I think its semantics, what you consider actual talent. I know its common to call it talent as soon as a hs ranking service rates it as that. Or because of raw physical measurements like speed, jumping ability, etc. that could and should be developed into an actual basketball player. I realize all coaches believe their genius will allow the molding of any lump of appropriate clay into an All-American.
I'm way more simple. A player is talented to me when they are able to produce fairly consistent, succesful, winning results in an SEC basketball game. What I spy with my own eye is next to none of that on the current LV roster.
Maybe we need a new category: talent suppressed by bad coaching.
When I first joined VN I was adamant about firing CHW
started a few threads
I was down on her ritght then because
I saw Diamond practice a couple of times and saw her play several times when I was coaching with the AAU GA Pistols
She had moves she was doing at 14 that she didn't readily do in college
When I saw how inconsistent she was playing I was stunned
When I saw that she wasw not being "addressed" on her way back to the bench after throwing a ghost pass,, dribble off the foot,,or a blatant disregard for whatever was going on, I fumed
That kid played her heart out for us
and she is playing her heart out now in the WNBA
In between, she disappeared
Geno is smart
he doesn't take moves away from his girls
He empowers them to use them
shoot the three,,make it a part of their game....
There was a day when breaking a player back down to nothing was a smart move
Not now
you take what they bring, use what works for them and
hone the skills they "want to use" off-game
I have two standing rules I use for every team
"If you don't practice it, you don't do it"
and
"If you don't do it in practice, you don't do it in a game"
