Fifth year forward/center Andray Blatche will make a surprise appearance with the Washington Wizards Summer League team this week, for at least a game or two. It’s ridiculous pretty rare for a player with as much experience as Blatche to still be playing in Summer League games, but perhaps Blatche believes he needs to learn more about the offensive schemes used by new head coach Flip Saunders. Considering that Blatche has never taken a particular interest in the game he plays for a living, this is either a sign of real progress or evidence that he’s bored out of his skull. [Someone should tell him, though, that Vegas is not the place to go if you're keen to avoid hookers.]
Speaking of Nick Young, he wants to be tougher and meaner next year. Well, Flip Saunders wants him to be. Nick probably just wants to convince Saunders that the two want the same thing.
“Nick is a very happy-go-lucky guy and he smiles a lot. I think as a young player, you don’t always need to smile,” Saunders said. “You’re better off having a little of that nastiness. You never saw Michael Jordan smile. The only time he smiled was when he was kicking your butt.”
Saunders has also been working with Young to help him become more effective shooting off screens and making plays for others. The coach may have more success with that, though, than getting Young to stop grinning.
“It’s been kind of hard. I can’t not have fun,” Young said, sporting a freshly cut mini-Mohawk while flashing a grin, after the Wizards concluded minicamp yesterday. “When I have fun, I smile a lot. He told me, ‘Just go out there in kill mode.’ I’ve been trying it a little bit, but at times, I catch myself smiling and joking. That’s natural for me. But if they want me to change, I have to change a little bit.”
I think getting Nick to drive to the hoop more and at least pretend a bit more on defense are higher priorities than whether or not he smiles, but perhaps Saunders thinks the smiling is evidence of a lack of focus. I have no idea whether it is or not, but Saunders is the coach [and a coach with a good track record] so we’ll go with his gut for now.
We keep hearing about how Nick Young is looking good this summer and has a renewed focus on the game and so on and so forth. My view is that Nick Young is an immensely gifted athlete who is understandably happy to be a millionaire and not too concerned with anything after that. I’m willing to believe that Nick can prove me wrong about that, but prove it he will have to do. I’m not giving him the benefit of the doubt any longer. He hasn’t earned it.
It seems the Wizards have the same attitude; acquiring Randy Foye and Mike Miller can hardly be viewed as a vote of confidence in the man who was drafted two years ago to provide scoring and size at the shooting guard position.
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who are you ? that nick young need to prove himself to nick young is a great basketball who should play and get paid for his talent leave the kid alone stop make him over just let nick young be himself his talent got him to the nba not spence or the writers,or the coach nick young do you