i dont blame west one bit for being upset. he was right when he said he was not welcomed with open arms. no press conference for him or wally and honestly i think he has had his fair shot. for a player averaging about 16 pnts a game, 6 assists & 4 or so rebounds a game (in the 2nd half of last season) you would think pj would have given him more of a shot. instead he benches him and kills his confidence. i really believe if he was just given a chance he would have fit in just fine.

PJ Carlesimo is just unrealistic with his combinations that really does not work and will never work. He has his starting five which already was a slow start and Utah aleady gain the momentum in the first quarter and the second quarter the second group of Durant, Petro, Collison, Wilkins or Green with Watson gathered momentum and were down only by two in the first half. The problem repeated itself in the third quarter with the same group plus Ridnour who was always shooting and fouling that it made the Sonics sink farther away from the Jazz.

The Sonics group that are clicking in the second quarter should be the ones to start the second half because they had more energy and should be rewarded for job well done. Ridnour, Watson, Szczerbiak, Thomas and Wilcox were never in the game. They looked slow and disinterested to play and the ones who were playing spirited game were Durant, Petro, Collison and Wilkins.

The Sonics coach should once in awhile look for stat sheet to see who are clicking and who are not, if he still does not see within the game what is wrong with his players. Only good coaches recognize right away the problem with the game and make adjustments and bad coaches loose games because they cannot see what is going wrong!!!

Boozer is the player who got a triple double on the Sonics and this the kind of player that gets rewarded by wise teams. He also gets very good guidance from coach Jerry Sloan who always preaches and teaches to share the ball, no cheating on defense and score only if the ball moves around and all players touches the ball. This is the way the Sonics point guards should and always play or he is seated. What is the point of having a point guard shoot the ball always and leaves his other teammates get rebounds and pass him the ball. The game becomes dull that the big guys get disinterested in the game and perform below normal. Only games that everyone touches the ball and with good ball distribution will get everybody hype up for the game!

No cheating in defense by the bigs by helping the guards run after their man outside the paint, crowd the paint by the bigs, no jumpers if the percentage is low (coaches need to check the stat sheets for this and call a timeout to bark his instructions), move around and not stay standing without any defense, contest the layups and jumpers going straight up so as not be called a foul and distribute the ball by the guards. If the ball touches everybody, the game becomes interesting and not dull and shoot only if they are open, pass the ball quickly for the bigs to create their own shots!

pj is a joke!!! we need to trade him for a set of new tires on the team bus!!!!!! i'm sick and tired of watching that guy try and coach. next game I go to I am going to bring a sign that reads "hey PJ try and come yell at me" the man needs to get lost. all that yelling does not work on grown men. maybe it did in collage but not here. dont even get me started on his rotation's i'm done typing this is making me sick.

1 last thing, I was told that getting PJ as coach would help with the d-fence. last time I checked this team could not play D if there lives depended on it. the man is a JOKE! time to move on.

Hey, nwillia, can I come yell at you? It sounds like fun.

When Orlando Magic General Manager Otis Smith hired Stan Van Gundy to coach the Magic, he liked the fact Van Gundy demanded accountability from his players — be they the best player or the 15th man.

So Smith said he had no problems with Van Gundy publicly calling out all-star center Dwight Howard after Monday night's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Van Gundy said Howard was paying too much attention to offense and not enough to defense and rebounding.

"I don't think the stats lie," Smith said. "When Dwight's dominating defensively, we're a better team. (Van Gundy) probably could have called out three or four other guys. I'm a Stan fan. I don't think Stan did anything wrong."

Source: Orlando Sentinel

It's what is missing for the Sonics players and coaches!!!

Rookies become successful through the guidance of excellent coaches and become failures not through themselves, but coaches who were not the right mentors for their young talents. Skills can be attained by teaching players how to react on different situations and atmosphere. If situations are going against tall teams, the coach will know how to tell his player what to compensate to overcome the hurdle and if it is a defensive team, the coach will again mention the right way to overcome the situation.

Being in a winning team extracts so many element about basketball that the coach has to have the instinct before the game is played, by putting in the right combination of players. True there must be a starting five, but if that five has not been doing good against certain rivals, he alone has to adjust or be resigned to loose the game. The players can only do so much, but at the end of the day, the coach is the one to answer for that defeat and the buck stops there! Play no favorites!!!

Thanks for the great locker room insight, that scene is very telling indeed. West has no confidence right now and it shows in his flat shot. The guy impressed me more than any other player at the public practice in pre-season. i think he will flourish for some team, but can't break through for the supes. it's hard when you're not getting any minutes.