If players don't get better after they're drafted, they don't usually amount to much... they're the Archie Goodwins of the basketball world, they drift down to a level of game where they can succeed. Hornacek tried to do Goodwin a favor by making him an offensive pariah - no one threw him the ball, he had to grab a rebound if he wanted to handle it. So it was defend, defend, defend. He defended okay but he didn't get the underlying message and embrace the role. Horny did him a disservice in another way, he did not demand that Archie bust his butt learning to shoot mid-range and in shots that weren't at the rim - at least one of pull up jumper, runner, floater, jump hook or whatever, so he didn't have to go crashing toward the rim when it was defended. Send him down to the D-league with instructions to the coach that he had to shoot one of those shots on half his drives or he sat. Of course, Archie could have ignored that message, too. Archie was supposedly a gym rat but practice does little good without a coach or an internal voice that makes you practice what you need to learn, not what's fun.
Since I'm old, it's my duty to pass on what I've learned. There is a level below that - when you don't even have the muscle strength and flexibility to do basic things right. An exercise guru told me last week that if you don't keep an exercise/stretching journal, you'll get nowhere. Years of experience confirms that. I bought the spiral notebook today and tomorrow I start logging... or maybe I'll wait until June 1st to start with a fresh month...
