Aloha,
I don’t believe I have ever seen an entire teams shooting collapse like this team. We shot poorly in 5 of 6 preseason games and all 3 regular season games so far.
No one believed this would be a good shooting team. But it was hard to envision it would be this bad. For the most part most of the players are not even close to their career averages. Even Russ is bad for Russ from 3.
Russ seems to be taking a lot of heat for this. And there is no mistake his offense has sucked the last two games, but if we even shot in the high 20’s from 3 we would be 3 and O.
Now the defense has been better then I expected. And the team plays extremely hard, but unless the team can start making a few 3’s it’s not going to matter who we trade for. If the others can’t at least shoot their career averages, we are in big trouble.
I believe collectively it’s become a psychological thing. Even guys like Nunn and PatBev that have been proven shooters cant shoot. I don’t believe coaching or reps is going to solve this problem because as a team I think we are thinking too much. We need a shrink or perhaps Phil can come in with a few zen sessions. We need something.
Hopefully we can maintain this defensive intensity and guys will begin to drift up to their career averages. If not, it’s going to be an ugly season.
Aloha, Michael,
The shooting woes have been mired what should have been a 2-1 start with a top 5 defense. The obvious problem is the pressure to make shots was high to start and is now almost insurmountable for this group of players. Most distressing is Nunn and Beverley also shooting blanks. I thought you were right about Nunn but he’s looking very tentative at both ends.
We also have to remember that Darvin has never been a head coach. When I coached, I was a big believer in my ability to motivate players to change their stripes. I won some rings doing that and had some terribly disappointing seasons doing that. Darvin should not have put Russ back in the game when we were doing so well but he believes he can reach Russ. His job is to win, not to reach Russ. He’ll get better.
The way we’re defending is the most important development so far. Have to give Darvin credit for it as well as Rob getting a younger and more athletic roster. Doesn’t excuse the miserable job getting size and shooting. Besides Nunn, the other disappointments are Jones and Bryant. Thomas is obviously not recovered yet and Jones can’t start. Roster and situation screams for Turner and Hield trade IMO. Who knows what Rob will end up doing, My guess is less talent back but only one pick out.