Vince Carter body slammed Sam Mitchell?

[Soft Euro]

You talk like you've spend too much time arguing in the comment-section on the front page.

[p00ka]

Whoa. That's a bridge too far. NCAA players play a lot less games a year. Coming out the Euroleague you are a professional, have more than 1 2hr practice a day. You play in three leagues, and if you are good enough to get drafted you are also part of your country's national system. You can't compare the development of an amateur with a professional in a legit league. Well you can, but it's a non-starter. Unless the kid played for Texas Tech they are protected from abuse, have responsibilities like classes, etc.

On average NCAA kids appear to develop into better players, however, professionals should be further along on average in their development than amateurs when they first start. At least that's what logic would dictate. If we look at soccer for instance, North American kids who play their youth soccer in Europe tend to become better professionals than kids who go through the NCAA, and then MLS into Europe. Why? Because the kids who go over early are immersed in a professional environment.

As far as the language thing. Someone like Bargs was probably spotted as a potential NBA player when he was 14, or 15 -- look at Canada's Wiggins for example, hell look at Big Val! So he's playing pro ball on a team with English speaking teammates, knows he has to learn English at a decent age, and if he's not confident in his English he can pull out of the draft, or stay in Europe until he's ready.

Finally, he's from Europe. If you've lived, visited, have friends from there you already know this but its worth stating: You can travel to other countries for cheap, and neighboring countries can be vastly different from one another. The idea of culture shock, because he hasn't seen different cultures than his own...I can't buy it. Kid is doing okay financially, it's not like he couldn't have flown family over if this was an issue, and trust me if he needed some home cooking half of this board could find an Italian family to fill his belly. Toronto isn't Milwaukee, if you're home sick you can find people from your background.

It's not like rims are lower in Europe or something. And even if I accepted your excuses the fact remains that the primary thing that stunted Bargs' development was him playing the 5. He's officially been a 4 for what, 2 seasons? And dude is about to go beast on people (I'm not his biggest fan and even I see it coming -- barring injuries).

My excuses? I didn't make any, so don't know what you speak of accepting or not. I was responding to you're over-simplification of the adjustments that a young Euro has to make in coming to the NBA. You spoke only of language and travel. Language, as I pointed out is far less of a problem for the American kids, and their travel isn't that much less than Andrea was doing in Europe. His total pro games his last two seasons were 46 & 47, 10 more than most college kids, but a far cry from the 82 in the NBA, traveling far greater distances.

Of course their are other factors, which have been argued ad nauseum, but I have no desire to battle 6 year old naive arguments that include such things as implying that there's as much culture shock from his Italian home, while playing 20 games in Spain/Greece/France, as there is being across the pond permanently and playing 82 games in North America. To suggest that some Italian home cooking could have taken care of cultural shock is damn laughable though. Thanks for the chuckle.

[Sheptor]

Vince was long gone by the time Andrea was drafted.....

I'm referring to Mitchell here.

[Raptorfanatic]

Great thread......didn't know about Carter-Mitchell confrontation. I wonder if Rose had some insight (not publicly known )about circumstances that led to Raptors dumping Vince.

[white men can't jump]

Now Imagine this fool in the locker room with a young passive 20 year old european still grasping english who doesn't rebound...oh and is 7 feet. No wonder Andrea was stagnant his first two seasons. Was probably afraid to get a choke slam through a medics table, or a chair to the back at practice.

Mitchell had a huge ego, he was a former player who acted as if he was hall of fame material in his day and always seemed to have this " I know something you don't know" demeanor about basketball.

Vince was long gone by the time Andrea was drafted.....

[blackjitsu]

Well, I tried. It's mad slow right now.

[Sheptor]

Whoa. That's a bridge too far. NCAA players play a lot less games a year. Coming out the Euroleague you are a professional, have more than 1 2hr practice a day. You play in three leagues, and if you are good enough to get drafted you are also part of your country's national system. You can't compare the development of an amateur with a professional in a legit league. Well you can, but it's a non-starter. Unless the kid played for Texas Tech they are protected from abuse, have responsibilities like classes, etc.

On average NCAA kids appear to develop into better players, however, professionals should be further along on average in their development than amateurs when they first start. At least that's what logic would dictate. If we look at soccer for instance, North American kids who play their youth soccer in Europe tend to become better professionals than kids who go through the NCAA, and then MLS into Europe. Why? Because the kids who go over early are immersed in a professional environment.

As far as the language thing. Someone like Bargs was probably spotted as a potential NBA player when he was 14, or 15 -- look at Canada's Wiggins for example, hell look at Big Val! So he's playing pro ball on a team with English speaking teammates, knows he has to learn English at a decent age, and if he's not confident in his English he can pull out of the draft, or stay in Europe until he's ready.

Finally, he's from Europe. If you've lived, visited, have friends from there you already know this but its worth stating: You can travel to other countries for cheap, and neighboring countries can be vastly different from one another. The idea of culture shock, because he hasn't seen different cultures than his own...I can't buy it. Kid is doing okay financially, it's not like he couldn't have flown family over if this was an issue, and trust me if he needed some home cooking half of this board could find an Italian family to fill his belly. Toronto isn't Milwaukee, if you're home sick you can find people from your background.

It's not like rims are lower in Europe or something. And even if I accepted your excuses the fact remains that the primary thing that stunted Bargs' development was him playing the 5. He's officially been a 4 for what, 2 seasons? And dude is about to go beast on people (I'm not his biggest fan and even I see it coming -- barring injuries).

NA kids who play in Europe develop into better soccer players because the competition and coaching are far superior to that of the NCAA. The best kids would all choose to play for a club team in europe over Syracuse for soccer. Not a good argument but overall a great rebuttal.

[blackjitsu]

yeah, damn sports mentality! Makes ya wonder about the excuses for American rookies. They're already used to travel in the NCAA, have been speaking the language of choice all their lives, and yet so few do their job well when they come into the league. I don't understand why they're given so much time to get up to speed when they have no adjustments to make.

Whoa. That's a bridge too far. NCAA players play a lot less games a year. Coming out the Euroleague you are a professional, have more than 1 2hr practice a day. You play in three leagues, and if you are good enough to get drafted you are also part of your country's national system. You can't compare the development of an amateur with a professional in a legit league. Well you can, but it's a non-starter. Unless the kid played for Texas Tech they are protected from abuse, have responsibilities like classes, etc.

On average NCAA kids appear to develop into better players, however, professionals should be further along on average in their development than amateurs when they first start. At least that's what logic would dictate. If we look at soccer for instance, North American kids who play their youth soccer in Europe tend to become better professionals than kids who go through the NCAA, and then MLS into Europe. Why? Because the kids who go over early are immersed in a professional environment.

As far as the language thing. Someone like Bargs was probably spotted as a potential NBA player when he was 14, or 15 -- look at Canada's Wiggins for example, hell look at Big Val! So he's playing pro ball on a team with English speaking teammates, knows he has to learn English at a decent age, and if he's not confident in his English he can pull out of the draft, or stay in Europe until he's ready.

Finally, he's from Europe. If you've lived, visited, have friends from there you already know this but its worth stating: You can travel to other countries for cheap, and neighboring countries can be vastly different from one another. The idea of culture shock, because he hasn't seen different cultures than his own...I can't buy it. Kid is doing okay financially, it's not like he couldn't have flown family over if this was an issue, and trust me if he needed some home cooking half of this board could find an Italian family to fill his belly. Toronto isn't Milwaukee, if you're home sick you can find people from your background.

It's not like rims are lower in Europe or something. And even if I accepted your excuses the fact remains that the primary thing that stunted Bargs' development was him playing the 5. He's officially been a 4 for what, 2 seasons? And dude is about to go beast on people (I'm not his biggest fan and even I see it coming -- barring injuries).

[Sig]

This was awesome

[Puffer]

yeah, damn sports mentality! Makes ya wonder about the excuses for American rookies. They're already used to travel in the NCAA, have been speaking the language of choice all their lives, and yet so few do their job well when they come into the league. I don't understand why they're given so much time to get up to speed when they have no adjustments to make.

Ha Ha Ha. Love it.

[p00ka]

I guess we'll have to wait till Vince, or Bosh retire to find out who's right. Or maybe Rose will talk about whether Smitch was a big ego guy. He definitely wasn't a BCo guy. Clearly Triano couldn't have done what he did. However, none of this stops me from believing that technically Smitch was a flawed coach, just not a supporter of the ego thing.

I swear sports must be the only place where you are given reprieve for being an immigrant. If you come over here via a foreign workers permit I suspect no one will accept the idea that since you're from a different country you have an excuse to not do your job well. Bargs played in the Euroleague, he was used to travel, having teammates who spoke different languages, etc., If he was coming out of the Chinese pro league, or a South American pro league I would accept that premise, but playing in the Euroleague -- different story.

yeah, damn sports mentality! Makes ya wonder about the excuses for American rookies. They're already used to travel in the NCAA, have been speaking the language of choice all their lives, and yet so few do their job well when they come into the league. I don't understand why they're given so much time to get up to speed when they have no adjustments to make.

[Nilanka]

If Smich was or is such a good coach - then why doesn't he have a job other than as an NBATV Analyst - KEVIN O'NEIL is a head coach in college

Does Smitch even want to coach? After all, Phil Jackson is unemployed too (by choice).

[Hotshot]

Why is this even a question did it happen?! of course it happened.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1989670

I really wanted to know what he said to Rafer.

[MyTEAM4Life]

If Smich was or is such a good coach - then why doesn't he have a job other than as an NBATV Analyst - KEVIN O'NEIL is a head coach in college

[mcHAPPY]

I guess we'll have to wait till Vince, or Bosh retire to find out who's right. Or maybe Rose will talk about whether Smitch was a big ego guy. He definitely wasn't a BCo guy. Clearly Triano couldn't have done what he did. However, none of this stops me from believing that technically Smitch was a flawed coach, just not a supporter of the ego thing.

I swear sports must be the only place where you are given reprieve for being an immigrant. If you come over here via a foreign workers permit I suspect no one will accept the idea that since you're from a different country you have an excuse to not do your job well. Bargs played in the Euroleague, he was used to travel, having teammates who spoke different languages, etc., If he was coming out of the Chinese pro league, or a South American pro league I would accept that premise, but playing in the Euroleague -- different story.

+1

I think that is why he has yet to be rumoured as a finalist for any head coaching gig and why he only lasted 1 year with Avery Johnson in NJ.... pure speculation and opinion on my part it should be noted.