Doc has to figure out how to win championships and develop a player or two at the same time. Even if the team is loaded at that position. If I were grading, I'd give Doc a F when it comes to this. On the flip side, Phil Jackson is the king at this. He'd get an A.
If Doc can only either develop young guys or work to win a title, I hope he works towards winning the title.
But didn't Rondo, Perk, Davis, and Powe all improve the year the Celtics won a title?
Yup, all of those guys were developed perfectly by Doc IMO.
I also think Doc did a great job with Ryan Gomes and Al Jefferson. He balanced giving them opportunities, and not throwing them out there when they weren't ready, and they both became very good NBA players.
I think people need to realize that most NBA players take some time to develop, and it is not always the best thing for them (let alone the team) to just throw them into the fire when they aren't ready. Doc has done a good job of waiting until guys are READY before throwing them in there, and he has had a lot of success that way.
With Walker, I think he was simply a victim of bad timing, and a faulty knee (which, BTW, I believe is why Danny will not be kicking himself for this trade). Walker was clearly not ready last season. They gave him some minutes, but he still looked lost, and simply had not developed the perimeter skills needed to be a rotation player. This year, I think they were ready to give him a shot at a bigger role...possibly even taking some minutes from Tony Allen, who was pretty bad last year.
Unfortunately, Walker hurt his knee (again) on the first day (I believe) of camp, and missed a couple months. This set him way behind. If he hadn't been injured, he likely would have been playing a bunch of minutes, as Tony Allen was out, and then when he came back, Daniels was out. Since they were much higher on Walker than Giddens, he would have gotten a chance...but he was hurt. Then, even when he did came back, he was clearly out of shape (in fact, he still looks a good 10-15 pounds too heavy), and had missed 2 months of practices...which are incredibly important for young players. But he worked his way back, moved past Giddens again, but by the time he got his legs back under him, and had gotten caught up, Daniels was coming back, and Tony Allen was in the middle of his best stretch of basketball since 2006.
Needless to say, he went right back to the end of the bench.
It's not Doc's fault that Walker got hurt at the worst possible time. This is how it works for young, end of the bench guys. They are not forcefed minutes, because they just are not good enough for that. What they need to do is take advantage of the minutes that are given to them when the opportunity arises, and force the coach to keep them in the rotation. Walker never did that (neither did Giddens). That is not the player (and his knees).
Topic: We have not developed value in Walker and Giddens. (Read 29321 times)