A point guard is supposed to run
the show, create, make things happen, see the floor a step ahead
of everybody else. Cook didn't show me those things, but to be fair,
this was more a pick-up game than a real team effort. Still, I didn't
get the sense that he really knew what he was doing.
The pick up game rather than real team effort is a good point, that I
wholeheartedly agree with and haven't seen anyone else pick up on. It was
one of my biggest frustrations with them, especially after watching the
first game where Twolves had some real chemistry in places (sigh, Loren
Woods may be skinny but he's going to be good and Khalid may drive you
crazy at times but there's no question he is a true point guard who can
play that in the NBA). On the one hand it's a reason to cut Cook some slack
because he wasn't getting enough co-operation from his teammates but on the
other hand it's not like he showed any real leadership in trying to change
that. I'm somewhere between Josh and the rest in that I saw a few things to
like with Cook but wasn't as blown away as you'd expect from what others
have said. Yeah, he unquestionably handles the ball beautifully, but he
also spent far too much time doing it and dribbling while figuring out what
to do (and where have we seen that before) - part of that was because of
limited co-operation from his teammates (I saw better picks and
co-operative play running outside pregame with some real pickup games) but
again, this is something he could have used to force them to play better.
He looks at the rest of the court, which puts him miles above Delk with
just that one thing, but too many of his passes went astray IMO and I don't
think there was enough set up to encourage his teammates to be doing the
things they should be doing to get the ball. His own shooting doesn't
bother me that much as that's not my primary concern. And you do have to
like his quickness when he uses it.