Somehow I get the feeling that if Ed Tapscott had a suggestion box it would be full of little pieces of paper that say "PLAY MCGEE!" Well, Tap has read the suggestions from hypothetical suggestion box and he has this to say:
"You can throw a guy in and you can end up hurting his development by doing that. If you put him in and he's overwhelmed, he's not able to play the game that builds confidence. The other thing, too, is that you want to establish a certain culture within your team where you reward work ethic, approach and all those things too. You don't give things to people, people earn them. They earn them through solid play and making contributions. Otherwise, you can destroy the fabric of your team. You don't do that for any one player ever."
A few scattered thoughts on that quote:
- I'm tempted to throw out the double standard card when it comes to talking about JaVale not getting time when he makes mistakes while more experience players can make similar mistakes and continue to get heavy minutes. But then I remind myself that at this point the veterans are who they are at this point. Benching them for their mistakes won't help them correct their problems. JaVale can still learn from his mistakes and sometimes that means learning from the pine.
- At 9-34, I'd argure that the fabric of the team is already irrevocably torn so there's no real point in worrying about tearing that fabric anymore than it's already been torn.
- Ed talks about rewarding players with "work ethic, approach, and all of those things." Certainily, you want to reward those traits on a basketball team, but we've never heard any indictments on JaVale's work ethic. In fact, Tap said that McGee was working hard just a few paragraphs before that quote. He has legitimate points about JaVale still needing to get better things other than running and dunking, but I can't help but get the feeling that JaVale is getting mixed signals when they talk about rewarding a strong work ethic and JaVale not getting the PT to go along with it.
- Can anyone think of a player whose development was stunted by playing too many minutes when they were young? That's not a rhetorical question, I'm honestly trying to think of someone who's been hurt by playing too many minutes when they weren't ready. The fear of rewarding bad habits and stunting growth seems legitimate, I just can't seem to think of an example of that happening. Can someone help me out on this?
- Like most of you, I'm not a big fan of how JaVale's minutes in the Tapscott regime. But let's not forget that since he's come on board the Wizards are 8-24. That doesn't seem like a lot at first, but that is a better record that Eddie Jordan had with the team this year and in all honesty, probably isn't far off the record that the team should have given their current talent level. He's not the second coming of Phil Jackson, but he has helped improve the team in some areas. Let's not forget about that.