Reply With Quote
Jennings may already be a top 5 PG;
1. Deron
2. Parker
3. Nash
4. Jennings
5. Rondo
Don't think I forgot anyone.
i always liked Jennings over Rubio but i didnt think Jennings would be this good
Jennings may already be a top 5 PG;
1. Deron
2. Parker
3. Nash
4. Jennings
5. Rondo
Don't think I forgot anyone.
Reversing the logic, BJ couldn't make it Italy, but is an All-Star in NBA. NBA must suck.
Damn, this dude came out of nowhere. 55 points is ing sick, I don't care what team you're playing against.
Woulda been great to see him at UA for a year
Why did you guys think he would be a bust? The first time I saw him play I was likeHe had one of the most spectacular highlight reels of passes and dunks I've ever seen from a high school player.
Why did you guys think he would be a bust? The first time I saw him play I was like
I said from the get go he and Maynor were the only PG's in this class worth the hype. I was wrong there since Lawson is pretty legit, but Jennings was the top player out of his HS class and would have been a top 5 pick if not for a Euroleague team that intentionally didn't play him.
I'm just glad that KBP got banned. He'd be making threads saying this is proof that euroleague>NBA.
damn im so eating my words about this kid.....
yeah that would piss me off. Jennings obviously had a racist coach who didn't want to see an American black player dominate in Europe even though Jennings could have.
You're KBP on reverse. Just as dumb, racist and uninformed as him.
Here's the guy who was playing at Jenning's spot last season:
Black and American.
Here's their most used player last season:
Black and American.
And saying that he didn't get playing time is a persistent myth: in the Euroleague, he player 19:35 mpg. That's what most top rotation players in Europe play. Heck, we're talking about KBP: Spanoulis made the All-Euroleague team averaging 22:10 mpg. As KBP, and it saddens my heart to say he got at least right, most NBA fans are just ignorant of basketball outside their yard.
Jennings was a rookie last season, with much too learn - that's why he wasn't productive, even though his coaches played him a lot. But he's a workaholic, and it's showing: he spent last season practicing his jump-shot and the pick'n'roll (European teams use a lot of practising time - and there's a lot of practice in Europe - in those two things) and he's incredibly improved in those areas. It was already showing last season, the differential in his FG% in the season splits was enormous. He grew up a lot as a player in Europe, very wise decision for him. Unlike college kids, he's not really a true-rookie in the NBA.
Mooooo grooooo with the dagggerrrr
DoK..sorry you're a good guy and all but...
RAPESAUCE
Yeah I just got owned. Well done.
One West Coast scout who started his career in the early 80s, said Jennings was the best PG prospect he'd ever seen - AS A SOP RE. Such prospects he'd seen in that time: Kevin Johnson, Gary Payton and Jason Kidd.
Damn shame the kid couldn't qualify. Damn shame Lute couldn't be his coach. Would love to have seen the team Arizona could have had play last season.Woulda been great to see him at UA for a year
PG: Jennings, Wise
SG: Bayless, Fogg
SF: Budinger
PF: Hill, Horne
C: Withey
COACH: Lute
That team makes some serious noise, and absolutely owns the Pac-10.
I remember how amped I was for that season. Then Bayless entered the draft, and the dominoes began to fall.
There were rumors as early as the first weeks in May that Jennings likely would fail his SAT and not qualify. I wouldn't doubt it if Jennings filled Bayless in on his probable trek to Europe, making Bayless' mind up for him.
Once Bayless jumped ship, Emmanuel Negedu, Jennings and Jeff Withey all followed suit, the latter doing so once Lute retired.
There were also rumors Bayless jumped ship cause he despised Olson and didn't want to play for him. It sucks cause the Jennings Bayless Wise back court would have been as electric as when Illinois had Dee Brown Luther Head and Deron Williams.
European coaches love American players, black or white, for a very simple reason - they are generally their best players (KBP wouldn't tell you that) and those guys need to win ball games to make a living. This isn't so true for the top teams, that have money to fill their rosters with the good European players, so Americans end up being co-stars or role-players unless they're real exceptional (e.g. Anthony Parker in his prime, when he was an athletic freak and not only an intelligent player and great shooter), but 98% of the teams live and die accordingly to the performance of their American players.
Sure there are racist European coaches - google Pini Gershon - just as there are racist American coaches, whites and blacks alike, but they won't stop playing their best players because of their colour. Heck, European coaches and clubs like American players so much that most European countries have quotas limiting the number of foreign players teams can play, in order to force clubs to develop some of the national talent.
It's a shame that in the middle of all this hype for Jennings, Bogut, the main responsible for the Bucks record, doesn't get the props he deserves. It didn't happen this season: he started turning it around in the last half of 07/08 when clueless ballhog Mo Williams went down and was having a tremendous season last year till he fell down to injury himself. This season he's just carrying over.
Bogut is, above everything, a terrific defender and rebounder - I never see this coming till 2 seasons ago. He doesn't make flashy plays defensively, but, IMO, only an in-form Garnett and Howard are better/more impact-full defensive players in the league right now. He's very smart closing driving lanes, moving his feet to contest shots, a great communicator, very quick moving his feet around... just a clever defender who anticipates what the offence is going to do very well and reacts smartly and quickly. Solid scored that forces a double every time, great passer, especially from the high post - his biggest flaws are FT and the lack of range.
Yeah, I find it odd that people in this forum are always talking about Bynum and Oden as the next big things when Bogut isn't much older than them and a way better player - Oden is a marginally better rebounder and shot-blocker, Bynum has a more refined touch, but Bogut is way ahead on everything else and not far behind on those things. Easily one of the top centers in the league for years to come and yet I can see the guy missing the ASG and the All-Defense teams. Btw, kudos to Jennings, he's always stressing in interviews that Bogut's presence is what's allowing him to excel.
Jennings’ epic night was short time coming
By Adrian Wojnarowski
Near midnight, they were walking out of the Bradley Center together, Brandon Jennings and Kris Stone, the fabulous Milwaukee Bucks rookie and the young sneaker executive. In the background, you could still hear people congratulating Jennings, delirious over the kind of performance they hadn’t seen out of a rookie in almost 40 years there, hadn’t seen since the savior was named Lew Alcindor.
Jennings had gone for 55 points on the Golden State Warriors Saturday night, one of the greatest rookie performances in history. He obliterated Alcindor’s 51 points in 1970, and nearly passed Wilt Chamberlain’s rookie record 58 for Philadelphia in ’60. Jennings was chasing ghosts in that old gym. Most of all, he’s dared to transform the beleaguered basketball town of Milwaukee, with so much NBA history, so much pride, into a Bucks town again.
“We’re going to find a place to eat,” Stone said by phone. “It’s slim pickings this late here.”
Stone and Jennings have had a lot of dinners together, a lot of talks, here in the States and across Italy and Europe. Everyone will tell you they believed in Jennings, that they knew, but no one invested like Stone.
Everyone knows Jennings’ story now. They know about his resolve surviving the benchings and loneliness as a teenager in Italy. They know the time for NBA executives to scout him was at the practices with Lottomatica, the late nights and early mornings shooting in the gym. Everyone knows that Jennings challenged the system, defied the false gods of college basketball and pursued a trailblazing path.
When Under Armour hired Stone to get into the basketball endorsement game, all he did was bank his career, his credibility, on a skinny lefty kid who everyone feared would be broken overseas and an afterthought in the 2009 draft. Only, Stone always believed he had a deeper understanding of Jennings.
To Stone, there’s one story that tells it all. There’s a reference to which he always returns. Three years ago, Jennings had come to New York as a high school junior to play in the Elite 24 all-star game that Stone had started, and he won the MVP over players like Michael Beasley and Kevin Love. The next morning, it was Stone’s job to drive over to the Westin Hotel in Times Square and make sure the kids were awake by 8 a.m. on the way to LaGuardia for flights home. So, Stone walked into the hotel lobby at 6, the elevator doors opened and there was a vision that brought him back to his days growing up in the Bay Area.
“And here comes Brandon walking out with a basketball under his arm, a T-shirt and shorts,” Stone said. “He had just achieved his greatest accomplishment as a high school player, and he’s running out the door to go work out with Ben Gordon. That always stuck with me.”
Stone was raised in Oakland, and something about Jennings’ staying power always brought him back to his best friend from the Bay Area: Jason Kidd. “I just saw the same mental strength with Brandon that Jason has always had, and I just knew it would carry Brandon,” Stone said. “I knew I could believe in him.”
Now, Stone had passed his cell phone to Jennings, the 20 year old, and you could still hear the kid’s voice crackling late Saturday night. Fifty-five points had come without him scoring until the second quarter. He had 29 in the third quarter, when Jennings had made 12 straight shots, when the 10th pick in the draft looked like the runaway Rookie of the Year.
“The shots kept going in, and after a while the rim kept getting bigger and bigger and I just felt like I couldn’t miss,” Jennings said. “I guess I was in that zone, you know? But that doesn’t happen without [Andrew] Bogut down low, scoring in the post and opening things up for me. I’m not doing this alone here.”
Almost though, almost. Jennings talked about the New York Knicks passing on him at No. 8 on draft day, about losing out on the chance to resurrect one of the league’s glamour franchises, to make Madison Square Garden his own.
“I feel like I understand why teams like the Knicks passed on me, because I didn’t put up big numbers in Italy last year,” he said. “But you needed to see me in the practices, and the workouts, to see how I was coming along there. Hey, I’m a gym rat. You had to know that about me.”
Hours earlier, Jennings had arrived to the Bradley Center at 3 p.m. for a game at 8 to shoot with Bucks assistant Kelvin Sampson. They do it every day. Sometimes, he gets up 500 shots before they leave the gym. Eventually, Michael Redd will return to the floor and the Bucks won’t need Jennings to score so many points. He’s on his way to becoming an improbable Rookie of the Year, but insists, “Really, I’m not thinking about that at all. What I want is to keep this team winning, and get the Bucks to the playoffs. That’s what everyone wants here.”
Milwaukee has been down a long time, and here comes this skinny 20-year-old kid on a cold Saturday night in November chasing one of Alcindor’s records right out of the Bradley Center. It was past midnight now, and they were on the way out of the arena to grab dinner downtown. Jennings had a restaurant in mind, a quiet spot where they could talk about a forever night, maybe Jennings’ biggest since he had come to New York as a young teenager and won the MVP and announced himself as the best guard in America.
All along, Stone believed Jennings was the one, and he probably risked his job on it. Before Stone hung up, he laughed and made one promise about the kid. “All I know,” Kris Stone said, “is that Brandon is treating tonight.”
Bynum has dominated Bogut, Bogut cannot guard Bynum
So? By that reasoning, Bogut was better than Duncan 2 seasons ago and Pecherov was better than Garnett and some random scrubs were better than Bynum. And when? If it was when the Bucks had the worst defensive team in the league, he couldn't even guard Adonal Foyle, their perimeter defence was so bad that he was always out of position.
Bogut is a flat out better player than Bynum - better creating his shot, way better passer, better defender, better rebounder
Just mad cuz Bynum is Avergaing 20 and 10, Bynum has been impresive, look at his foot work and Bogut is AVG 15 and 9
Whatever, pick Bynum for your fantasy team.
Why are people here so emotional and reactionary, especially about the players on their teams? That's what makes impossible to have a decent basketball conversation here. Bogut vs. Bynum vs. Oden is an interesting subject, but people will just fill rants with primitive stats and ad hominem remarks.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
