Official “The Athletic” thread

[Anerdyblackguy]

Part 3

Spoiler

That’s simply where it stands at the moment.

The retirement ceremony and the dawn of a new era
Some great memories were shared on Twitter today.

People DM’d me to tell me about all the times they made The Provies or The Athletties. There were people who had stories, how they’d given Botch a nugget of information that he’d run down. How much pride they felt in being part of the incomparable work he did.

We launched some polls after Wyatt announced we were introducing a new gamer tonight. The old heads rode hard once more, insisting loudly that Baby Dragon and Boat Captain are the finest nicknames in the land

Excellent feuds were remembered — like the one between Jason and the only guy who’s ever visited Vancouver and come away terrified of the rowdiness at Starbucks:

And so the puck has dropped on the 2019-20 season and a new era has dawned.

Amid the chaos of those losing seasons, when all we could hear was the thunder of #BenningBros and #TeamTank arguing, and all we could smell was bad takes in the air, we look back and we’re amazed that your thoughts were so clear and true.

That three words went through our mind endlessly, repeating themselves like a broken record: you’re so cool, you’re so cool, you’re so cool.

(Matthew Henderson)
— The Athletic’s Harman Dayal contributed to this report.

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

Could you post this article for me @SJUGRAD13 Inside the revolution: how Arsenal plan to reclaim place...​

Part 1

Spoiler

Per Mertesacker shifts forward in his seat. “Everybody says it: ‘The Arsenal Way’… but what does it actually mean?”

There is a mischievous glint in the German’s eye. “Is it offensive, passing football? Everybody does that!” he scoffs. “We need more. We need a framework — one that gives kids a freedom to play, but that also has certain kinds of measurements so we can say, ‘This is how we’re going to play, this is Arsenal, this is world class.’”

With each of those last three statements, the former Arsenal captain bangs a fist on the table for emphasis. The gentle giant is stirring.

“I’ve presented it to Edu,” Mertesacker reveals to The Athletic. The Brazilian was appointed as Arsenal’s first ever technical director back in July, and has since sat down with Mertesacker to sketch out the blueprint for the ideal Arsenal player. “Just to give you a brief idea: we want to dominate possession but we want to win it back as soon as possible. So we have to set these principles and train in that way… I’ve built a framework towards that, because I wanted to shape it.”

It is just 17 months since Mertesacker retired from playing to take up his role as head of Arsenal’s academy, but he’s in no mood to reflect on previous glories. “We want to make sure that we’re up to date and not thinking about what ‘The Arsenal Way’ was 15 years ago. We need to make sure that everyone understands what we’re about.”

Speaking with this clarity and this passion, it won’t be long before everyone does understand. Arsenal are a club finally talking about putting the past behind them, and looking towards the future.

Last night Arsenal played out an uninspiring 1-1 draw at Old Trafford. In the final 20 minutes, this felt like a match that was absolutely there for the taking — and yet these two teams had neither the confidence nor the quality to do it.

The fixture has certainly lost a good deal of the glamour and drama it once had. Under Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson, these clubs once dominated the landscape of English football. However, the end of those managerial dynasties — and the emergence of new and powerful rivals — has seen those giants fall by the wayside.

A clash between Marcus Rashford and David Luiz doesn’t quite have the electric appeal of Ruud van Nistelrooy coming face to face with Martin Keown. In the TV studio, Roy Keane described the lack of quality as “frightening”. These are teams undergoing awkward periods of transition, scrabbling furiously to return to former heights.

Neither set of supporters seem convinced by the men in the dugout. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is more obviously a talisman than a tactical genius, while Unai Emery does not appear any closer to impressing his vision upon this Arsenal team than he did a year ago. However, while progress on the pitch may feel frustratingly slow, away from the floodlights Arsenal are a club rapidly evolving.

Both United and Arsenal are attempting to move on from generational managers. However, the latter would seem to be making the better job of it. It is over six years since Ferguson’s retirement, but United’s football infrastructure is still desperately lacking. They remain a financial powerhouse, but their position as football royalty is under threat.

Make no mistake, Arsenal have a long way to go too, but they’re at least heading in the right direction. While United fans spent the summer waiting for a sporting director that never came, Arsenal were welcoming Edu and putting the finishing touches to an impressive executive offering. As Mertesacker might put it, they have a “framework” in place. Arsenal’s team behind the team is looking stronger all the time.

Arsenal have been a club in desperate need of modernisation. For more than a decade they were defined by the Emirates Stadium project, functioning more like a property development business than a football club. On the sporting side, Wenger was the single point of failure. That had to change.

The process began under Wenger and former chief executive Ivan Gazidis. The Frenchman was aware that Arsenal had grown too big for one man to effectively rule alone. Wenger may have set the change in motion, but even he will have recognised that Arsenal’s new model could not really take hold until he left the club.

Nevertheless, Wenger played his part, driving the appointment of Australian Darren Burgess as head of performance. Burgess was installed in a training ground office adjacent to Wenger’s, and set about revamping a performance team that had presided over a horrifying injury record. In June 2017, Gazidis appointed legal expert Huss Fahmy from cycling giants Team Sky to lead contract negotiations. It wasn’t exactly the kind of summer signing to get the fans talking, but Fahmy’s influence would steadily grow over the next 12 months.

If Edu was eventually to be the final piece in the jigsaw, the journey to appointing him began at a meeting between Gazidis and Raul Sanllehi. A former executive at Nike and Barcelona, Sanllehi was a well-known figure on the European scene and a natural choice as Arsenal’s head of football relations. The Spaniard had the cocktail of business and football knowledge Arsenal needed — and the language was never going to be a problem for a man who had spent four years in the USA studying economics at North Carolina’s Guilford College.

It was Sanllehi who sold Gazidis on the idea of adopting the technical director model, having played his part in mapping the executive structure at Barcelona.

Sven Mislintat was the man initially primed for the role. Gazidis lured the scout known as “diamond eye” from Borussia Dortmund to be the club’s head of recruitment, on the understanding he would step into the newly-created technical director position once Wenger had gone. The appointments of Sanllehi and Mislintat were announced within a week of each other in November 2017. While Wenger’s situation remained uncertain, Arsenal had begun laying the foundations for the future.

The club have shown creditable foresight throughout this process. Although Mertesacker only took up his role as head of the academy in the summer of 2018, it was February 2017 when the veteran defender was summoned to meet Wenger and Gazidis at the training ground. Mertesacker anticipated a conversation about his future as a player — instead, they asked whether he would consider leading the academy after his retirement. Writing in his autobiography, Big Friendly German, Mertesacker revealed that a phone call to Oliver Bierhoff, the general director of the German national team, provided all the encouragement he needed to accept the offer.

With playing time limited in his final season, Mertesacker embraced the opportunity to swot up on his new job. He told The Athletic: “I knew that a new challenge was coming up, so I made sure I was part of the interview process for any academy jobs, that I was part of (any) thinking about the vision for the academy, that I met people from the academy… I was transitioning, making sure that I would be well prepared for something that was totally unknown to me.”

In some ways, Mertesacker’s appetite for change is emblematic of how Arsenal have set about the task of reinventing themselves. He has rapidly transformed from steady defender to quick-thinking executive.

Mertesacker clearly feels duty-bound to ensure the kids in Arsenal’s academy receive a good all-round education — he insists he would be as proud to produce a doctor as a defensive midfielder. However, his ultimate goal is to provide players for the first team, and he quickly assembled the right staff to help him do that.

Gazidis and Mertesacker led a headhunting process that ultimately saw them recruit Marcel Lucassen as head of coach and player development. Lucassen was well known to Mertesacker, having been, according to the DFB, “responsible for the individual technical and tactical development of all German youth national teams” between 2008 and 2015. Lucassen is a disciple of the Dutch school of football development, and brought a wealth of technical expertise to the academy.

Weeks later, Mertesacker rubber-stamped the appointment of Freddie Ljungberg as coach of the under-23s, citing his understanding of “how important it is to give young players the opportunity to grow”. Tellingly, he also told the media “we look forward to Ljungberg developing his career with us”. Mertesacker and Lucassen weren’t just setting out to hone young players: they were also developing a coach.

The next stage was to set about creating pathways for player development. Arsenal recognised a need to make better use of the loan market, and within six months of Mertesacker’s start they promoted former ProZone analyst Ben Knapper to the newly-created role of loans manager. Knapper not only curates statistical analysis of Arsenal players during their loan spells — he also acts as player liaison, visiting loanees and reporting back to the club.

The first stage of Arsenal’s evolution was complete. However, the turbulent summer of 2018 threatened to knock things off course.

Wenger’s departure was unsettling, yet inevitable. However, the loss of Gazidis came as a greater shock. Just as the chief executive appeared primed to seize control of the club he had served for 10 years, he left for AC Milan. The man who had appointed Sanllehi and Mislintat was gone, project unfinished and promises unfulfilled.

The owners, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, responded by dividing Gazidis’ role in two. In the post-Wenger world, Arsenal were determined to delineate responsibility. Sanllehi was promoted to head of football, and chief commercial offer Vinai Venkatesham became managing director. At long last, sport and business were distinct at Arsenal. How Ed Woodward might learn from that.

A year earlier, Gazidis had spoken of Arsenal’s poor 2016-17 season as being a potential “catalyst for change”. As it turned out, one of the biggest catalysts for change was his own departure.

Another significant milestone on this journey came in August 2018, when Stan Kroenke’s KSE took full ownership of the club. Buying out Alisher Usmanov, and indeed the remaining minor shareholders, gave the Kroenkes complete control of Arsenal. It was a move met with considerable hostility by the fans, who understandably mourned the loss of any transparency to the club’s dealings.

Since that summer, the pace of change has only increased. On the football side, Sanllehi swiftly stepped into the power vacuum. This was a man who had kept his job at Barcelona despite two presidential changes — he is clearly one of football’s survivors.

Over the next few months, Mislintat became increasingly marginalised. His eye for talent had already borne fruit, bringing in talented young players such as Bernd Leno, Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira. However, with Gazidis gone, the technical director role he had been promised was slipping away from him. As Mislintant later explained in an interview with German football magazine 11Freunde, “It had actually been agreed that I would become technical director, so then I would be around the team on a daily basis. But the new leadership had their own agenda and other candidates.”

Sanllehi valued Mislintat as a world-class scout, but the German’s ambitions were loftier than that. By January 2019, his departure had been mutually agreed.

Arsenal’s first-choice candidate for the position of technical director was Monchi, the Spaniard widely regarded as the mastermind behind Sevilla’s success between 2000 and 2017. He was the man credited with spotting the likes of Dani Alves, Julio Baptista, Seydou Keita and Ivan Rakitic. Crucially, he also had a strong relationship with Emery — together they had led Sevilla to three consecutive Europa League titles between 2014 and 2016.

When Monchi left his job at Roma by mutual consent in March of this year, Arsenal thought they had their man. Members of the performance staff were even briefed about the prospect of meeting Monchi to discuss plans for preseason. However, a late change of heart saw him decide to return to Sevilla.

For Arsenal, it was back to the drawing board.

And back to Edu.

The Brazilian had been contacted about the position earlier in the process, but Monchi’s connection with Emery had pushed the Spaniard to the forefront. With that option off the table, the man who played for the club between 2001 and 2005 was in contention again.

Edu was effectively the operations co-ordinator for the Brazilian national team, but had previously held a technical director position at Corinthians. When coach Tite left the club to take over the Selecao, he insisted Edu come with him — he had swiftly made himself indispensable.

He will now look to do the same at Arsenal. He certainly started as he meant to go on, throwing himself into the job. As soon as his duties at the Copa America with Brazil were done, Edu joined Arsenal on their north American summer tour. It was there he first addressed the squad about his directorial approach.

As he puts it himself: “I explained to the players that I’m not the guy who stays inside the office and waits for someone to knock on my door and send a message to me. I want to be involved in the process, I want to be on the inside, I want to be with them, I want to be with Unai… I want to be with the staff as well, to try and advise them if they need it, and give some advice for them. Being involved is important and that’s what I really believe from today.”

The club speak of Edu as a “connector”, someone who must establish an easy flow between the first team, the academy and the coaching staff. He has set up an office at London Colney and is a regular presence at training: watching, learning, talking. While Woodward discusses commercial strategy at United’s London headquarters, Edu is at the heart of things, steadily building the relationships that define his role.

It may ultimately prove to be a good thing that he is not as close to Emery as Monchi was. Arsenal are building a model which has the durability to withstand a change in coach. Publicly, they say the advantage of this approach is that it enables the coach to focus on the next game. Contained within that is a tacit admission: not only is a coach’s focus short-term, but increasingly so is their tenure. Emery’s current contract runs no further than 2021; Arsenal have built an infrastructure to outlast him

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

Part 2

Spoiler

And so to this past summer’s transfer window. Arsenal have been keen to stress that Edu was not directly responsible for their recruitment drive. Plans were, in fact, largely set in motion long before the window opened. Sanllehi headed up the process, with long-serving Spanish scout Francis Cagigao effectively replacing Mislintat as head of international scouting.

Arsenal’s summer spend was interpreted by some as a response to fan unrest and their Europa League final humiliation by Chelsea. However, the groundwork for many of their signings had already been laid. In the case of record signing Nicolas Pepe, The Athleticunderstands intermediaries held discussions about a prospective deal as early as February. In the context of that information, the supposedly “derisory” bid for Wilfried Zaha looks increasingly like a ploy to force Pepe’s camp into a decision.

Under Sanllehi, Arsenal are a different animal in the transfer market.

Their supporters’ first encounter with Sanllehi was when he led the Barcelona delegation attempting to lure Cesc Fabregas back to Catalonia. He’s now bringing that same determined approach to north London. With Fahmy (promoted to director of football operations in 2018) leading the negotiating team, Arsenal are a much more dynamic outfit. As one agent with experience dealing with the club told The Athletic: “In the past, Arsenal were regarded as a soft touch. You can’t say that about Sanllehi.”

When it comes to agents, few wield more power than Kia Joorabchian. He’s exactly the kind of ‘super agent’ Wenger was reluctant to deal with.

In the midst of the Arsenal fan protests in July, it was telling that Joorabchian leapt to the defence of Arsenal’s new leadership. “I feel for the guys that have just come in – Raul [Sanllehi – head of football] and Edu and Unai Emery,” he said. “I feel for them because we have finally got incredibly knowledgeable footballing people there. Raul came in from Barcelona, Edu came from the Brazil national team and is a legend at Arsenal, and Emery is a fantastic coach who has coached at Sevilla and PSG.

“Finally Arsenal have people who really understand football and are footballing people in the backroom staff, but the question is whether or not the finances will be made available.”

There’s considerable merit in what Joorabchian says, but perhaps he should also have declared a bias. The Iranian-born agent has close links with Edu from his time at Corinthians, and has dealt with Sanllehi at Barcelona.

And at Arsenal.

After a protracted hunt for a new centre-half, the Gunners made Joorabchian client Luiz their final signing of the window. Interestingly, the last player to leave Arsenal this summer was Henrikh Mkhitaryan — represented by Mino Raiola, another of the supposed ‘super agents’.

Arsenal are playing with the big boys now. The likelihood is that the club have paid out an eye-watering sum in agent fees this summer. However, that is the price of competing in the current market. They have bent their principles to modernise their approach.

Joorabchian questioned whether money would be made available to spend, and ultimately it was. Only Manchester United spent more money than Arsenal, and it’s fair to question whether it was spent as wisely. The final tally was almost £150 million, albeit largely amortised over several years. With Usmanov no longer standing to profit from Arsenal’s success, the Kroenkes appear more willing to loosen the purse-strings.

They’ve cleared the decks too, rejuvenating an ageing squad and creating space for an influx of Mertesacker’s academy talent. To help the younger players transition into the senior squad, Ljungberg has been promoted to work under Emery. Within 12 months of being brought back to the club by Mertesacker, Ljungberg is assistant first-team coach. Sceptics suggested the move might be purely cosmetic, but anyone who has seen the Swede providing detailed instructions to the club’s younger players on the sidelines will know he is a coach of considerable substance.

The use of young players is clearly strategic. United used Mason Greenwood off the bench against Arsenal because of an injury crisis; Chelsea are playing Tammy Abraham because they are under a transfer ban. Arsenal turning to their academy feels like part of a coherent plan.

There have been other training ground changes. Steve Bould returned to the sort of role he relishes, taking full responsibility for the under-23 side and coaching the next generation of Arsenal player. Despite generating impressive numbers in 2018-19, Burgess was moved on as head of performance with American Shad Forsythe stepping up as his successor. Both men had arrived at Arsenal with big reputations — and salaries to match. In a summer of streamlining it seems the club felt retaining both was unnecessary.

The performance team are informed by swathes of data. Arsenal’s purchase of US-based Stat DNA has afforded them a significant advantage, and they’ve supplemented that by recruiting high-profile personnel such as Candy Crush guru Mikhail Zhilkin to work on new methods of data gathering and visualisation.

As Old Trafford begins to creak — early this year, water poured through a hole in its roof — the Emirates stands resplendent. Arsenal’s players prepare in a state of the art training facility, planned by Wenger, upgraded by Gazidis and now overseen by Sanllehi. All the while the likes of Edu and Mertesacker, men steeped in Arsenal’s culture and history, plot the club’s future.

“The Arsenal Way” is being reimagined. For so long, Arsenal felt stagnant— and now, so much is changing.

They must improve as a team — an insipid performance at Old Trafford was clear evidence of that — but the foundations they have put in place make that seem infinitely more plausible. Whatever Emery’s ultimate fate, the club have built a structure which will enable them to survive a managerial change with minimal trauma.

Arsenal are emerging from Wenger’s long shadow as the very model of a modern major football club.

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

@SJUGRAD13 is also Nerdy Black Guy?
Reps on deck as soon as I'm back on.

Spoiler

The person with the most coaching experience on Florida’s staff is an analyst. The one with the most years in the NFL is an analyst, too. And so is the guy with the second-most experience coaching the offensive line, including last year at Florida State.

Analysts, essentially non-coaching advisers, are nothing new in college football. High-profile programs like Alabama started adding them earlier this decade, and they’ve only increased in popularity since. But until this year, highly experienced ones never existed on a staff led by Florida head coach Dan Mullen.

The change started in March when 66-year-old Chuck Heater was hired to Florida’s quality control staff. Heater started his career in 1976 and is a highly regarded defensive coach. Heater coached defensive backs at Florida from 2005-10, meaning he previously worked with Mullen, the Gators’ offensive coordinator for the first four years of that span. Former Cincinnati Bengals offensive coordinator and Cleveland Browns quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese spent the past 20 years in the NFL before his hiring as a Gators analyst in June. The next month, former Seminoles offensive line coach Greg Frey was added as an analyst.

Through one-third of the season, Florida’s on-field coaches said they have greatly benefited from the new presence of the trio of experienced analysts.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to have for a while, but it wasn’t like I was just going to hire anybody,” Mullen told The Athletic. “For example, I know Chuck Heater, I was on staff with Chuck. He’s a great football coach, very intelligent. And for him, where he is at in his career, this really fit.”

Last year at Florida and throughout his time at Mississippi State, Mullen had analysts or quality control personnel on his staff. Mullen’s philosophy was to be small and efficient, and the quality control members were mostly young up-and-comers in the coaching profession. Ryan McNamara, for example, is a quality control staffer at Florida who also used to work under Mullen at Mississippi State. In some ways, McNamara’s job is similar to that of the new analysts; he breaks down film, provides reports and performs studies for defensive coordinator Todd Grantham. The difference is the level of expertise Heater, Zampese and Frey have and can provide to Florida’s on-field coaches.

In the offseason, Florida’s on-field coaches review their upcoming opponents, just like many staffs around the country. During the season, however, they mostly operate week-to-week, focusing on the opponent for that upcoming Saturday. Heater, Zampese and Frey work one week ahead of Florida’s on-field coaches. For example, on Sunday, Florida’s coaches will have detailed data and insights on what Auburn has been doing courtesy of the analysts who have been studying the Tigers all week.

“As someone like Chuck sees things and he’s getting us all the analytical data of actually what is going on, it’s 100 percent correct,” Mullen said. “So as we come in and show up on Sunday, everything is already broken down and prepared.”

The analysts break down film, analyze data, analyze stats, track tendencies and identify the opponent’s most impactful players.

“It gives you a bigger baseline going into the week of what to expect,” Florida quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson said. “Scheme and stuff is great, but I think one of the great things they do is break down who are the guys on the other team that can make plays to wreck the game. Where are the great players? Who are the guys who you got to know where they are every single snap? What they do well, how you can attack them. I think it just gives you a bigger baseline going into the week of, OK, this is what we have to do to go win the game, and we can’t let this guy beat us.”

What makes Florida’s usage of analysts stand out beyond the newness to the staff is Mullen’s organization of them.

Heater’s expertise is defense, but he works with the offensive staff.

Zampese and Frey are offensive guys, but they work with the defensive staff.

“We flipped the sides of the ball with it,” Johnson said. “Like Chuck, he sees it from such a different angle. I think it’s been really unique and kind of cutting edge just in terms of something we hadn’t done before.”

Heater breaks down opposing defenses and shares with the offensive staff how a team is covering, blitzing and what their concepts are, as he sees it. Frey and Zampese do the same on the other side, analyzing how opponents’ run game structure is organized, how their protection is designed and how their routes are set up. The idea is that once Florida’s on-field coaches understand the rules or the concepts, then they can possibly match accordingly.

“A lot of times, when you look at things from a defensive perspective, you get defensive eyes,” Grantham said. “But then when you get eyes from the offensive side, you can get perspective of, ‘OK, here’s how they call it, here’s what’s unusual or here’s what’s hard about what they are doing.’

“Anytime you have those things, it gives you a little more exactness on how you want to play things.”

Heater, Zampese and Frey can’t coach Florida’s players or recruit, but their impact goes beyond game-planning for opponents. During training camp, for instance, they offered advice on the wording of certain concepts and shared ideas on different drills.

“You get so entrenched in just coaching guys,” Johnson said. “And they may see something you don’t see. Just little things that can make a huge difference. Just things that make you say, ‘You know what? I never thought of that.’ ”

LSU has a whopping 13 analysts, including veteran coaches like Kevin Coyle, a former NFL defensive coordinator. Florida State recently hired Jim Leavitt as a defensive analyst. Tennessee has a handful of analysts, but none are big-name former coaches.

Don’t expect Mullen and Florida to suddenly join the arms race between LSU and Alabama — Mullen isn’t going to hire just to hire. But it will be interesting to see if Florida increases the number of experienced analysts in the future, considering how the Gators have seemingly benefitted this season. Based on Mullen’s history and style, that idea may depend on who is available at a given time. Maybe Mullen finds this size is enough. Regardless, Florida’s on-field staff has long been lauded as an elite group in terms of game-planning and scheming, and the addition of experienced analysts has strategically enhanced that strength.

(Photo of Ken Zampese: Diamond Images / Getty Images)

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

@SJUGRAD13

Spoiler

It’s 10 minutes before game time. Here’s what most teams are up to:

Gathering up the sunflower-seed stash. Applying those final dashes of stylish eyeblack. Making sure the bats are in the bat rack.

That’s most teams. Now here’s what those Atlanta Braves are up to:

Roll call!

All right, how do we explain Roll Call? GM Alex Anthopoulos calls it “the modern version of the Kangaroo Court.” Freddie Freeman says it’s just another symbol of the Braves’ “culture of fun.” A rival manager admires it as an example of “good peer pressure” that “drives players’ pride in what it means to win a ballgame.”

On the surface, it’s just a corny little team-lifting moment that even Freeman admits “might seem ridiculous on the outside.” But in truth, it’s part of the fabric of all good baseball teams, to concoct whatever they can to bond, to motivate and to energize a group of human beings through an endless season.

The Astros have their mug-for-the-dugout-camera show. The Nationals have their home run dugout dance. And the Braves? They have Roll Call.

Nobody claims it’s the driving force behind why they won the NL East by four games. It obviously ranks way behind the brilliance of Freeman and Ronald Acuña Jr., or the daring signings of Josh Donaldson and Dallas Keuchel, on the Braves’ list of top 100 reasons they’re lined up to host Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cardinals on Thursday.

It isn’t even something they do every day, every week or even every homestand. But Roll Call is a part of what and who they are. So we want you to picture this scene.

Imagine an entire dugout full of baseball players gathering around the two coaches who are the masters of ceremonies of this raucous ritual, Eric Young and Ron Washington. They’re the Tina Fey and Amy Poehler of Roll Call, except this is entertainment for a purpose.

Young is the high-energy first-base coach who seems to live life with a 24/7 smile. Washington is the Braves’ Lion King, the longtime coach-turned-manager turned-Braves-third-base-coach, whose dignity and wisdom have become a vital part of the Braves’ culture and attention to detail.

These two men have done many cool things in their day. But now they can add this to that list:

They’re the Wright Brothers of Roll Call. This is their proud invention. And the best part is that it wasn’t some prefabricated copycat game they’d seen other teams play. It just happened. Simply. Organically. Perfectly.

The groundwork actually was laid in the spring of 2018. Young had just arrived after being added to the coaching staff. He sought out Washington for sage insight into the franchise he was joining and what his new team was all about. It was then that Washington laid an old expression on him that he’d long used to separate winning players from everybody else.

“We were just talking,” Young says, “about how there are ‘players’ and then there’s ‘playuhs.’… And he’d say, ‘The reason they get to be ‘playuhs’ is, they’re the ones that are balling. But the ‘players?’ They’re like us. They’re just trying to make something happen.’ So you want to be an ‘uh,’” he told me.

In other words … Freddie Freeman? Now that’s a playuh — “always, always, always a playuh,” Young says … But you know that guy who got picked off first in the seventh inning last night? Player. Got it? Cool. Now back to our story.

Young and Washington didn’t even know what they were starting as they ripped through the names on the Braves’ roster for the first time that spring. Young would ask about a name. Washington would pronounce the verdict — playuh or player. And suddenly, a strobe light began flashing in Young’s brain.

“I said, ‘Let’s do a roll call — in the dugout right before the game – so they know if they’re a player or a playuh,’” Young says, retelling the tale with pretty much the same amount of pride as Alexander Graham Bell must have exuded when he spun those “Mr. Watson, come here,” stories about the day he invented the telephone.

Well, that’s how Roll Call was born. Now let’s take you inside the beauty of the Roll Call in action.

Ronald Acuña Jr.: Player?

It was a month into the 2018 season. The Future — in the person of the dazzling Ronald Acuña Jr. — had just arrived in Atlanta. The Braves and their coaching staff knew all about the talent. They’d seen it all through spring training. But after a couple of early mental lapses, it was time to deliver a message Acuña needed to digest if he was going to become the best player in the National League.

“When he first came,” Young says, “he still had to learn the big-league level. So when I called, ‘Ronald Acuña Jr.,’ that night, Wash went: ‘Player.’ And do you know Ronald Acuña hit a home run that night — and when he came around third base, he said to Wash: ‘I’m a playuh!’”

“He said, ‘Player? No, I’m a playuh,’” Washington reminisces, with a knowing sparkle in his eye. “He’d get a double, slide into second, jump up and yell, ‘Playuh!’”

Josh Donaldson: Player?

It was the first weekend of the 2019 season. Time for the first Roll Call of the year — and time to welcome the Braves’ new third baseman to Atlanta.

“It was the first one we did this year, and he didn’t really know what it was,” Young says of Josh Donaldson’s Roll Call debut. “So I said, ‘JD.’ And Wash said, ‘Player.’ And he said, ‘Player? How’d I get a player?’ And we said, ‘You just got over here, JD. I mean, we knew the JD, the MVP from over there (in Toronto). But over here? You didn’t do anything yet. So you get player.’ And he said, ‘OK, all right. He said, ‘I’m gonna let you all know about it.’”

Ozzie Albies: Player?

How do we describe the relationship of Ron Washington and the second baseman who arrived on this earth 45 years after he did? Washington and Ozzie Albies are more than simply a coach and a player. This is more like father and son, mentor and mentee, guru and student, all wrapped in one powerful package.

“Let me tell you,” Young says. “I’ve never seen a relationship between a player and a coach like him and Ozzie. I’ve never seen it in my life.”

And yet … by all accounts, no Braves player has been called a player by Ron Washington more than Albies has.

“I don’t pick on Ozzie,” Washington says, when this topic arises. “If I pick on Ozzie, it’s only because Ozzie will be doing things to make me pick on him.”

Not a day goes by all season — not one — when Albies and Washington don’t make time for each other. To work. To practice their daily drills. To talk. To laugh. To bond.

“So when Wash says, ‘Player,’ to Ozzie,” Young says, cackling with laughter, “all the other guys are like, ‘Oh, he called his boy a player. So we’d better make sure we do our shyt right, or he’s gonna call us a ‘Player.’”

In truth, though, the group knows exactly what Washington is up to.

“Most everybody gets announced as a playuh,” Freeman says. “That’s just kind of how it is. But we’re all waiting for when Wash is going to call somebody a player. Usually, he just picks a guy to get a rise out of the whole team. That’s just how it is. And usually, it’s Ozzie, just because Ozzie and Wash are so close. So it’s usually someone who can take it, somebody who is OK with being called a player.”

The Zen of Wash

So that’s how the Roll Call works. But now here’s a more important question: Why does it work?

What is it about hearing a longtime coach drawing a line between players and playuhsthat gets a whole dugout laughing, lights a bonfire in just enough eyes and drives the Braves to be as great as their talent allows them to be — from Opening Day to October?

“I guess it’s the makeup of our group,” Washington says. “They come to play every day, and they all want to be a star. They all want to be The Man. Now they know The Man on this team. Really, we’ve got a few of ’em. (Nick) Markakis…Donaldson…Freddie…(Brian) McCann. And the rest of ’em, I put it in a way like this: ‘We’ve got this big yellow bus, and there’s about four driver’s seats — and none of you all sit in the driver’s seat. You’re all passengers.’

“And they all know that. They’re passengers. One day, the rest of ’em, they’ll get a chance to drive.”

And why Roll Call? Why does it pound home that message in a way that a lecture or a meeting might not? Because it’s the perfect marriage of a group of players with big dreams and a coaching staff that has the players’ total respect. They see the energetic positivity of Eric Young every day of the season. And they feel the Zen of Ron Washington because, well, how could you miss it?

“It’s just fun,” McCann says. “They play off each other and their personalities. They feed off each other. They’re on each other 24/7 anyway, so it’s fun.”

“They have the respect of everyone,” Freeman says, “because of how hard they work at their craft. … They’re not just sitting in the coaches’ office and all of a sudden show up 10 minutes before the game and start yelling stuff.”

So would these guys vote for Washington as the next Supreme Court Justice?

“I would,” McCann says, with a chuckle.

“Wash can do anything he wants,” Freeman says. “He has the respect of everyone in the baseball community. He works hard. He has a love for this game that is very rare. He has so much fun just being here. Everyone knows his story and how he’s blessed every single day to be in baseball. He enjoys it every day. I’m hoping we get keep him for a long time, but he deserves to be a manager.”

It’s Ron Washington’s 49th season in professional baseball and his 34th in big-league baseball. He managed eight seasons in Texas. It’s his 16th season as a major-league coach. He was an important character in “Moneyball,” played on the big screen by Brent Jennings. And if you can imagine his portrayal in that movie, dryly delivering his signature line — “It’s incredibly hard” — you can imagine him holding court in the Braves’ dugout, delivering his signature verdicts: Playuh or Player.

“When he speaks,” Young says, “there’s a tone that’s enlightening, and it also draws your attention. And he’s always in a teaching moment — in his words, in the wisdom of his words. He’s just always throwing out a little saying. And his best saying is the one he says every day. He says, ‘It’s not the best team that wins every day. It’s the team that plays the best.’ Every day, that’s our slogan. And when he says that, we know if we play our game, we’ll win the game.”

For a quarter-century now, Ron Washington has been finding ways to connect with the baseball players around him — no matter how much younger or how different their journeys may have been. It’s a gift that allows him to be an effective teacher. And it’s that same gift that makes Roll Call that crazy thing that drives a winning baseball team in Atlanta.

“On this team, we’ve got a very young group,” he says. “So you’re able to mold them, and work with them, and develop relationships. With this generation of baseball players, they want to know you care. But once they know you care, they’re on your side.”

Oh, it won’t be Roll Call that determines whether the Braves beat the Cardinals this week. It won’t be Roll Call that will determine whether the Braves win the World Series. That will be about talent, about seizing those October moments, about the random bounces a baseball inevitably takes in those moments.

But in order to get to those moments, it takes something different, something special. It takes a quality that not every team has. If your team can’t play with focus and energy every day, from April to September, it isn’t October material. And that’s where Roll Call comes in.

“It’s about accountability,” says Washington.

“It’s fuel,” says Young.

“It’s just another thing to have fun together,” says Freeman. “And that’s the thing about this team. Everything we do is together.”

 

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Thompson: Now that Marquese Chriss has fallen into their...

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

Can we get this one posted?

Thompson: Now that Marquese Chriss has fallen into their...

Spoiler

Not long after the Warriors’ first preseason game, there was a meeting somewhere in the bowels of Chase Center. It wasn’t a meeting, sources said, as much as it was a petition, a reiteration, an emphasis, to Warriors general manager Bob Myers. The request was simple in scope. Yet, it was also profound, considering it included an important voice in the locker room, considering it was about a player many have given up on.

The request? Get Marquese Chriss on this team.

Chriss played only 13 minutes in the preseason opener. But it was enough to make it clear he should be on the roster.

The Warriors’ salary cap situation is complex thanks to the hard cap placed on them as a result of the sign-and-trade to get D’Angelo Russell. But that’s why this postgame plea was important. The message: This player is too good, and the need too great, to let collective bargaining agreement limitations get in the way.

“I think being in this situation is probably the best fit that I’ve been in and the most comfortable I’ve felt,” Chriss said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “I wasn’t looking at it as, ‘I’m not on the team.’ I’m just looking at it as, ‘this is where I want to be at,’ so I’m going to show them this is where I should be.”

The Warriors and Chriss may have found each other at the right time.

The Warriors are in the middle of a reboot. They flipped half the roster. Their stars are consuming so much of the cap, they need to find good, cheap talent. The kind of talent with growth potential that’s only available because of its imperfections.

Chriss is in the middle of a reboot, too. He was the No. 8 pick in 2016, by Phoenix, and was seen as highly promising, ripe for stardom. But three years and three months later, he was in need of a fresh start and running low on options. He was a forgotten commodity among fans, thrown into a heap of draft busts.

So the Warriors need him, and he needs the Warriors.

“I think he’s been great all training camp,” Draymond Green said. “He’s been on a couple teams, and everybody has kind of written him off. But he’s been amazing in camp, and to me it looked like he’s figuring it out and he’s turning a corner.”

The Warriors need a center, especially with Willie Cauley-Stein out for at least a month. They also need a starting small forward, arguably the most important position in the game. But more than both of those, they need talent and versatility.

When they had four All-Stars, they had the luxury of being able to have a guy on the roster who does one or two things. But with the players they have lost — Kevin Durant, Andre Iguodala and Klay Thompson out for months — they are a bit desperate for talent and versatility. They need growth potential. They need someone who can come off the bench and impact the game. Looking at what the Warriors have on the bench, and in camp, Chriss is the one player who jumps out from that perspective.

And when else will the Warriors get their hands on a 22-year-old lottery pick for the price of a minimum salary? They probably can’t afford to let this one walk. Not at this transitional point in their franchise.

Chriss is 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot wingspan and a vertical jump of 38.5 inches. It’s like he was engineered to play forward in the NBA. He’s got nice touch on his jumper, which stretches out to 3-point range. He also has enough handle to do something with an explosive first step, going left and right. He has a good feel for the game: understands spacing, moving without the ball, manipulating the defense with his positioning.

He has the tools to defend, though that hasn’t been his calling card. He can block some shots with his length and explosiveness, and he’s good at closing out on the perimeter. He’d be the perfect project for the Warriors’ player development staff, especially with Ron Adams now in a development role.

“He’s shown a lot of athleticism and he’s a great kid,” coach Steve Kerr said. “He still wants to learn and is asking questions, and I think the players like playing with him. He’s pretty good in high screen-and-roll, running dribble handoffs. He knows what he’s doing, so I think he’s a really intriguing prospect.”

The Warriors need a player who has the size and athleticism to play, especially defend, all three front-court positions. Currently, the only player who can do that productively is Green. The rest are either too small to thrive in the paint or don’t have the quickness and skills to hang on the perimeter. They need someone between 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-11 with some explosiveness who can finish at the rim and contest a shot, and with the skills to handle the ball and make an open shot. They had all of that and so much more in Durant. While they can’t replace him, they still need a player who can do some of those functions.

That was evident against the Lakers. Whoever the Warriors threw at LeBron James and Anthony Davis was either too small for those stars or not athletic enough to have a shot on the perimeter. LeBron just bullied Alfonzo McKinnie; Davis did the same to Jacob Evans. And the Warriors didn’t have any options outside of Green.

Kevon Looney and Cauley-Stein were injured. Either could’ve offered Davis some form of resistance inside, instead of making him look like Wilt Chamberlain at a youth camp. But it’s a tall order to ask them to get out on the wing and defend in space or navigate screens.

LeBron and Davis will make most defenses feel relatively helpless. But they aren’t alone. The NBA is full of small forwards who move to power forward in small lineups, or power forwards who can step out to the perimeter. The reigning MVP is Giannis Antetokounmpo. The Clippers have Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. Ben Simmons is a matchup nightmare in Philadelphia. Dallas now has Kristaps Porzingis with Luka Dončić. Danilo Gallinari, now with Oklahoma City, has torched the Warriors in the past. Brandon Ingram and Zion Williamson figure to make New Orleans a tough matchup for the Warriors. At some point, they’ll have to face Durant.

Chriss isn’t the answer to stopping any of the above. He does, however, fit a glaring hole on the roster.

But if that’s the case, why is this his best option?

“I was a young hot-headed little kid,” Chriss said. “I think that’s how I look at it. I think early I was just playing strictly off emotion and things like that and just trying to find my way and just wasn’t really containing myself. But I think that I’m mentally stronger than I give myself credit for. I think I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been through some things that people might quit over, people might lose the drive to keep going. But I feel like I’ve kept going and I’ve kept pushing to try to be where I wanna be.”

In his first three years as a pro, Chriss developed a reputation that overshadowed his obvious talent. He had problems in Phoenix because of his attitude.

He had a productive rookie season under then-Suns coach Earl Watson. He played all 82 games, starting 75 of them and averaged 9.2 points and 4.2 rebounds in 21.3 minutes per game. He shot 44.9 percent from the field and 32.1 percent from 3. Phoenix was 24-58 that season, but Chriss was one of the young talents who was expected to blossom in the Valley of the Sun. But it all went downhill from there.

Chriss clashed with Jay Triano, who replaced Watson as head coach four games into Chriss’ sophomore season. Body language and mood was a common critique. Chriss even knew it was a problem. He has discussed his issues with his temper publicly.

The Suns gave up on nurturing his talent and traded him to Houston. He then requested a trade out of the Rockets, where he averaged 6.5 minutes in 16 games, and they shipped him to Cleveland. After finishing the year with the Cavaliers, Chriss had scarce options entering this season. Some teams were willing to put him on a two-way contract, but no one had a guaranteed roster spot with his name on it.

But Chriss being in camp with the Warriors is, in his mind, evidence of how much he has grown. Despite the lack of prospects, he said he is feeling as good as ever. He spent the summer getting his mind and body right. He had a chef all summer making sure he ate healthy and was ready for wherever he landed. He took the Warriors invitation to training camp, despite them not having a roster spot, because his confidence is soaring.

There is no guarantee it is going to pan out. His temper and frustrations could flare up, robbing him of the peace and comfort he now exudes. But the Warriors, despite being hard-capped, might need to find out. That would require getting rid of someone on the roster — waiving McKinnie, who is really liked in the locker room, because he is the only non-guaranteed contract holding a roster spot, or trading someone into another team’s space. Chriss has already got people in his corner pushing for that to happen.

“I’ve heard good things, positive things from the coaches,” Chriss said. “I’m just trying to stay open-minded and keep being coached. Whether or not it works out here, I was able to come here and learn some things that I would be able to take other places. I think at the end of the day, my goal was to show them that this was where I should be and put the pressure on them.”

 

[G.O.A.T Squad Spokesman]

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[Anerdyblackguy]

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Spoiler

The summer between D’Angelo Russell’s second and third seasons, he was traded from the Lakers to the Nets. It was an important moment in his career. The 2015 No. 2 overall pick had been labeled a disappointment. His mission, that offseason, was about redirecting his path.

“I was trying to lose body weight, body fat, so I was killing myself,” Russell said. “Two, three workouts a day.”

It appeared to work. Russell scored 30 points on the season’s first night. He had 33 in the seventh game. He looked better. But his left knee was hurting. He got it checked out by team doctors. They suggested arthroscopic surgery. It knocked him out for two months.

“It was just too much wear and tear,” Russell said. “You play so many games through AAU, high school, college. Then the NBA, you play 82-plus. Travel plays a part. Then in the summertime, you beat yourself up in 5-on-5s and try to keep yourself going. But at the end of the day, your body is taking it. Your mind may be elevating getting that work in, but your body’s still taking it.”

Steve Kerr’s most notable (non-political) quote this month came after the first preseason game. He told reporters that Russell — the slender young guard to whom the Warriors committed four years and $117 million this summer, whose addition cost them Andre Iguodala, two first-round picks and triggered a hard cap — didn’t arrive in game shape.

“He has to get his legs underneath him,” Kerr said. “He’s not a guy who plays a ton of pickup ball in the summer. He uses the preseason to get his condition.”

Russell adopted that strategy after the 2017 knee scope.

“Um, yeah,” he said. “I try to limit my pick-up basketball. It’s not safe, for one. Then two, I think it’s load managing, manage my body the best I can.”

Everything about Russell is unhurried. He converses with a pausing, thoughtful approach. He preps his body for the season in October, not before. He dribbles in a wandering, prodding manner. Patience is always a priority.

“He doesn’t really get sped up,” Draymond Green said. “He kind of stays at his pace.”

That’s not, typically, the Warriors’ style. Organized chaos, they’ve often called it. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson never stop moving. They rarely drag the shot clock under 10. Three-hundred passes per game create a frenetic feel. They’ve finished first, second, fourth, fifth and 10th in pace in Kerr’s five seasons.

But those Warriors aren’t necessarily these Warriors. The personnel — and, most specifically, Russell, the new slower-moving high-usage scoring guard — doesn’t perfectly fit that strategy.

“To be honest, we have to adjust to everything,” Kerr said. “We’re all adjusting to each other, to the new facility, to the rhythm of training camp.”

Two preseason games are the most irrelevant of sample sizes. But that’s all we have to this point. And the numbers say these Warriors are zooming even faster. The Lakers game was played at a 108.5 pace. The Wolves game moved at a 118.5 pace. Last season, the league’s fastest team, the Hawks, played at a 104.5 pace.

“Playing with this team is different,” a wide-eyed Russell said after the first game. “It’s hard to guard a fast-paced team. Being on this side, it’s fun to adjust to.”

The regular season will be different. There’s no chance the Warriors will keep those numbers up. It’d be beyond historic. But they’ll play fast. Russell must prepare his body and integrate into the Warriors’ preferred style, still crafted around Curry’s up-tempo, non-stop rhythm.

But Russell will also put his fingerprints all over the on-court product. A team can have multiple personalities, especially when they have a pair of high-usage scoring guards, staggered in the rotation.

When Russell is in control, the Warriors will move more methodically. NBA.com has a player tracking system. Last season, per those numbers, Russell took 4.46 dribbles per touch, holding the ball for an average of 4.91 seconds.

Those aren’t gargantuan numbers. James Harden held the ball for an average of 6.37 seconds, tops in the league, and dribbled it 5.92 times per touch, second behind only D.J. Augustin (6.7 dribbles), captaining the Magic’s supremely slow attack. Russell was 36th and 46th, league wide, in those numbers.

But the Warriors didn’t have anyone in the top 100. They don’t play that way. Curry only averaged 3.45 dribbles (107th in the league) and 3.73 seconds (130th in the league) per touch. Only 38 percent of Curry’s shots came after three or more dribbles, while 63 percent of Russell’s did.

“Just be who you are,” Curry said he’s been telling Russell. “Be the player who has gotten you to this point. Then fine-tune it to work within the system we have.”

Curry said Russell “might’ve felt a little uncomfortable” in the preseason opener. Curry remembered a couple times in which he was dashing around quickly, revving into some pick-and-roll action, passing out into a swing, swing that eventually worked its way to Russell, who slowed the action and almost looked apologetic for doing so.

“He (needs to) play to his strength, being able to size up the defense, figure it out,” Curry said. “I told him: Be you. You don’t got to be anybody else but yourself. However he sees himself impacting the possession, do it. There’s no other D’Angelo but D’Angelo. That’s why he’s here.”

— Reported from San Francisco

(Photo: Jeff Chiu / AP)

 

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[Anerdyblackguy]

@SJUGRAD13

Spoiler

Gus Malzahn first said it in his opening statement after Auburn’s 24-13 loss to Florida. He repeated himself a few minutes later. A day later, he said it three more times in another press conference.

“I have to put him in better situations.”

Malzahn was referring to true freshman starting quarterback Bo Nix, who went 11 of 27 passing and threw three interceptions in Week 6. Two of his picks came in Florida territory, including one in the end zone with the Tigers only trailing by four points.

It’s fairly common to hear Malzahn repeat a talking point like this in the aftermath of a loss. He’s often critical of himself in front of the media, and that seems to have only increased since he took over offensive play-calling again — even when Auburn was winning its first five games of 2019.

But what did Malzahn mean when he said that he needed to put Nix in better positions? Does it have something to do with specific play-calls, packages or personnel groups?

“On the road, it’s just narrowing some things down and having it to where we can just have as many snap plays as we can, when the clock doesn’t get down late,” Malzahn said.

After reviewing film of Auburn’s loss to Florida, one of the most notable problems in Malzahn’s eyes had a lot to do with the play clock.

Auburn had to burn a timeout on its second drive of the game before a third-and-1 run that was stopped by Florida. The Tigers also had three false start penalties, and two of them came when the play clock was down to zero seconds — that is, the lineman anticipated a just-in-time snap that never came.

“The atmosphere affected our guys,” Malzahn said. “It kind of surprised me, but we had some false starts. We had some miscommunication between the quarterback and up front.”

The noise particularly got to Nix, who was making the second true road start of his career.

“I have been around here a long time, and that was pretty loud,” Malzahn said. “I would compare that with some of the top that we’ve faced. I think that affected him a little bit.”

Nix didn’t seem to have issues in Kyle Field during Auburn’s win over Texas A&M, partly because the Tigers got off to such a strong offensive start that it quieted some of the crowd.

But Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is different. While smaller than Kyle Field, the architecture of “The Swamp” makes for a louder environment for those on the field. The stadium is built vertically, and the sidelines themselves are smaller than in most places in the SEC.

Combine that with a raucous home crowd eager for its first top-10 matchup in years, and one can see how the volume quickly became nothing like Nix had ever experienced.

“It was really loud, and we had trouble hearing the clap for the cadence and sometimes had slow communication,” Nix said. “Stuff like that happens. Every team that walks into the Swamp has communication issues, but we just didn’t do anything to make up for it.”

A week before his disappointing performance at Florida, Nix put together an excellent game at home against Mississippi State. He had 335 passing yards on 21 attempts, and two of the balls he threw were dropped.

Part of that success in the 56-23 rout of Mississippi State had a lot to do with what Auburn did before the snap.

“Well, we checked a lot today, so we got us into good plays,” Nix said after beating the Bulldogs. “I think that helped a lot. Because we called plays that were open, and we know, game-plan wise, that we were going to get that specific look.”

All of that pre-snap checking — where the Tigers change the play after seeing what the defense is doing, either by looking to the sidelines or Nix automatically switching to a preset secondary call — can be an extremely successful strategy.

It’s a lot easier to do at home, too, when the majority of the crowd isn’t at full volume before the snap.

Florida was also able to manipulate the clock situation and Auburn’s rhythm by the way it substituted.

In college football, as soon as an offense substitutes, the defense gets to change its personnel as well. When that happens, the offense is prevented from snapping the ball until the referee gives the signal.

“There were times we were fighting the play clock with the noise and everything that went with it,” Malzahn said. “And when we substituted, they were taking their time substituting, there’s no doubt about that. That’s something we’ll have to adapt to.”

Whenever a defense gets that time to substitute, it changes the entire pre-snap timeline for an offense. Significant time on the play clock can be gone before the quarterback can even make his reads, which can put an offense in tough spots.

And when that’s happening to an offense that is being led by a true freshman quarterback, the degree of difficulty skyrockets.

“We snapped probably four or five plays with the play clock being at one or two, probably before we were ready to really get going,” Malzahn said. “We’ll have to do a better job of that moving forward.”

Auburn’s off week provided Malzahn and his staff the opportunity to rewatch every single snap from the first six games. One of the areas of correction that immediately stood out was having a more streamlined game plan in upcoming games.

“We had a couple of check plays that we probably need to eliminate moving forward and just snap the ball,” Malzahn said.

There’s a delicate balance that needs to be maintained by Auburn’s offense in the upcoming weeks.

The Tigers need to give Nix time to make reads and ensure what he needs to do with the ball on every play. Nix said after the game that one of his “many things” he had to work on during the off week was becoming more aware of how teams were playing him.

“I’ve just got to settle down, take one play at a time and make sure I know what the defense is doing,” Nix said after the loss to Florida.

Eliminating some of the check plays and speeding up the game — which can be simply helped by better effectiveness from an offense that went 2-for-14 on third downs against Florida — can prevent Nix from getting overloaded.

However, the danger in that is predictability in play-calling. Auburn doesn’t want to be so simple that it can be easy to diagnose and stop, especially with tests against the likes of LSU, Georgia and Alabama coming up in the second half of the regular season.

Those are some of the issues facing Malzahn as he works to put his true freshman quarterback in a better spot after a frustrating loss at Florida. In his eyes, the off week couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

“You’re able to see things that can help you moving forward,” Malzahn said. “And it also helps you (say), ‘Hey, we’re really good at this, we’re not good at that.’ It gives you a lot of good information.”

Auburn’s upcoming matchup at 2-3 Arkansas shouldn’t provide the same number of challenges as the trip to Florida.

The Tigers have won six of their last nine games at Arkansas, including a 52-20 rout in their last visit. In home games this season, Arkansas has beaten FCS program Portland State by a lone touchdown, defeated a struggling Colorado State team that is currently 2-5, and lost to San Jose State.

However, bad mistakes from Nix can easily turn what should be a bounce-back win for Auburn into a rough time. There’s also the threat of LSU’s Tiger Stadium — where Auburn hasn’t won in 20 years — looming next weekend.

And for Nix to give Auburn a chance to compete in Death Valley, Malzahn knows he needs to do better by his young quarterback.

“The bottom line is I’ve got to put him in better situations moving forward,” Malzahn said. “It was a learning experience that we’ll be better for it the next time we get in that type of environment.”

(Photo: John Glaser / USA TODAY Sports)

 

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Kawakami: 'I accept that challenge' — Steph Curry's old...

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Kawakami: 'I accept that challenge' — Steph Curry's old...

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Spoiler

Kawakami: ‘I accept that challenge’ — Steph Curry’s old and familiar responsibility to carry the Warriors

By Tim Kawakami Oct 23, 2019

Stephen Curry knows what everybody is expecting and imagining as the 2019-20 season dawns and the most interesting — and dynamic — part is that he’s absolutely expecting and imagining it, too.

Expecting Curry to carry the Warriors once again, after several seasons when it wasn’t always necessary for the two-time MVP to be at his best to win most games because he had Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala beside him.

Imagining what all of this will look like when Curry is fully committed to trying to dominate every game by force of will and far-flung shooting, just like he did in 2015-16, his unanimous MVP season, or maybe more comparatively, back in 2012 or 2013, before the Warriors had achieved much of anything.

Steph Curry vs. the World, all over again and again and again and again. That was fun in 2013. Think of what it could be like in 2019.

But now he’s many years older, the Warriors are in a bit of a transition waiting for Thompson to get healthy, and Curry and Draymond Green are the old-guard royalty trying to maintain a certain standard for this franchise after five consecutive trips to the Finals and three championships.

The defensive and emotional focus is on Draymond, of course. But the offensive and overall rhythm of this depleted roster almost certainly will be under Curry’s control. Without much question, he has to be great this season. He has to play at an MVP-level, if not win the award himself for the third time. (Since winning in 2016, Curry has finished, in order, sixth, 10th and fifth in the MVP voting.)

The one clear thing about the Warriors heading into this season: Curry has to be at the top of his game from start to finish or else the Warriors probably will not be very good.

And over the course of last summer, into training camp and through preseason all the way up to Thursday’s season opener against the Clippers at Chase Center, Curry has been settling into this responsibility. More to the point: He’s relishing it.

“I understand — that’s the challenge, right?” Curry said during his appearance on my podcast earlier this week. “I probably would say in years past maybe I have an inefficient game, don’t shoot the ball well, get a couple assists, whatever, and you kind of judge just my individual performance. We may still win that game because we have experience and talent and whatnot.

“This year if I, for lack of a better term, shyt the bed, it’s going to be really hard for us to win games. So I accept that challenge, for sure, and understand what kind of player I need to be.”

That is about as directly as Curry or anybody else as level-headed as he is can say it. That is Curry communicating something to Warriors fans, his teammates and himself: If you think this is too much for a 31-year-old skinny point guard to handle, just watch.

For Curry’s perspective, let’s consider his career as it has evolved over four clear stages.

Curry Stage 1, 2009-2014: His early career was hampered by ankle injuries and a poor supporting cast but also displayed long and brilliant runs that showed everybody what was possible.

Curry Stage 2, 2014-2016: He won the MVP in back-to-back seasons, including becoming the only unanimous winner in league history and averaging 30.1 points per game in that historic 2015-16 season.

Curry Stage 3, 2016-2019: The scoring averages dropped to 25.3, 26.4 and 27.3 per, his leadership skills expanded, he got dinged up a little in the last two seasons and the Warriors won two of three championships.

Now Curry Stage 4: 2019-?: The Warriors need him to be the central, recurring and overwhelming figure once again and everybody knows it’s a lot to ask but also quite possible.

“I never put that much pressure on myself to say I’ve gotta be MVP, whatever,” Curry said. “Because I know that’s kinda out of your control. I always look at myself and say, when I walk off the floor, did I play well or not? And that sounds cliché … but … if I judge myself on a nightly basis and be real with myself with what I need to do, I’m always in control of the conversation and the narrative.

“Definitely understand if I’m playing the way I’m supposed to play, we’re winning games (and) I should be in that conversation. And that’s what I hope for. And doing everything in my power to make it happen.”

So can you be 2016 Steph again? “Naw,” Curry said, laughing. “I’m going to shoot way more 3s than that guy.”

But seriously …

“It’s different expectations,” Curry said. “Like I have the ball in my hands for whatever amount of possessions the last three, four years, and you’ve got Klay, you’ve got KD, you’ve got Draymond open at the top of the key, you’ve got Andre and Shaun roaming the floor. There’s a lot of options that you don’t necessarily have to shoot the ball every possession. But you’re still aggressive to create plays and create offense. And be efficient in your minutes.

“That’s the same mindset that I would play with this year. Just might mean I take more shots or kind of force the issue a little bit if things kind of get stagnant for us as a team.”

Maybe there will be added motivation from Michael Jordan’s recent reference to Curry not being a Hall of Famer yet, though I think the reaction to Jordan’s comment far outstrips what he actually meant. (Jordan was praising his era of great players, who are all retired and in the Hall of Fame. Curry is still playing and therefore not yet eligible. Of course, he’ll be in the Hall of Fame as soon as he can be voted in.)

But all of this discussion is framed by what happened to the Warriors the last few years: They won a title in 2015 then backed that up with a 73-win season and failed to win the title, then signed Durant and won two of the next three championships. Now Durant, Iguodala and Shaun Livingston are gone, Thompson is out for most or all of this season and D’Angelo Russell is starting next to Curry in the backcourt.

What’s his feel for the team after this uneven period? I asked Curry to fill in the blank: This preseason has made you feel … what?

“I like ‘optimistic’ because I know it didn’t look great, but I think I mentioned something today in practice where I can feel us getting better more than I could in years past,” Curry said. “Years past, the talent we had and the experience, some things just went unsaid. We knew each other were going to be …

“(This season,) we don’t have that quote, unquote luxury. So every marginal gain that we have, you can tell. And you can feel. You can see the confidence, especially in the young guys, start to pick up and those kind of bang-bang reads you have to make on both ends of the floor, we’re making them more and more.”

The point, Curry said, is to bring all of the newcomers into the Warriors’ fold, show them how this team works, and also give the youngsters enough room to grow and learn without feeling overpowered by the veteran holdovers.

“I do remember when I was a rookie and all the mistakes I used to make,” Curry said. “I was nowhere near the type of player I am now. That’s in my mind, but it’s also not to just let stuff slide.

“I think the beauty of the culture that we’ve created here that a young guy can come in here and really get better right away. It’s well documented what my rookie year was like. I kind of had to have tunnel vision. I think now people can buy into what we’re trying to build.”

For Curry, most of that naturally leads into his relationship with Russell, who comes to the Warriors from the Nets with a huge new contract, a past All-Star appearance and a reputation that has gone through some ups and downs.

He’s still only 23, a whole NBA generation or two younger than Curry. Can these two very different players and very different personalities flourish together? That’s the biggest unknown for the Warriors at this point. But Curry says the early signs have all been promising.

“Over the summer, we talked a lot about the opportunity we had to work together in that backcourt obviously with Klay out,” Curry said of Russell. “Him being an All-Star last year and taking that next step in his career just from being a go-to guy and now coming here in a brand-new situation with a team that’s established success. That can be overwhelming for somebody, and I think he’s approached it the right way.

“He’s asking all the right questions. I can tell he’s hungry to still get better. You never know how guys act when they get paid in this league. It’s one of those things where it could go either way, and I think the look in his eye, just trying to take advantage of this opportunity being with our team … I can see that. And he knows just how well we can work together, me and him specifically, with our playmaking ability, shooting ability, to whoever gets the ball in transition just push, we know the other guy’s running the wing. Defensively, we have to figure out how we balance each other in those matchups, things like that. That will come.”

Russell, though, noticeably plays at a slower pace than the Warriors’ sprint in the recent past and at times this preseason seemed a beat or two behind both Curry and Green as they cut and passed and then waited for Russell to make a move.

“I don’t mind it at all,” Curry said. “I know for a defense, that’s where he’s at his best. You never ask a guy like that to change the way he plays, the way he sees the game. Might as well not play at all. Be yourself, understand how you’re going to get your looks and touches in our patterns as we go on offense. I think there’s been a couple times where he’s turned down a shot because he’s used to, like, either pump-faking, getting in the paint, probing, stuff like that. Those are the ones, I’m like, yo, let that fly and that next possession it’ll come back and you’ll kind of get in your bag and do what you do.

“Nobody’s asking him to change. For us, that chemistry… when he gets into that pocket and he’s using his size to probe and find those passing angles and being able to work around it. I got a back cut in the last preseason game where I knew he was going to sit in the paint a little bit and control the possession, I found an open lane to cut.”

OK, on to another topic: Steph, did you recently say at a tech conference that you were going to retire in six years, after the 2024-25 season?

“That may have been a repercussion of Media Day where I got asked so many ‘you’re the oldest guy on the team’ questions,” Curry said. “So then I started to think, I’m 31, cool. I always wanted to play 16 years, at least, because that’s what my dad played. I’m five years off of that. So now it’s: I want to stay in my prime for five more years at the very least.

“So when I said that it was more around the perspective around some of the stuff I’m doing off the court so I kind of take advantage of this next window of my career, just setting up when I actually do hang ’em up. But it would be hard to see myself just kind of willingly walk away after six years. So, might’ve got the cart before the horse when I said that.”

But there’s definitely some nostalgia creeping into Curry’s mind, mostly when he thinks of all his years at Oracle Arena, helping to raise the Warriors up from nothing to the top and enjoying all the weird little features at that old arena.

The main one: Curry’s famous tunnel shot at the end of his pregame routine, always coming off of a pass from security guard Curtis Jones. There is no closely comparable shot available at Chase Center, at least none discovered so far. Curry has taken one from much farther away and a worse angle a few times, which is the Chase tunnel set up. Jones, though, has been trying to come up with an alternative.

“He talked me through it last game,” Curry said. “He pulled me aside, he’s like, ‘hey, looking at this angle, if you stand over here you don’t have to worry about the shot clock or the wires, I can still throw you the ball.’ I didn’t listen, because … I’ve kinda given up on it. I’m still going to randomly shoot that one just to see if it goes in.

“I’m trying to think of an analogy, like you sell a house, you move and you sell it furnished. And you always think about the old La-Z-Boy you had back at the old place, but you didn’t bring it to the new spot. Like it’s OK, I just have that memory of it there. I’ll test out some new situations. But I’m not married to it. That was for a time and place at Oracle for 10 years and I’ll keep it moving.”

There is a time and a place for everything. The MVPs came when the Warriors needed Curry to win them. And then he took a little bit of a step away from that responsibility. Now he has it back, in a new arena with a mostly new roster, and Curry, as always, will shoot his shot.

— Reported from San Francisco

 

[Sauce Dab]

 

[Anerdyblackguy]

Spoiler

Gus Malzahn loves Galaga. He has a cabinet of the famous arcade gameinside his house. He doesn’t like it when unnamed visitors break his high scores.

When Malzahn watched LSU’s offense earlier this week, he might have been reminded of the 1981 Namco classic — there’s Tigers quarterback Joe Burrow, sitting back and firing missiles all over the place, taking down any and all invading defenders.

“It looks like a video game when you watch them on film,” Malzahn said.

So Malzahn’s video game expertise might be a little dated. But some of his players might see the similarities between what No. 2 LSU is doing on offense and what it looks like when someone plays on Rookie difficulty in Madden.

LSU is averaging 7.9 yards per play this season, good enough for No. 2 in the FBS. It is averaging 50.1 points per game, which also only trails Oklahoma for the top spot.

Yes, this is LSU, the same team that averaged fewer than 5 yards per play and only scored 22 points against Auburn in Jordan-Hare Stadium last season. Auburn players haven’t bothered watching much film from that last encounter.

“It’s crazy, man,” senior safety Jeremiah Dinson said. “They look like a totally different offense.”

Burrow is one of the frontrunners for the Heisman Trophy in LSU’s revamped offense, where former New Orleans Saints assistant coach Joe Brady has meshed new passing concepts with veteran offensive coordinator — and former Auburn assistant — Steve Ensminger’s scheme. Per Sports Info Solutions, Burrow has the best on-target percentage of any quarterback in the country, and the Tigers are seemingly scoring at will with him attacking all areas of the field.

“I mean, you’re talking about a complete guy,” Malzahn said. “He throws the ball vertically down the field. He’s very accurate. He’s very accurate with his intermediate and his quick game, and he can extend plays. … They can call quarterback runs and he can run it, too. He’s a complete quarterback.”

Through seven games this season, drives in which LSU’s offense doesn’t score feel like rarities. The Tigers are averaging more than six touchdowns and around 1.5 made field goals per game. The attack is the main reason why LSU is currently favored by double digits in a matchup of top-10 teams.

“I mean, I love it,” senior safety Daniel Thomas said. “As y’all know, I love being the underdog. It doesn’t surprise me. That’s just another chip on our shoulder.”

This is the task ahead of Auburn’s defense, which is led by former LSU defensive coordinator Kevin Steele. The Tigers rank No. 16 nationally in scoring defense and haven’t given up more than 24 points in a game. Only five teams have scored 30 or more points against Auburn since Steele came to the Plains, and several of those teams benefited from defensive scores.

“It’s a big challenge, I can say that,” senior defensive end Marlon Davidson said. “I’ll take my guys over anybody because I know we put in the work beside each other every day. But, (LSU) is a great football team. That’s a great football team. They’re going to be a test, a big test. A great offense versus a great defense, you never know who’s going to come out on top of that.”

In LSU’s seven games this season, it has had only 20 drives in which it didn’t score with Burrow at quarterback. Here are the lessons Auburn’s defense can learn from those stops.

Sacks change drives, so get to Burrow early
Burrow was sacked eight times on those 20 stops by opposing defenses this season. LSU has only allowed 12 sacks in total, so bringing Burrow down has been fundamental to the most success opponents have had so far this season.

LSU’s offensive line and Auburn’s defensive line will be a matchup to watch Saturday afternoon. LSU came into the season with major question marks along the offensive line, but it has been excellent for most of the season.

According to Football Outsiders, LSU’s offensive line ranks inside the top 20 nationally in line yards, standard down line yards, opportunity rate, power success rate and stuff rate. LSU is also No. 28 nationally at sack rate allowed on passing downs.

That offensive line will go up against an Auburn defensive line that is one of the best in the country at getting after the quarterback. With the likes of Davidson and All-American defensive tackle Derrick Brown, Auburn is pressuring passers at one of the best rates nationally this season.

The difference will be getting Burrow, who is a slippery improviser when protection breaks down, to the ground. Auburn is ranked No. 27 in sacks per game, so there is room to improve at finishing plays behind the line of scrimmage.

Most of the seven sacks in these stop drives came on early downs. LSU hasn’t been afraid to throw early. It leads the nation in first-down passing yards and is fourth in total number of attempts, only trailing traditionally pass-happy programs Washington State, Hawaii and Texas Tech.

But getting the Tigers’ offense behind the chains early is the best bet to slowing it down and getting a stop. LSU’s sack rate on standard — or, in this case, traditionally non-passing — downs ranks No. 73 in the FBS.

As the numbers from this week’s Auburn Film Room showed, the pass rush will be a major emphasis against LSU. Sacks have been a common theme on LSU’s small number of empty drives, so the star-studded Auburn defensive line needs to play up to its potential.

“I feel like if we do what we do and come out there and play fast, physical and tough, I feel like we’ll get the job done,” Davidson said. “Just for us up front, I feel like we’re the best defensive line front in the nation, and I feel like we can do whatever we can if we’re hitting on all cylinders at the right time.”


Marlon Davidson leads Auburn with 5.5 sacks this season. (Roy K. Miller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Steal some possessions by forcing turnovers
This is the most obvious piece of advice, right? Turnovers guarantee zero points for an offense, and five of those 20 non-scoring drives ended with a takeaway.

LSU has only turned the ball over six times this season, with one giveaway coming with backup quarterback Myles Brennan in the game. Burrow has thrown only 3 interceptions to his already school record-breaking 29 touchdowns, as great decision-making has been a calling card of his this season.

Auburn, however, hasn’t been a team that turns opponents over through the air. The Tigers have intercepted two offensive passes this season — remember, one of their picks came on the fake punt from Arkansas last weekend — after snatching 14 a season ago.

“We’ve had some opportunities,” Malzahn said. “Dinson almost had another one (against Arkansas). We’ve just been working on seizing the moment and catching balls extra and everything that goes with it… that number will grow.”

This week would be an ideal time for that to happen. Two of Burrow’s three interceptions came in blowouts wins against overmatched opponents Northwestern State and Utah State. Texas, all the way back in Week 2, was the last Power 5 opponent to pick him off.

Part of the reasoning behind Auburn’s lack of interceptions stems from its coverage style. Auburn runs a lot of press-man coverage and emphasizes playing the man instead of the ball. That is effective in preventing big plays, but it can also cut down on opportunities to intercept.

Given LSU’s elite efficiency this season with Burrow and a loaded group of wide receivers, Auburn might not play as much man coverage Saturday afternoon. A greater use of zone, along with consistent pressure on Burrow, could generate the opportunities the Tigers are looking for in the passing game.

“You’ve got to play sound coverage,” Malzahn said. “That’s the main thing. (Burrow is) very accurate, and his timing with his receivers is really impressive to watch. We just need to try to keep him off-balance and get him uncomfortable.”

On the other hand, Auburn has still been effective in the other way to create turnovers — fumbles. Auburn ranks No. 3 nationally in both forced fumbles and recovered fumbles this season, trailing only Illinois and UAB.

LSU doesn’t put the ball on the ground often, as it is tied for No. 8 nationally with just five fumbles and two lost fumbles this season. The Tigers’ two lost fumbles came against Utah State and Vanderbilt, with the latter coming in the end zone for a Commodores touchdown