Re: Josh... thoughts, insights from yesterday?

[Jon Mc <jamminon@yahoo.com>]

Well, I've only posted once since last season, and that was just to 
say what a mistake I thought it was to let go of Adrian Griffin.  

But now it's time to look to the future.  From what I'm hearing from 
the posts by Josh and others, our 3 rookies have enough athleticism 
and talent that if they just develop half the understanding of the 
game that Adrian has, they'll be future superstars. 

Thanks to Josh for his posting of comments from Jo Jo White during the 
Celtics practice.  It gives us the chance to see what's really going on. 

It's disconcerting to hear Antoine's reaction to Jo Jo's advice 
during the practice, but it's not surprising.  If Antoine gets a shot 
blocked, or he misses a close shot, he never thinks it's because 
there's a weakness in his decision-making or his game that he 
needs to correct, he just assumes he was fouled and everyone's 
against him because the foul wasn't called. 

He doesn't understand that to win championships, you don't put control in 
the hands of the officials or anyone else but yourself.  If you have a 
chance to lay the ball down to an open teammate under the basket or take a 
shot yourself against aggressive defenders, you'll maintain control by
giving 
up the ball to your teammate, and you'll give up control to the defenders
and 
officials by holding on to the ball.  Seems counterintuitive in a way, 
and Antoine hasn't learned it at a gut level.  He's got to FEEL good 
giving up that ball to his teammate.  He needs some reconditioning of the 
emotions he associates to actions like dropping the ball down.  

The Celtics would do well to hire one of those NLP 
(neuro-linguistic programming) gurus like Tony Robbins to work with him 
for a couple of days; that's the only way to straighten out 'Twon's game. 
He has the talent and the passion.  He has the ability to see opportunities

for teammates... he just doesn't have the right "high basketball IQ"  
reactions ingrained into his head and his gut emotions.  

What's disturbing is that it doesn't even occur to Antoine that Jo Jo 
has won championships and Antoine has never even made it to the playoffs 
in 5 years of play, so if Jo Jo's telling you to change something, you'll 
very likely improve your team's chances by trying whatever he tells you. 

Jon Mc
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