But he can go a month where he hits over 40% from 3s and has 20 footer down like its a dunk.

Everyone does that.
I think Jackson’s problem is that he just takes too many well contested 3s.

I know statistics will say ‘thats a bad shooter’ and to a degree it is. but there is a difference between streaky player and say… Biedrins who for the life of him could shoot 3’s all day and really would just make 1%.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen anybody crunch the numbers, but last time I saw someone check it “streaks” in the NBA came very close to fitting a Poisson distribution.

That can make a player LOOK streaky. Biedrins is simply a bad 3-pt shooter – so of course he’s rarely going to make any. But a player with a merely marginally bad 3-pt-shot, like Jackson, is naturaly going to have streaks of a few in a row where it looks like he’s “hot”.

eg, if you flip 10 coins, you don’t expect to see HTHTHTHTHT.
Rather, more likely is something like HHTHTTTHHT. And if you do it a bunch of times, you’ll frequently see stuff like TTTHTHTTTH or THHTHHHTTH. That doesn’t mean it’s a streaky coin – it’s just obeying the laws of probability.

Humans are really, really bad as identifying random. We have a very strong tendency to give meaning to patterns which occur by true randomization.

This is one of the advantages of the MSM – when they summarize an interview, they’re putting their own credibility on the line to back up that they’re capturing to true essence of what was said. And that’s why they have editors, etc.

There’s an art to that. From what we can tell thanks to our Latvian-speaking friend, it sounds a LOT like ww.net failed when it came to practicing that art.

There’s a lot of context-reading you have to do with any interview. There is a WORLD of difference between a player saying, “I love playing for Nellie,” when the question is, “How do you feel about playing for Nellie?” compared to when the question is, “What’s your favorite thing about playing in the NBA?” (the former is a default PR-ready answer that even a player who dislikes Nellie will give. The latter is revealing what’s genuinely on his mind.)

In this case, given that we don’t have the questions, that the translation is murky, and the transcript has been edited we should take everything with a very careful grain of salt. It should be viewed as evidence which is evaluated in concert with other evidence, rather than taken as the be-all end-all.

For example, the retired-at-30 comment. Was the question, “In light of your recent experience with injury, do you still see yourself playing after age 30?” or was it, “What are your goals as an NBA player?”

Big difference in how you read his answer, right? If you ask a player about his NBA goals, and he talks about retiring, that tells you A LOT about his mindset. If you ask a player about retiring … really changes things, no?

This is part of what’s so frustrating about the anti-Biedrins crown. They seem very anxious to put a lot of weight on anything negative that might be said about Biedrins, and will ignore context (or its absence) or other evidence – like that he’s clearly a hard working player who hustles on the court.

Plus he’s European. It would shock me to see him without a cigarette.

I am overreacting, but it scares me when our starting center, our only true big man of the position voices his disappointment with the franchise so bluntly, just before a positive reconstruction of this proportion. It’s just sort of a bad time to do this. I would have liked to of heard these things directly after Nelson was blasting him in the local newspapers. Perhaps it would have brought more momentum to the notion sooner rather than later, that Nelson is no longer helpful to this organization.

 While I appreciate the honesty, I’m aware that he’s a player that the franchise has largely committed to fiscally, and last year he looked very bad before the eyes of many NBA teams. Dismissing any moral imperatives, whether or not he should have been in gear for those games is a bit irrelevant. Of course he’s entitled to be angry, but I was hoping the obvious change in direction the team is taking would dispel some of these dire emotions, brought on by particularly one man in Don Nelson.

I know Biedrins is a character guy, I’ve always loved his game, and next to a low post scorer, and used properly, I think he can be one of the best centers in the NBA. I think to brush this off as nothing as of now, with Nelson still the official coach, is a bit negligent and maybe even a bit foolish. Biedrins is an immense part of the team. In other words, if Lacob keeps Nelson around, I think Biedrins will have a problem with that. I cringe to think of Nelson playing Lee at the 5, and giving Wright 35 minutes a night, throwing Biedrins under the bus. If it gets to the point where Andris doesn’t feel like he has to take that kind of disrespectful crap from Nelson and mentions something to media about a trade request, we have a problem.

Completely relying on the possibility that he will have a break out season and that we could get equal value for him if such a demand were made, is not sure handed enough to allow me to catch proper Z’s over this thing. I hope he comes in with and open mind and makes a close friend of David Lee in training camp. I hope Monta gets traded. I hope Nelson disappears. I hope Zarko comes in as our 15th man. I hope Lacob sits down and serenades Biedrins and reads him love sonnets. I hope Curry quickly develops a trust in Biedrins’ game.

All these things I hope for and are not unlikely to come to pass. But none of us can make them, and as things stand, I don’t see Biedrins just becoming happy if popular expectations prevail and we win 40 something games. It’s just not convincing enough if the proper changes aren’t made soon.

He smoked a cigarette. While it may be speculating by beginning to wonder if he does so during the season or during the off-season, or during game days, or if he’s recently started or recently quitting, or whatever – it’s still not good for an NBA basketball player to do. Sure, you got Vlade chain smoking everyday, but I personally know what it feels like to smoke a couple packs a day. It saps your energy. Biedrins is an energy player, not necessarily as skilled in some aspects of the game, and his style of play relies heavily on effort. Look, it’ just not a good habit, however you want to put it. You and me are not NBA players, nobody has invested 10 + million dollars in us for a year. I don’t understand the comparison. We don’t have to live up to the same responsibilities as these guys. That’s why when some loser gets drunk and decides to slap his wife, Betty next door is the only soul who hears about it. While the rest of the world sits down and writes blogs and makes jokes sitting in the barber shop, when Jason Kidd does it. Not judging. I’ve quit a lot of things in my life that were not easy to do. I go to the gym every night 5 days a week. Nobody is paying me to do this. While we are all different, I think professional athletes should be held accountable when it comes to taking care of their bodies. Their bodies are the sole testament of their means of earning a living. They are not paid to write daily reports or inspect buildings like the rest of us. There should be no comparison awarded, and smoking at a gas station is never, ever a good idea.

First, Rick Barry is a grandstanding jackass. I’m not sure any offers he made were anything other than a chance for him to say, “But look at me, the great Rick Barry, I’m willing to help him.”

Secondly, particularly when you’re struggling because you’re injured, it’s a really, really bad idea to drastically retool your entire game. That’s a good way to develop bad habits which will follow you for the rest of your career. It sounds to me like Biedrins is saying that his problems FT shooting were primarily mental, and that he was trying to fix them mentally while Nellie at all were trying to get him to change his form.

he’s in the galaxy of LeBron. Maybe not the star system, but definitely the galaxy. I think he’s the 3rd or 4th most endorsed NBA player.

He’s about as motivated about purely basketball as any player on earth.

I understand you hate him, just give credit when credit is due

Wasn’t there a report/report that said he may have injured it prior to the workout?

the first report was how you describe it, incurred at a supervised weight lifting session. However, there was also an eyewitness account from Curry (who is extremely circumspect when communicating in any public/media setting) who saw something happen when Udoh was catching a pass from a trainer. A third version, from a member of the team’s front office as reported by the beat writer (sfgate) R.Simmons, claimed the wrist was first strained or torn during a private work out Udoh had with his own trainer, not in a team facility.

It would come as no surprise if Lacob decides to replace the training and medical staff, but he also seems the kind of executive who would seek advice from a qualified authority in the field while making his evaluation of the staff. The ‘standard of care’ for training/rehab/conditioning has variations from team to team—Phx is cited for having an exceptional staff, while Cha on the other hand was harshly criticized by R.Bell, who had a wrist injury very similar to Udoh’s. There’s probably some correlation with the financial health of the franchises and how much each has in their budget.

We’re aware of this team’s failures and faults, but it’s as likely as not the medical/training dept. is average or typical; if we followed a different team closely we could easily run into the same suspicious injury treadmill. Pro athletes should always get outside consults for problems that need or might need surgical or other intensive forms of intervention. Injuries in areas of intertwined and interacting muscle/tendon/ligament/bone structures like Biedrins’ often require a variety of tests and diagnostic procedures extending over a period of time; why would any athlete with a seven or eight figure annual income rely solely on what the team provides?