With the start of our basketball season underway, I have decided to eliminate one of my blogs. From now on I will only update my Coaching Blog; you will still be able to find Player Development articles and comments. I’m in a way combining the two. Time is valuable and writing two blogs seems to be a bit too much. Please visit my coaching blog for material. Thanks…
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
The debate can go on all night long. ‘Who’s the greatest player ever’? We can sit here and mention anyone from Wilt to Oscar. Everyone has their own guy. My argument for Jordan is he won 6 NBA titles and was voted MVP in all six. For Wilt, the guy was unreal. But when we discuss the greatest players, the final straw is championships.
KC Johnson of the Chicago Tribune has a good piece on the debate and some good stuff from Johnny Bach.
“For my money, Michael is the best of all-time,” said former Bulls assistant Johnny Bach, who may be a bit biased. “How could he not be?
“I saw Oscar Robertson and Russell play. I coached against Wilt (in college). The idolatry Michael experienced would send anybody else off spinning. But he continued to produce.”
How can you argue with that?
On a different note, I came across this quote tonight describing basketball by Mehret Tesfaye.
Basketball, among all team athletic competitions, is art: dynamic parts coming together in patterns, moving toward a purpose.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
Deseret News on Jerry Sloan, John Stockton and Karl Malone.
He calls Stockton — who will also be inducted this weekend — “second to none” and Malone a player who “made himself into a Hall of Famer” through his dedication.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
This week Michael Jordan will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.
A few stories the next few days on MJ.
Comcast SportsNet A website dedicated to Jordan with his 10 best plays of all-time. To me, some of the plays can be debated as to which were better than others.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
In 2001 while working at Michigan State University with the men’s basketball program, I came across a slogan in which the women’s team at MSU was always emphasizing; Choice, Not Chance.
I often think back to that great slogan and think about how true it really is, not only in basketball but in life too.
For the next few days I’m going to write about former basketball players who had a ton of talent but for some reason, failed to live up to the expectations placed on them. Whether their downfall was due to drugs, lack of work ethic, criminal mischief, deviant behavior, uncoachable or poor attitude; it all boils down to the choices these players made. In no way do I want to bash these players, I want to use them as examples to younger players of today that the choices you make have a huge impact on your life.
During the early 80’s Michael Ray Richardson was my favorite basketball player. I was a huge New York Knicks fan and ‘Sugar’ was the point guard who ran the team. When I played I would emulate his drives to the basket by putting the ball over my head in traffic to avoid the defense and flick my lay-ups high off the glass. In Richardson’s second season he led the NBA in assists and steals. My friends and I would attend games at the Garden and I never took my eyes off #20 from the University of Montana. Sugar could do it all; rebound, push the ball in transition, pass and defend. He was a 6′5″ all-star point guard who fell victim to drugs. In 1986 he tested positive for drugs for the third time and was the first player banned from the NBA.
I watched him take guys off the dribble and drive to the rim finishing with slam dunks. He was great at stripping the ball out of his opponents hands; he was also very good at finding the open man; he was one of the best at the dribble drive, kick out. Sugar had a great smile, you could always see him joking around and kidding with teammates in warm-ups. After Knicks home games we would wait outside the player’s entrance on 33rd and 8th to meet the players for autographs and sneakers; out of all the players Sugar was always the most cordial to us. He always made time to rap with us. I was so intrigued by Richardson I saved up my money went to Cosby’s to purchase a Knicks home jersey with RICHARDSON on the back, way before wearing jersey’s became popular.
The legendary point guard Magic Johnson once said, “Micheal Ray was a guy who played just like I played. Every time I saw him, he went right at me.”
In the 2000 narrated film Whatever Happened to Micheal Ray?, Peter Vecsey of the New York Post said that “Isiah Thomas, to this day, tells me that the one guy he was scared of was Richardson.”
Michael Ray is currently a head coach in the CBA with the defending champion Lawton-Fort Sill Cavalry.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
USA Today on high school athletic departments making cuts within the department. One of my solutions would be to eliminate freshmen sports. I know people will disagree but I really don’t see any need for it. If a kid is good enough, move them up to junior varsity. Freshmen should use their first year in high school to get acclimated to their new environment. Work on their academics, social life and in their spare time, work on their skills in their particular sport. (Upon further review, I spoke with a friend who is a HS Athletic Director and he informed me that it wouldn’t do any good eliminating Freshmen sports)
I have been in a discussion with some friends about young athletes in the news; mainly articles written about their potential/greatness. I am very close to the basketball scene and study all areas and usually see these articles written on 12, 13 and 14 year old players. I understand the media has a job to do and all but are we putting too big of an expectation on such a young child? Say for instance we read about an 8th grader who is said to be the next…’Magic Johnson’. Well basketball season rolls around and the fans attend the phenom’s game and the young man doesn’t live up to the article written about him. Soon enough the fans go home and get on their favorite message board and bash the kid. Then it gets out of control and soon enough the kid hears about it and before you know, the kid fails.
It’s similar to the International basketball player that everyone raves about. Whether it’s Ricky Rubio or Darko Milicic. People here in America put these guys on pedestals punching their ticket for Springfield as teenagers. I laughed when people compared Rubio to the late Pete Maravich. Whenever I watched Rubio last summer during the Olympics I never once saw the resemblance to the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer. Against Team USA in the Gold Medal game he played 29 minutes, on 1 of 3 shooting with 3 assists and 2 turnovers.
After reading many articles about Rubio over the past few months, one thing that intrigued the audience was when he would throw no-look behind the back passes in transition. My thought at the time was, how come when an American player throws a behind the back pass they are looked at as a hot dog or too fancy?
Twenty-one International players were taken in the 2003 NBA Draft (Darko’s draft)-guess how many are now all-stars in the league? Seven American players taken in that draft are now all-stars from that same draft. I think people in America take U.S. players for granted. We see them every night on ESPN and tend to magnify their mistakes. We see a few highlights of guys like Rubio and get all excited (A lot of defense being played in those highlights too…LOL)
Everyone talks about American players lacking fundamentals. Then in the same breath they talk about International players being more skilled than the Americans because they spend so many hours and so many practices working on their game. Here in the States they say American athletes play too much in the summer with their AAU team that they should be playing multiple sports throughout the year or they should establish balance in their lives and oh yeah, let’s not forget that in college here in America, if you play for a school team you practice time is limited (as is at the high school level).
As for being fundamentally sound, give me Steph Curry, Tyler Hansbrough, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, Carmelo Anthony, D-Wade, Johnny Flynn and Lebron James any day of the week!
By the way, the answer to the question above on how many International players drafted in 2003 are NBA all-stars is zero.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
Ok, say you are a high school basketball player. You’re actually pretty good and you are offered a scholarship from a Mid-Major school. On the other hand, your father is tight with a head coach at the High-Major level (or he donates a lot of money to the school) and you have a chance to walk-on to the team (mind you, there are a few All-Americans at your position).
What would you do?
Go to say a the Mid-Major school and get minutes, or go to the High Major and sit?
(No, this is not something that is going on now with someone I know, it’s a situation that came up while speaking to another coach this morning).
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Detroit Free Press say some football players at the University of Michigan told them that the U of M football is practicing more than the allotted time.
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
While browsing the Internet this morning I came across a few situations both at the collegiate and professional level. In the college ranks, the Post-Gazette out of Pittsburgh says the University of Pittsburgh forward Gilbert Brown has been suspended for the Panthers first semester due to academics. Hopefully Brown can get his GPA in order and become eligible second semester.
SF Gate has a story at the pro level, Stephen Jackson has said he wants out of Golden State (this after signing a 3 year extension last summer).
Jackson told Dime magazine on Friday that he wanted to be traded, either to Cleveland (gee, I wonder why), any of the three Texas teams (at least there are playoff aspirations) or maybe even New York (and the team so nice that for every win, it loses twice).
Also at the pro level, JS Online.com says rookie Brandon Jennings has been at the Milwaukee Bucks training facility working hard each day. You have to love players who are putting in the time!
“The fact he’s in here working is most important,” Bucks general manager John Hammond said of Jennings, the 10th-overall pick in the June draft. “If a guy like that weren’t in here, then you would be concerned.
“It’s easy to talk the talk. What he’s doing right now is talking the talk and walking the walk.”
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News on the camp where a lot of guys (coaches and players) got their start.
Five-Star is an instructional camp, perhaps the first to gain national acclaim for its ability to teach promising young players how to better their games. Rick Pitino and John Calipari essentially got their coaching starts at Five-Star, which may be the one thing they can agree upon at this point in their careers. Hubie Brown, Mike Fratello, Herb Sendek and scores of others were products of the Five-Star system, and so were such players as Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Isiah Thomas. Christian Laettner believed Five-Star contributed so much to his development he used to spend a week as a counselor there each summer — while he was a regular in the NBA.
There are many reasons why some don’t think 5-Star is as important as it used to be. First, the NCAA doesn’t allow D-1 coaches to work it anymore. Second, there’s a shortage of young, hungry coaches who will work their asses off. Seems to me a lot of young guys I meet getting into the profession want to coach at Michigan State instead of paying their dues at the lower levels wiping up sweat on the floor and giving out water to players.
It used to be where coaches were out on the court with players early in the morning or late at night working with players; today coaches complain about having to be outside and some would rather be golfing than working camp. As for the players, well AAU and video games at home have replaced the old ‘get up at 6AM to work on your game’ mentality.
Need for exposure has replaced need for improvement and entitlement has replaced work ethic.
Don’t believe me, here’s a quote I found from Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Gunther Cunningham by way of the Detroit Free Press.
Cunningham said he could tolerate mental errors but not shying away from contact. He considers it an attitude problem that traces to today’s society in general. ”Coaches aren’t tough enough on the players,” said Cunningham, 63. “If a guy misses a tackle, ‘That’s all right, you’ll get him next time.’ I think that’s a load of garbage. …”Our social makeup right now is, you tell the young kids, ‘Don’t worry about who wins and loses.’ Well, when you get out on this level, that team on the other side is not there to lose. They want to beat you. I think it’s how they grow up sometimes.”
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
Last night I was reading the book, ‘When March Went Mad‘, written by Seth Davis. The book is about the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game in 1979 between Indiana State and Michigan State.
Will we ever see players like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson again?
Bird and Johnson were the two stars/key figures of the game which to this day is still the most watched NCAA Finals game of all-time.
I often hear people talk about the attitude of players being ‘different’ than years ago. One person I know went as far as saying that in this era the game has changed. I laugh at that notion!
We can all agree that there are so many classic stories of Bird and Magic working hard to improve; here are my two favorites.
On Bird:
After each practice for his high school team, LB would walk home and stop at this court where he would shoot for two more hours before heading home for dinner.
On Magic:
Usually when you choose up teams for pick up ball the captains always pick the best players, not Magic. He would pick a good passer, a good defender, a good outside shooter and a good rebounder.
“Larry, you only told me one lie. You said there will be another Larry Bird. Larry, there will never, ever be another Larry Bird.”
–Magic Johnson, at Larry Bird’s retirement party at Boston Garden on February 4, 1993
With this statement, Magic answered my question about Bird…And Earvin, there will never be another Magic Johnson!
-Coach Finamore
Hoops135@hotmail.com
PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
