At 12:17 PM 7/17/02 -0700, bird wrote:
Yeah, I know. Admitted. See above about drive you crazy, which he clearly did occasionally to the coaches even at this game. ANd it's easy to see where attitude could be a problem. OTOH, weight's been an issue in the past and unlike Oliver Miller, it was clear that this time he's in better shape than he's been in the past. There's a lot of Sherman Douglas in there methinks.From: Kim Malo <kimmalo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>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).Well, there must be some question, Kim, because this is something like the third or fourth year he's been bouncing around the summer leagues, but come fall, no NBA job. Maybe he can play, but NBA GM's must have some question about him, or he'd have latched on to a team by now.
Mmm, well I agreed that Cook has some point guard skills. Certainly one of the most solid ball handlers I've seen (and man I wish he could inject PP with some of that - PP loses control way too often on his dribble IMO). I suspect any real preference on the part of the Cs for Bremer is because he's an easier to judge basic WYSIWYG for a backup. And there are enough players in development that they probably like that reliability in meshing with everyone else if they're seeing what I'm seeing with Cook - skills with issues around leadership and decision making. *shrug* It's also only one game. Bremer certainly looks like a permanent backup, while some people seemed to be slotting Cook as a starter this year making KA unnecessary (if I'm misremembering and that was only on the newsgroup, my apologies).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.Well, maybe Ravi is very perceptive when he's high... . (Just joshing, Ravi -- no pun intended). I saw the game; saw Cook have more "true point guard skills", saw Bremer shoot better, saw both play defense reasonably well. I'd take a chance on Cook, myself, because Bremer's attractiveness, as others have mentioned, is largely his range. I didn't expect to be "blown away" from hearing comments -- everybody is the Next Big Thing (tm) when most haven't seen him, as assuredly Damon Jones, Part II will be if he shows up too.