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Colin Cowherd this morning - Foreign Players - Work Ethic

mdalby

mdalby

Well-Known Member
I was watching The Herd on ESPN this morning and he mentioned an article in ESPN magazine about the San Antonio Spurs and Coach Gregg Popovich. The Spurs have Parker, Manu, Splitter etc. Colin said Pop prefers European/Foreign players because they have a better work ethic and aren't like the AAU ISO players in the US.

Might be an interesting angle on what could be a deciding factor for Lindsey deciding between selecting one player over another in the draft.
 
A number of years ago, when somebody from the Spur's front office was being interviewed, the reporter asked about the Spurs' success in drafting. I'm paraphrasing here, but the reply basically came down to a very succinct "character really does matter".

Whenever discussions about potential draftees with character issues come up, I think back to this statement.
 
mdalby said:
I was watching The Herd on ESPN this morning and he mentioned an article in ESPN magazine about the San Antonio Spurs and Coach Gregg Popovich. The Spurs have Parker, Manu, Splitter etc. Colin said Pop prefers European/Foreign players because they have a better work ethic and aren't like the AAU ISO players in the US.

Might be an interesting angle on what could be a deciding factor for Lindsey deciding between selecting one player over another in the draft.
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I think a more accurate statement is Foreign professional players are more likely to have an excellent work ethic. There are a number of exceptions. See: Tim Duncan, Danny Green, Gordon Hayward, Kobe, etc.

I agree the AAU enviroment does slant to pandering. Like the blowhard he is, Cowherd is he exaggerates it.
 
Or Darko Milicic..........or Nikolis Tskitivilia....or however you spell it.


Both top lottery picks who had HUGE work ethic problems......also Andre Bargnani.
 
I know what Colin is trying to say.... but his shock journalism/hyperbolic style needs tempering.

/understatement
 
I think the question is less about work-ethic than it is about behaving with a team-first mentality.
 
Lol.

Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, MJ, lebron, Stockton, bird, and Millsap are all a bunch of lazy asses...

I do believe that we have a culture here of babying our athletes. If you are an amaing athlete (whatever it is) teachers baby your ***, coaches baby your ***, and donors go to extremes to buy you off. Look at Johnny Football. Dude received an insane amount of attention last year and is now bitching about it. The dude even had 40 year old women singing love songs about him. In general, our culture is too obsessed with sports. Lebron makes in 1 min of basketball more than a teacher or police officer will make in years.

If that doesn't tell you how messed up our priorities are I don't know what will.
 
Waiting for DutchJazzer to comment about Americans or post the name of some obscure European the Jazz should draft.
 
The Thriller said:
Lol.

Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, MJ, lebron, Stockton, bird, and Millsap are all a bunch of lazy asses...

I do believe that we have a culture here of babying our athletes. If you are an amaing athlete (whatever it is) teachers baby your ***, coaches baby your ***, and donors go to extremes to buy you off. Look at Johnny Football. Dude received an insane amount of attention last year and is now bitching about it. The dude even had 40 year old women singing love songs about him. In general, our culture is too obsessed with sports. Lebron makes in 1 min of basketball more than a teacher or police officer will make in years.

If that doesn't tell you how messed up our priorities are I don't know what will.
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They are paid that much because they are worth that much. If you don't like how well they're paid, stop watching games because that's how they get paid. Lebron is worth more than most franchises and he isn't even on a max contract. When a cop or a teacher is the most important employee in a business that grosses somewhere between hundreds of millions of dollars (his team) and several billion (the league), then they'll get paid accordingly.

I understand what you're trying to say.
 
Okay.. here it is.... said better than Cowterd.

The Euros are often times more polished and 'used' to working harder because many become pros at ages 14 and 15 years old. They come into the league better understanding what is required to earn that check.

Also, American's have a much more entitled way because from an early age they're told how great they are, get special treatment, meet the who's who of bb... and generally are more coddled.

None of that should imply the best draft strategy is to darft euro.... that's just dumb. Obviously you look for the same things that make players great regardless where they came from.

So much more to say but moving on...
 
The Thriller said:
Lol.

Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone, MJ, lebron, Stockton, bird, and Millsap are all a bunch of lazy asses...

I do believe that we have a culture here of babying our athletes. If you are an amaing athlete (whatever it is) teachers baby your ***, coaches baby your ***, and donors go to extremes to buy you off. Look at Johnny Football. Dude received an insane amount of attention last year and is now bitching about it. The dude even had 40 year old women singing love songs about him. In general, our culture is too obsessed with sports. Lebron makes in 1 min of basketball more than a teacher or police officer will make in years.

If that doesn't tell you how messed up our priorities are I don't know what will.
Click to expand...

LeBron has a skill a teacher or police officer doesn't...and looking at some of the people in those jobs, you don't need much.
 
PKM said:
Okay.. here it is.... said better than Cowterd.

The Euros are often times more polished and 'used' to working harder because many become pros at ages 14 and 15 years old. They come into the league better understanding what is required to earn that check.

Also, American's have a much more entitled way because from an early age they're told how great they are, get special treatment, meet the who's who of bb... and generally are more coddled.

None of that should imply the best draft strategy is to darft euro.... that's just dumb. Obviously you look for the same things that make players great regardless where they came from.

So much more to say but moving on...
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If Colin says it like that, no one listens and no one posts his remarks on message boards, sending more people to his show.

:)
 
green said:
If Colin says it like that, no one listens and no one posts his remarks on message boards, sending more people to his show.

:)
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Exactly. It's hard to like (or dislike) something that someone says if they are "on the fence". Listening to someone who is fair and unbiased is boring. Sometimes I love what Colin says and sometimes I hate what he says. There is no room for anything in the middle.
 
Work ethic has nothing to do with nationality it has to do with a person's drive and character. All the rest is just stereotyping a group of people. There are plenty Europeans with attitude problems and feelings of entitlement. Entitlement isn't an American invention.
 
cowhide said:
Work ethic has nothing to do with nationality it has to do with a person's drive and character. All the rest is just stereotyping a group of people. There are plenty Europeans with attitude problems and feelings of entitlement. Entitlement isn't an American invention.
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Agreed!
 
green said:
LeBron has a skill a teacher or police officer doesn't...and looking at some of the people in those jobs, you don't need much.
Click to expand...

Wow. No Respect. You're totally looking at it from a very different angle than I. The statement shouldn't be that a teacher doesn't have that skill, so they shouldn't make that much money. It should be that we're paying people that much money for something as frivolous as entertainment, instead of paying quality teachers better. If we did pay our teachers a boat load of money, perhaps on a sliding scale based on year end reviews(peer, student, and supervisor) you'd have much better teachers.

... but if you're trolling, you totally got me. And I'll need to rep you.
 
PKM said:
I know what Colin is trying to say.... but his shock journalism/hyperbolic style needs tempering.

/understatement
Click to expand...

Popovich is the one that said it, Herd was just making a discussion out of it.

I think I agree with him. Sure there are a lot of hard working american-born players (the millsap's, the malone's, etc...), but how often do you see a foreign player that acts or plays like Deshawn Stevenson, Nick Young, JR Smith, or Baron Davis?
 
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