year was brutal.
The problem with 'overachieving' is that it's just that, over achieving, you can't maintain that and then people have unrealistic expectations about what the roster truly is and the long term ability of it
Not necessarily.
When you have a really young, talented team that goes farther than you expect it could mean more good things to come. Like the Eagles winning their 1st playoff game under Reid, or the Sixers winning their first playoff series as a 6th seed with AI.
If the team is clearly on the way up, then overachieving could mean some of the young players are better than we expect. But if you have an older team like the Bobcats that overachieve, you are sort of fooling yourself.
Yup, a young, overachieving team also may attract players to the organization via FA or sign and trades.
Last time that did not work out so well :)
The overall all results, no, but the idea of overachieving and attracting FAs did. We just happened to overachieve the wrong year. lol
Kelly Dwyer (who I actually like reading), ranks Jrue as the 28th-best PG in the league. Ugh.
Here's the blurb:
I agree with that assessment (not sure who was ranked ahead of him.) Jrue is far from a finished product as a PG- even his defense needs some ironing out.
I am reasonably confident he will be in the top 20 within 1-2 years (maybe higher) but I would not be surprised to see some growing pains.
After looking at his 21-30, I would move Jrue up a few spots.
Especially when you see #25 ;)
I'm not sure where to rank Jrue when compared Lawson, Collison and other PG's in their class. Jrue really impressed and showed the potential to be a top all around PG. We'll have to wait a few years to know where to rank him. I don't want to give him to much credit for putting up average numbers on a horrible team-= but he certainly passed the eye test and inspires confidence for this year.
If I had to win a game there are a lot of guys I would send out before Jrue right now. But there are far fewer PG's I would trade him for.
why is Lawson in every picture?
Mancrush on Dwyer's part, I guess.
Actually, I don't see much of an assessment. Basically says to the rest of the world "Keep an eye out for this guy."
Jrue's biggest fault in my opinion is getting in the air before he makes a decision. Stop jump passing.
At least he's covering his bases. I think you have to watch Jrue every night to get a feel for him like many players, which a lot of non-76ers fans don't. The thing I can't wait to watch again are the little things Jrue does. Throwing a 50 foot pass ahead in transition, his understanding of how how to play the two man game, suffocating a ball-handler. They don't always show up in stats.
Dwyer watches a ton of games. He's definitely a guy to read when you get a chance. He's wrong here, but he sort of knows he's wrong :)
The person who wrote this?
Yeah, he's wrong there too.
Oh schnapp! The Sixers just signed ME! I feel so vindicated.
Ugh, OK, disregard what I said about Dwyer.
Lou lost that spot to Jrue about 6 months ago, and has no prayer of ever getting it back.
I like Dwyer too, although he comes off very bitter sometimes. It's just hard to keep up with all 82 games and see the differences between Jrue and Lou. Obviously the Sixers aren't high on any national guy's priority list either, so even the best ones don't have a real good idea.
I don't agree with it, but I heard Kenny Smith, I think, keep saying that Lou didn't lose his job last year. He said he played very well at the point and he has a chance to win the job back.
This was that week after the draft. So it seems the national media are just more aware of Lou. Maybe it's because he's been around longer or because he replaced Miller as our starter.
Doesn't surprise me. Kenny Smith didn't watch any Sixers games either. Lou absolutely lost his job.
The underrated thing is that he lost it under the watch of Eddie Jordan, who is much more inclined to like Lou's scoring than Jrue's all-around play.
Didn't it happen right after Stefanski put his foot down re defense?
Jrue had to become our best 3 point shooter to get on the court. I think that had more to do with it than his defensive tenacity. Like when Thad began starting as a rookie over Evans. Couldn't have been for defensive purposes, right?
Thad only really started in his rookie season when Evans got hurt.
I don't remember any injury. Evans played 81 games, starting 61. And I'm pretty sure Smith started the one game he was out.
Yeah, that was a pretty weird season. Thad started for a stretch of games in the middle of the season, then Evans took the job back. For some reason, I remember an injury late in the season against Detroit, and how I was hoping for something regarding Thad. Maybe what I wanted was Thad starting at the three and it was Willie Green who was hurt. Long time ago.
Jrue's three-point shooting skyrocketed when he started playing, but he got on the floor to being with more out of necessity.
I thought it was more of Lou getting hurt with the jaw, and never getting it back.
I believe Jrue missed a couple games right when Lou came back (shoulder), then when Jrue came back they had to make a decision. Can't really remember. Let me check the rotation spreadsheet.
I was sort of right. Jrue started some when Lou was out, then Jrue got hurt and missed a couple games. When Lou came back, he was put right back into the starting lineup, then Jrue replaced him in game 42 for the rest of the year.
Which was also the night Thad got put on the bench after Stefanski did that?
Yup, same game.
AI was starting by then. And that's where Lou got lost.
Nope, Lou started with AI for a stretch before Jrue took the spot from Lou.
Gosh, AI and Lou starting in the back court together...
That's pretty laughable. No wonder I forgot.
Does Kenny Smith watch any games?
I think some of you may have glossed over the most important snippet in this article...
"Aaron McKie has stayed in Philadelphia to work with players such as WILLIE GREEN and Turner."
Will this be the year that Willie finally puts it all together? All Star?
+1
Can the old font be brought back,.... much easier on the eyes.
Yep, just playing around w/ some things.
That block quote thing you tried didn't really work, black background on white text only works for small amounts. :)
Vera Sans is O.O., Harfang is a bit annoying in how it is stretched. But I use larger text sizes, so it might make it worse.
And the little font add at the bottom corner is very noticable.
O.O. should read O.K.