You wrote all that, which is nice and all, but you ended it with "play Haislip" LOL..
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Complaining about weak basketball IQ, then you want more Haislip. You mad? I saw RJ follow the system. Like Bowen, the forward stands in the corner on offense, the opposite side of the court away from the ballhandler. In the Spurs system, the small forward practically touches the ball last or never sees the floor. Screw the defense, Rudy Gay had a single digit outing and RJ only played 20 minutes (Yes, Rudy Gay, their co-leader in scoring only had 8 points). 6 shots for a volume scorer, granted he missed all of them, taking jumpers when he is open and the shot clock winding down. Play more RJ at small ball, sure that helps him a lot to play him out of position.
I couldn't have imagined, before the start of this season, that it would be Jefferson and Parker holding the Spurs back. I certainly couldn't have predicted Jefferson averaging an anemic 12, 2, and 3 in 31 minutes. Noway did I foresee the Spurs having the number one bench, but a half-assed starting five, with a no-impact back court.
This NBA stuff is complicated.
I'm willing to give Jefferson the benefit of the doubt that he'll still pull it all together this season, but I'm skeptical that his poor performance so far can be attributed to system/style mismatch, or anyother aspect having to do with coaching or other personel-- because Jefferson basically does nothing either with or without the ball. he doesn't get after it when the ball ends up in his hands for the mostpart, notwithstanding hitting the game winner against the Thunder; nor does he work the glass, slip the back door cut, jam the passing lanes, dive after loose balls, or any of the other things NBA badasses often focus on when offense isn't going well. Aside from his minutes, RJ is putting up bench player numbers.
I wanna kick him in the balls. This would otherwise be a dream season for the Spurs.
I don't know why people are expecting Jefferson to light on fire this year. Michael Finley and Brent Barry were similar acquisitions and both took over a year to really gel in the team.
Barry especially was tentative in his first year here and then got better and better in subsequent years. I see no reason as to why this could not be the case with Jefferson as well. We have seen it twice before.
I also think Jefferson needs to slim down a bit. He needs to be athletic on the wing and not bang in the post on both offense and defense. If he drops 5-10 lbs he is still going to see a ton of mismatches that he can post up and get the additional quickness I see him needing to play top end perimeter defense.
You ever thought just maybe he's not happy here cuz he's not really an opt on offense or he's just use to having to score an now he's not he's just lost.
This guy was on Team USA and couldn't even make an impact. All that talent around him didn't even make him a better player. He is one of the reasons they didn't get the gold medal.
Unless he has a straight path to the basket, he is useless. How many times have we seen him drive to the basket and then is forced into an awkward pass when the defense rotates. He has no plan B. It isn't the system. I really think deep down inside he knows he isn't championship material. He even knows that the Big 3 realize that too. So he is going to continue to keep passing the ball and stay out of the way.
its still early... lets give RJ a chance... maybe in feb....
For the pessimists, remember our beloved Spurs theoretically can still have a 67-15 record!
For the optimists, we can declare RJ experiment FAIL in all counts.
Why has he stopped attacking the rim....he was a slasher in NJ & Mil....we dont need another jump shooter. I have a feeling that Pop is starting to question whether or not he can fit in and contribute...I feel the same way.
Don't worry everybody. Once Mike Finely is all well, we'll see less of that no good sandbagging Jefferson.
There was a lot of smoke last year that RMJs game went to shit when Pop asked him to play out of position as the PG. No one seems to give the same take for RJ as Pop continues to try and run him at the PF. It is hard enough to come to a new team and learn your position. It is nearly impossible to be successful at two completely different positions.
Pop has been doing everything he can to get Jefferson going. At the beginning of the season the first plays of the game were for RJ. He couldn't get going. The past couple of months RJ has done nothing at SF. Now Pop is giving him minutes at the PF spot to no avail. We are almost half-way through the season and RJ has had 1 great game. That is it. How many more excuses do we have to give the guy?
Haislip? i watched him here ( in istanbul ) when he was playing for efes pilsen. he was doing nothing but punching people on their faces. ( google it, mirsad türkcan-marcus haislip, mirsad is the player who got punched, and he deserved it:)
Pop has had Jefferson all over the place all season long. This didn't just start a week ago. This team needs to be allowed to find its comfort zones and then allowed to stay their. The almight Jordan himself would have struggled if asked to do such things so why are you surprised when RJ does. ......and far as those plays being for RJ at the beginnig of the season, I guess someone forgot to tell TP.
Your making a jordan to jefferson comparison?
With Tim and McDyess and Manu being old and tired, you'd think RJ would have been one of the guys to step up his performance during the end of a 4-games-in-5-days stretch. (Along with Blair, Hill, and Parker.)
I guess not.
Just another case of fans making a scapegoat out of somebody. Manu has sucked. Tony has sucked. Richard has sucked. Dice has sucked. That makes about everyone. Now that Bonner and Finley are not the scapegoats, someone has to be the scapegoat because the Spurs lost. Instead on focusing on the declining Manu and Tony who has PF, the fans can play the blame game on RJ, because Dice was injured. Our biggest off-season acquisition in years has been "MIA", so to speak. Richard is now the scapegoat because Tony and Manu have three rings. When two of the core players has been MIA, how can the followers do well? The leaders have to step up and show some swagger. Another thing, Jefferson played about 21 minutes against the Grizzlies, he was far from the main reason why the Spurs lost. We may have to wonder why he only got that little minutes.
Mahinmi will be the casualty for Splitter. RC better be right that Splitter's coming over this time. Then again, not being hamstrung by the rookie scale should make that a reality.
Otherwise, the Spurs will probably count on expiring contracts to check the payroll growth. As for Manu - based on this season, plus of course his health over the last couple of seasons, his next contract will be less. And there is the possibility he ends up elsewhere.
Still, Spurs should've exercised the option on Mahinmi. He'd be a better trade chip with an extra year left on his deal at a relatively low salary. And, of course, they should've given him some regular minutes to start the season to help his trade stock and, oh, to give him a chance to see what he could do and not do everything possible, it seems, to destroy the confidence of a young athletic big with his talent. This is Beno all over ago, except this time the player isn't a douchebag so it's much harder to cover for this screwup.
Jordan would succeed. He dominated everybody. Those two players aren't even in the same class. If Jordan failed at anything, it was his failure to get Washington into the post season, which wasn't his fault seeing as how he was their leading scorer. If your attempting to put Jordan in Jefferson's shoes, he could most certainly succeed where Jefferson has failed. Putting Jordan in the same sentence with Jefferson makes yourself sound stupid., unless of course, you were talking about Jordan Farmar, in which case, I apologize.