Re: sophomores

[Kim Malo <kimmalo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 03:31 PM 6/19/02 -0700, gene kirkpatrick wrote:
> I also believe that the early season success took away Wallace's dream of 
> bringing along the rookies.  O'Brien won the power struggle and we became 
> veteran oriented at the expense of the rookies.  It was a good, short-term 
> solution and took us to the Eastern finals.  The proof will be in '02, 03, 
> etc.  Hope we allow our sophomores to develop (beyond just playing at 
> Shaw).  Gene
Serious question, not a snarl in reply, although it might seem that way. Do 
you really think there was no development of the rookies and that it was a 
KC sort of refusal to play them? FWIW, I don't. I'll also freely admit that 
I don't buy into the idea that the only way to develop young players is to 
throw them out to the wolves with as much game playing time as possible. 
Especially on a team that already has problems rather than one full of 
veterans that can pick up after them for any mistakes. I'm old fashioned 
enough to think you can do a lot, especially that first year, through 
practice and talking with them on the bench about what they're seeing and 
things like that. Now if you keep on not playing them any more at all after 
that first year, I might buy into the idea of problems...

Anyway, the Kedrick I saw even in flashes at the end of the year was a lot 
better than the all too obviously a raw rookie Kedrick I saw in the 
preseason. I'm not all that sure that a lot more playing time over his head 
on a fragile team full of other guys that were still maturing as players 
would have caused a vast improvement. I think that's part of what happened 
with JJ, who DID get time but was also pretty clearly overwhelmed, 
particularly on defense which was his weakest point by far even when he was 
playing well. Forte? Well, I'll admit that you've got me there, since I 
didn't see him at the end to tell if he'd developed at all. I mean I know 
it's geezer talk to say that rookies always used to sit unless they were a 
Bird or Magic, and it didn't kill them and even helped some of them. But 
it's also true. Not always - KC and Reggie Lewis is a classic example- but 
that was also a very different situation.

Kim