Why's it so Hard for Big Men to Develop an Offensive Game

[PortCityProphet]

Also, injuries are killing the big men right now, how were Hakeem, Shaq, Ewing and Robinson relatively healthy, yet guys today with better treatment are just dropping like flies? Yao (understandable), Oden and now Bynum, that's 3 out of the top 5 just gone.

Also, in my opinion Oden would have been the best center in the league if he could have just stayed healthy. If you watched him play he tried to do everything with his back to the basket, and based his entire game off the jump hook with either hand, plus he was physical as shyt and was taller/heavier than Dwight with similar athleticism (Pre-microfracture).

it's gotta be the way these guys working out. either that or the shoes. but i doubt the old shoes would be better than new ones

 

[The War Report]

These dudes coming up want to play like KG, Dirk, Kevin Durant, and all these other versatile bigs. If you're a big and you don't have a post up game, you better get your Anderson Varejao on and do the dirty work.

 

[Hahahaha]

Because teams base their entire offense on running pick and rolls.

 

[Offthegrid]

do tell

Bassett, Ellis, Thomas, Holman all leaving Hoosier program
Updated: May 3, 2008, 1:03 AM ET
By Andy Katz | ESPN.com
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New Indiana coach Tom Crean is down to three returning scholarship players and eight players in all for next season after the university announced the departures of four Hoosiers on Friday.

Sophomore Armon Bassett and junior Jamarcus Ellis, who had appealed their suspensions by former interim coach Dan Dakich, were dismissed from the program. Junior forward DeAndre Thomas will also not return and neither will freshman Eli Holman, who has elected to transfer after a meeting Thursday that required a call to campus police when Holman became agitated.

The Hoosiers finished 25-7 (14-4 in the Big Ten) and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament to Arkansas under Dakich. He replaced Kelvin Sampson after Sampson resigned in late February, a week after receiving a notice of allegations from the NCAA.

Sampson reportedly will join the staff of Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles for next season.
Indiana lost freshman Eric Gordon to the NBA draft when he declared and signed with an agent and seniors D.J. White and Lance Stemler had exhausted their eligibility.

That leaves the Hoosiers with three returning players: rising sophomores Jordan Crawford, Brandon McGee and rising senior Kyle Taber. The Hoosiers will add five newcomers -- freshmen Nick Williams (a one-time Marquette signee), Tom Pritchard, Matt Roth and JC transfer Devon Dumes -- as well as recruited walk-on Daniel Moore of Carmel, Ind.

Bassett and Ellis appealed their suspensions and, after Crean spent time with the pair, there was still not enough support to reinstate them. Thomas was deemed not a good fit.

"Before you build a team, you need to develop a family," Crean said in a statement Friday. "We will go through the learning process, feel some growing pains and experience some bumps in the road along the way. We need the Hoosier Nation to rally around this program as we go through these stages."

Meanwhile, Holman's outburst Thursday upon telling Crean that he was leaving is considered closed. According to an Indiana source, Holman became agitated once Crean told Holman of the process for transferring. The source said Holman was yelling and stormed out of Crean's office. He picked up a plant on a nearby desk and tossed it.
Because he was yelling and angered, campus police were called. Statements were taken but no charges were filed. The incident will be sent to the Dean of Students and could hamper Holman's attempts to transfer.

"Last night and this morning I had the opportunity to apologize to Coach Crean and today I would like to extend that to everyone involved in the program for allowing my frustrations to get the best of me," Holman said in a statement issued by the university Friday. "I appreciate everything Indiana University and coach Crean have done for me and I hope nothing but the best for the program in the future."

The Hoosiers will lose five of their top six scorers from last season, with Crawford the top returning scorer at 9.7 points per game. Taber, McGee and Pritchard will be the only forwards unless more players are added in the coming weeks. The spring signing period is ongoing.

"Our staff is going to ensure that anyone who attends this University and wears the Indiana uniform will make this privilege among their highest priorities and not treat the opportunity as an entitlement,'' Crean said. "We fully expect our student-athletes to accept the responsibilities academically, athletically and socially that come with representing one of the top programs in college basketball history."

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

dat iu program was bout to takeoff too but we already knew eric gordon was 1 and done even if him drose was both goin to uofi because that was the whole plan but eric fakkit gordon i aint like being around or playin with homie i knew he wasnt a city nikka like us, but basically word got out dat coach samson was giving players money n gifts in was investigated then they asked eric gordon whats goin on in the locker room he basically dry snitched and said its players on the team smoking and they gave players drug tests and you kno wat happen after dat. coach resigned eric already got an agent so he was like fuk iu n da teammates, and my two bros jamarcus ellis and deandre thomas got kicked off smh. they would of been nice because they already had a core n great recruiting class coming in. but 5 yrs later they are the #1 team in da nation shyt is crazy

 

[Malta]

yeah, Oden was going to be the next great American big man.

His offensive game still needed some work, but he did play with his back to the basket and had the coordination, and he would have been as good if not better than Dwight defensively. shyt, he was already better on the ball than Dwight.

His offensive game needed work, but the signs were there, especially considering how young he was at the time. There was no turn and face the rim from him, it was straight up "Im gonna back you down and shoot this here jump hook". It's a shame, cause he really was poised to be the best big guy in the league, he was coordinated but you could see something was off by the way he ran and landed.

it's gotta be the way these guys working out. either that or the shoes. but i doubt the old shoes would be better than new ones

They might be playing too much with the AAU circuit, that's really all I can come up with.

 

[froggle]

Also you have to look at how the NBA is promoted. The offensive players such as the guards and small forwards, everybody wants to be them. Look at Dirk, 7 ft swishing threes and playing like a perimeter player. When your playing as youngin and you big as hell, they'll run you off the court if you doing them back to the basket moves like your shaq daddy No flash, no glory.

Its pretty pathetic that these big men dont work on their game, because it is straight feast status if done properly. I liking how Jordan is developing, pulling all these nice moves

 

[Cladyclad]

Not really, Yao scored 25 a game against the zone, a skilled big guy can destroy the zone.

Yao was very skilled and was the exception. I watched alot of Yao and the zone bothered him alot at times. Thats why some games he would have fewer than 10 shots some games. Teams would pack the paint. Makin it hard to get a entry pass to Yao. Yao would get so many to's off that one defender that would be illegal cheating off his many stripping Yao or forcing him into a bad pass. Im not saying that the Zone is the sole reason but it is part of the reason.

 

[Offthegrid]

alot of the big guys dont workout or work on their game because coaches only use em to rebound and a defensive presence. most of em never played organize ball till senior of hs or college. But the ones who be phenoms in grade school till college just dont pan out in the nba alot of em try to play like dirk kg durant amare etc. they just wanna dribble run a fast break and shoot 3s. i wasnt having dat shyt when i had a 6'9 n up big man. javale mcgee use to play aau with me i use to cus his ass out because dis nikka would grab da rebound n run a one man fast break im like "u goffy ass nikka outlet me da ball n get yo big ass on da block o i got u for a lob" da coach wouldnt say shyt wen he pull dat retarded shyt atleast 5 times a game da retarded shyt u see javel do that he clowns for on nba tv/tnt is the same bone head shyt he use to do when we played in hs, the coaches aint teaching these big guys no more

 

[AlbertPullhoez]

Its not hard they just dont want to. They rather be perimeter players instead of taking their asses to the post

 

[mastermind]

Also you have to look at how the NBA is promoted. The offensive players such as the guards and small forwards, everybody wants to be them. Look at Dirk, 7 ft swishing threes and playing like a perimeter player. When your playing as youngin and you big as hell, they'll run you off the court if you doing them back to the basket moves like your shaq daddy No flash, no glory.

Its pretty pathetic that these big men dont work on their game, because it is straight feast status if done properly. I liking how Jordan is developing, pulling all these nice moves

a generation of big men were lost because of him

Yao was very skilled and was the exception. I watched alot of Yao and the zone bothered him alot at times. Thats why some games he would have fewer than 10 shots some games. Teams would pack the paint. Makin it hard to get a entry pass to Yao. Yao would get so many to's off that one defender that would be illegal cheating off his many stripping Yao or forcing him into a bad pass. Im not saying that the Zone is the sole reason but it is part of the reason.

the problem is not zone defense.

Zone defense has been around forever. Its about how young big men are learning the game, or not learning the game.

 

[#1 pick]

A lot of guys I played with had skill but in the NBA, you need size, length, athletic ability, and height.

 

[threattonature]

a generation of big men were lost because of him

the problem is not zone defense.

Zone defense has been around forever. Its about how young big men are learning the game, or not learning the game.

I don't necessarily blame Magic though since most of these big men and trying to be ball handlers or nothing like that. Plus most of this new generation wasn't old enough to watch Magic.

I blame Garnett and Webber more than Magic. Webber says watching Barkley was what made him handle the ball more and run the floor.

 

[PTBG]

Jonas "Da Euro Gawd" Valenciunas about to bring the center position back. No joke, during that Spurs-Raptors game, Jonas was going head to head evenly with Duncan. He was taking Duncan with some really nice post moves and a nice face up game as well.

 

[NYC Rebel]

Nah, that's too easy of an excuse, cause Shaq, Wilt, Duncan, Hakeem, Robinson, Kareem were the biggest guys on the court growing up and they all developed offensive games. It comes down to who you look up to, you from the Chi, that kid Jahlil Okafor says his favorite player is Duncan but he looks up to Shaq and Dream as well -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d7uK08-jyU

Biggest kid on the court, yet still has more moves than a lot of guys in the NBA.

This is the biggest issue. Especially when you look at the Jordan years and NBC was the "all MJ, All the Time" network. Young potential centers grew up seeing niqqas flourish at the wing position.....for as great as Hakeem was, why wasn't he put in the same spotlight given to MJ?

I can say as a football player wanting to play RB, I could look at the many styles playing the position. For someone wanting to be a potential center coming up, they didn't get to see it enough.

 

[CoCKy GeNiuS]

alot of these dudes simply don't have the patience to learn the game so that they can play at thier highest capabilities.......

which is why most of these cats u see potential in never take off..