Energy guys

[bladefd]

I think part of the reason has to do with money as well. A lot of players make so much money that they don't work to their fullest or try their hardest when coming off the bench with very limited minutes. Back in the 80's, the average salary was lower than a million (probably less than 200k for a lot of the average bench players). Nowadays, usually the bench players in their contract years provide the most energy off the bench to try and get a bigger contract for the future. As soon as they receive that guaranteed contract, they start taking it easy and getting lazy. I wish the NBA had non-guaranteed contracts like the NFL. In the nba, once a player gets his contract, he WILL get almost all of that money (with buyouts, the player has the upper-hand over the organization with money concerned since the organization cannot FORCE a player to be bought out at whatever amount they want. I believe the player/organization HAVE to agree to a certain amount - not 100% sure though). In the NFL, players HAVE to work their hardest every season and they could be bought out at almost any time during the season (excluding playoffs). If they don't work hard during their whole contract tenure, they are pretty much OUT.

Basically, it does not come down to the money physically but to the mentality of the players concerning money. You guys remembered how good Luke Walton was in his contract year. As soon as he got his money/contract, he stopped shooting well and just stopped playing well. He also looked out of shape at times (could be due to his injuries but who the hell knows?) I cannot blame them though - if you received a GUARANTEED 5 year contract worth around 30 million playing 10 minutes of basketball per game, would you still continue to work to your 100% FULLEST? Psychologically, it slowly makes most people (not all) go lazy not just off the court working out wise but also on the court in those limited playing minutes.. Full effort potential right out the window..

[ZeN]

Originally Posted by lakerfreak

Its the same story with Kwame Brown.

I don't know if you remember how terrible he was when he first arrived, because lakers had signed him to a huge deal and he was expected to play like a young and healthy Jermaine O'Neal.

After stinking it up, Phil told him "look, don't worry about offense because that will come, what you can do to help us, is play defense and get some rebounds". After that happened, Kwame Brown started averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds after the all-star break and we almost upset the phoenix suns because of how well Kwame was playing.

So why did Kwame go back to playing bad after that? Because he was not ready to endure the higher expectations. So once again he went back to trying to score and be Jermaine O'Neal all over again.

The problem is Sasha knows his role is to be a shooter on this team. What he thinks is he has to keep shootin and making everytime he gets the ball. He will have a defender in his grill and still shoot it.

If he relaxes, and lets the open shots come to him, he will be absolutely phenomenal like in his contract year.

Great post.. and I do agree that expectancy is a big factor..

Because during the playoffs I remember Phil saying that Sasha would be offensively very agreesive because he knows that shooting is what he is expected to do.. So maybe he is placing too much undue pressure on himself and in a sence sabotaging himself..

I hope he refocuses this offseason.. because he has shown an ability to be effective.

[daily]

Great responses. good stuff