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Saturday, May 8, 2010
As I watched Goran Dragic drop 26 points on the Spurs last night with 23 of them coming in the 4th quarter, it made me depressed and it reminded me of the Mavs Rodrigue Beaubois.
Here is a young guy in Dragic, who also like Roddy B, is from overseas and is just getting his NBA career underway. Dragic played a few seasons professionally in Europe, but is only 24 and in his second year in the league after being drafted by the Spurs in 2008. Rodrigue Beaubois just finished up his rookie season where he showed a lot of potential, but there is one big difference between these two players…Dragic was given the chance to succeed.
Goran Dragic appeared in 80 games this season for the Suns. Rodrigue Beaubois appeared in 56 games for the Mavs and in a lot of them, the minutes were meaningless. The Suns have been preparing Dragic all season long and it paid off for them in game three against the Suns. The Mavs ignored Roddy B on many occasions and thought Jason Terry or J.J. Barea would be a better fit.
The other issue I have is that Suns Coach Alvin Gentry was smart enough to realize who had the hot hand and stuck with it. Dragic was on fire in the 4th quarter and instead of bringing Steve Nash back in the game, he stayed with Dragic and it paid off for him. On the other side of that coin is Mavs Coach Rick Carlisle, who in game six against the Spurs had a hot Roddy B who scored 16 points in 21 minutes. That apparently wasn’t good enough because Rick Carlisle decided to bring Jason Terry back into the game for a majority of the 4th quarter and the Mavericks ended up losing the game and ending their season.
It is amazing what happens when a coach shows faith in a player and puts him in situations to succeed. I think a lot of coaches tend to use their veteran players as crutches and leaning on them too much can end up becoming a bad thing. This was an example of two different coaching philosophies from two different coaches and one is sitting at home while the other looks to be advancing to the Western Conference Finals.
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