Second coming of George Lynch?
Okay that might be a bit much but among the issues I have seen with this Tar Heel team is the absence of that one guy who plays in a way to keep the Heels from losing and motivates his teammates to do the same. Danny Green got the first part of the equation right versus Wake Forest on Sunday night. Green played an incredible game on both ends before fouling out at the end. Based on today’s session with the media Green might be ready to go the full distance in becoming the senior leader this team needs to make a run for the title.
Q: What is the mood on this team right now?
A: “Everybody is disappointed in ourselves because we know what we’re capable of and we know that we’re not playing our best basketball. Last game, we competed, though. But even when we compete, we know that’s not good enough, because we still didn’t come out with a win.
But we’ve just got to be hungry again — somehow, some way, find that hunger again to come out, be motivated to dominate other teams and play other teams and play better basketball and execute offensively and play better defense. That’s the main thing — play better defense, boxing out and limiting other teams to one shot.”
Q: Does 0-2 make you hungry?
A: I think we should always be hungry. Every game I come out, I feel like it’s an opportunity, and I try to take advantage of it as much as possible. But we need everybody on the same page, and I feel like not everybody’s on the same page, and not everybody’s clicking. And a lot of times, you’re not going to have everybody clicking. But it helps when everybody’s on the same page. If shots aren’t going in and not everybody’s clicking offensively or defensively, if you’re on the same page and the chemistry’s going wrong, I think things will turn out a little bit better. I think last game, we got a little frustrated with each other a little bit, and not everybody shot well. And when you’re not shooting the ball well, and the other team’s shooting well, not many times you’re going to come out with a win.
Q: What’s the vibe around this team? Is it as tight-knit as last year’s was?
A: Definitely, it’s the same team. Chemistry is fine, I thing we just got too comfortable, and right now, we’re going to try to pull it together a little bit. Right now, I can see guys thinking about it a lot, watching film on their own; I notice guys came to the gym last night, people were rehabbing, people were working on their game. But it just comes down to the desire to want to win, and want to play defense — that’s really all that defense is about, having the will and the desire to stop somebody. So if we just find that hunger again, we’ll be fine.
This is the second time Green has spoken to the media midweek. He talked to David Glenn on 850 the Buzz last week and this week he met with the media again at practice. I am not sure how normal this is in terms of media availability for UNC players or who thought Green should do the interview but I like what he had to say. The answer to the second question is particularly telling since he basically calls out his teammates for not being on the same page. And what page would that be? The page that says every player comes out hungry and ready to play. It is apparent that has not been happening since the MSU game and Green is basically saying that is what has to happen. Green does deal with the chemistry issue and says everything is fine. Of course that is what we expect him to say but he did point out that some of the Heels spent part of their day off working on their game and hopefully trying to improve themselves.
The bottom line is what Green said in response to the first question. This team has to fine that “hunger” and he is not just talking about a hunger to win but actually talking about dominating other teams. I think this message resounds with most of the fans who are frustrated with the two losses. More importantly I hope Green has said these kinds of things to his teammates and it struck a cord with them.
Granted these two losses do not but the season in jeopardy but I honestly believe they could serve as a watershed moment. It could be the point in which they finally shed the labels and letdowns to become the team we all believe they can be. The truth is this is not an overly talented team. Neither was 1993 but they gelled as a unit and they had George Lynch as a senior leader keeping them focused while making the plays on both ends that carried them at times. I think Danny Green can be that on this team. He is vocal. He showed against Wake Forest he knows how to show up in a big game. The mantle of leadership is there for the taking.
Step up and take it Danny.
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Good read THF. I’ve thought for a while now that Danny could be the vocal leader of this group. Leaders don’t have to be perfect but they do have to come ready to play every night. They do have to be the guy that makes that big play, goes to the floor for a loose ball, gets that all important rebound or block. They don’t have to carry the team with their play, they just keep the team focused on each man working as hard as he is, each player leaving all they have on the floor. Danny has shown this year that he can be that guy. Tyler plays hard but isn’t that vocal as far as pushing his teammates. None of the rest of the starters has had a season where they earned the right to step up and take that role.
Not that he needs it, but Danny gets my vote too.
I found the answer to the last question to be more telling. There had been rumors/questions as to how together this team is, and this seems to squash that. You always have to take quotes like this with a grain of salt, but Danny has proven to be a straight-shooter, sometimes to his own detriment, so I’ll buy what he is saying.
Well, I really hadn’t thought about this but it works. I’d love to see Danny step up and take the leadership role, and I feel like he has the respect of the rest of the team to do it. This could be a corner turner.
Yes indeed!
Danny Green has always been a personal favorite of mine. He came in with a group of four and got far fewer minutes than Frasor and even fewer than Ginyard his first year, but still finished second to Hansbrough in scoring among his class members at UNC.
He has worked his way up in the hierarchy and improved, and after four years, there seems little doubt to me that he is the second most important member of his UNC class to this team.
He may have, with some reason, felt underappreciated last summer, but he came back and is truly making the most of it, and I would think, certainly improving his professional value, whether here or in Europe.
He is now 14th in the nation in offensive efficiency with a rating of over 130, which is superb. He is 12th in the country in effective field goal percentage. He is shooting .485 from three point range which is the best for any UNC player in recent memory. He is second on the UNC team in both blocks and steals.
Less quantifiable, but apparent, is that he likes pressure and seemed to be about the only Tar Heel to show up against Kansas last April, getting 15 points on 6-13 shooting and 3 three pointers in only 20 minutes, and again against BC and Wake Forest when nobody else seemed to be able to buy a shot or hit a three. He plays with real passion and flair and is a real joy to me to watch.
Keep it up, Danny. We are with you!
good points, esp on that last paragraph william, which btw puts him in the same conversation as Lynch and Worthy–certainly we can hope.
“same conversation as Lynch and Worthy–certainly we can hope.”
Well I certainly agree with the Lynch part of this… but Worthy? One can only pray to the BBall Gods. ;>)
I think he meant as team leader. Thanks, and I think the vocal leader spot is open because Hansbrough basically has his plate full with being the target by both other teams and fans, sort of the way Redick used to be.
We don’t always see a lot of emotion by Carolina players, which is generally a good thing, but if expressed in the right way, a little more emotion might be what this team needs.
that might be a stretch Wilf, but that embracing of pressure that william referenced is rare air indeed.
on that emotional note, Worthy’s expression hardly ever changed…all bidness, all the time!
Big Game James looked like a man among boys, to me anyways. He had that elderly statesman type aura which would have lent itself to enable him to be a “worthy” leader.
Sorry I forgot, no pun intended. Oh wait, yes it was b/c I put quotation marks around it. Oh well.
THF — I respectfully disagree with your statement that these two losses don’t put the season in jeopardy. I think they do, not for what they are (bad although not terminal), but for what they expose.
A season in jeopardy is not a season lost. But in order to regain the upper hand in the ACC, at the minimum we must stop regressing, and we’ll have to prove it, not against the conference cupcakes but against its better teams.
THF “this is not an overly talented team.” I have to disagree with this statement. What team has more talent from top to bottom than the Heels. Wake looked that way the other night but when this team plays to its potential no one compares.
I’m with you on this one – I think DG is the key to putting this thing together and lining the Tar Heels up to roll over the ACC.
I’m glad the guys are getting fired up. One has to wonder who is “not on the same page”….My gut feeling is that he was talking about Ty Lawson. However, I wouldn’t be shocked if he was referring to Tyler due to his proclivity to NOT pass the ball to teammates.
I do think we have lots of talent. We do NOT have NBA lottery talent on this team, but some 1st and 2nd round talent. Teague had to remind Lawson/Ellington what they are up against.
I posted the other day that with a healthy Zeller and Ginyard, the other teams are more likely to wear down compared to the Heels. Without those guys we seem to be just as gassed.
“this is not an overly talented team.”
Probably should have said “this team does not have overwhelming talent”
Here is where I draw that from. After they throttled MSU people were talking about this team on the same level with 1991 UNLV. They do not have that kind of talent. I think UNLV put five guys in the first round of the NBA draft. This team will probably see three and one of those is Ed Davis. If Zeller and Ginyard are healthy I am less likely to make that statement but like the 1993 team this group has a lot of talent it is just not the kind that blows your doors off. That is why it is immensely important for them to gel as a team, play their roles and function as one unit.
I think Zeller looked better in his brief exposure than he was supposed to be according to Scout and Rivals, and Davis may be exceeding at least two of the Wake freshman who were ranked as his equals or betters.
The scouts aren’t always right, but we did not have any Vince Carter, Rasheed Wallace, Brandan Wright type recruits this year, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since those guys tend to go pro as soon as they can. Zeller was ranked behind all three of Wake’s new big men and Larry Drew was ranked about tenth nationally among guards.
There has been some discussion on here about how coaches are giving a new look towards guys that might have significant long-term upside potential, i.e., your Marcus Ginyard’s, Danny Green’s and Larry Drew’s, as opposed to one and done’s and two and done’s, because those guys never really make a total commitment to the program.
But we do become blinded by success. Kansas last year had Julian Wright and Brandan Rush, who were the top two power forwards in the 2005 class. They also had Mario Chalmers, who was the number two point guard, behind Paulus, so really he was the top point guard that year. Sasha Kaun was the 4th rated center in 2004 and almost 7 feet tall. They also had Collins who was rated about as highly as Ty.
Look at our class. Marcus and Danny were ranked eighth in their categories. Frasor was only 17th among shooting guards. Tyler was fourth in his. And yet, I was completely taken aback by Kansas’s talent level when we played them and I think our guys were as well.
Obviously, it goes both ways. I remember after all the guys left in 2005, that I was desperately hoping a local kid, Uche Echefu would go to Carolina and give us a “fab five.” He was the number two ranked center is a weak class for centers, but he chose FSU very late and so, no fab five for us. Well, he has turned out to be a very nice player, but that is it, nothing special at all in the grand scheme of things, maybe you would compare him to Alex Stepheson. http://espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=26994
And this was just a season or two after FSU had the top recruiting class in the nation, with the Von Wafer class and it ended up netting them really very little over all.
So, I stand by THF in his assessment. We have a great TEAM, but not necessarily an exceptionally talented or athletic one, but who cares? At the end of the day, there is only one stat that matters and that is how many more you score than the other guys.
THF,
This is what Draft Express predicts for draft positions:
2009: Lawson (6), Hansbrough (24), Green (56)
2010: Henson (5), Davis (12), Ellington (30), Thompson (50).
To me, the most interesting thing about the above predictions is the idea of WE coming back. Not to get ahead of ourselves, because I truly believe that there is A LOT of winning still to be done this year, and that could change everything, but the following team may be more talented than this year’s version:
PG: Drew, Strickland
SG: Ellington, McDonald
SF: Henson, Graves
PF: Thompson, D. Wear, T, Wear
PF: Davis, Zeller
Okay that looks a little insane on paper. Heck if Ellington decides to go pro it still looks a little insane. Young and a little thin on the perimeter but should be a lot of fun to watch.
I should add that our 2006 class was rated as the top class in the country so UNC did have highly touted talent last year but obviously the most talented of all, B. Wright was already gone, and Wayne and Ty were only sophomores.
Scout was a bit higher on our guys than Rivals was but everyone agreed that Ellington and Lawson were among the top recruits in the country. Were they the most talented, however, or merely the most polished at that time?
Some guys keep growing after they are recruited, however, like M.J. and apparently Ed Davis has grown two inches since he signed and some guys are still getting stronger and faster into their early twenties.
J.R. Reid was as good as he was ever going to get when he was 19 and he never improved after that. He still managed to play several years in the pro’s though. I was done growing by the time I was 15 and some recruits are probably already physically mature.
I also think you can make a distinction between athleticism and talent. Pete Maravich is a perfect example of someone with supreme talent but not athleticism.
I think Lawson may be more athletic than Ellington, while Ellington may be the more talented of the two, but it is not entirely clear-cut.
Here is my list of the most athletic Tar Heels of all time:
Jerry Stackhouse
Rasheed Wallace
Vince Carter
Brandan Wright
Michael Jordan
Bob McAdoo
Here is my list of the most talented Tar Heels of all time:
Billy Cunningham
Charlie Scott
Walter Davis
Phil Ford
Sam Perkins
James Worthy
Brad Daugherty
Kenny Smith
Bob McAdoo
Michael Jordan
If we are talking, pure, athletic talent, then Julius Peppers is #1 in my book, and Ronald Curry might be #2.
I am trying to make a distinction between basketball talent and basketball athleticism. Honestly, I am not sure about Peppers’ vertical and lateral movement. Obviously, he is very strong and fast. He had very little basketball talent but a lot of potential.
Curry played during those years where we weren’t on television quite as much and I honestly don’t remember him all that well, except that I expected him to be much better in both sports than maybe he was. Apparently, he was playing out of position in football. I don’t know his vertical, but he was not very talented in basketball as I recall.
It is ironic that he was considered a huge disappointment in his home area of Virginia because he was supposed to be so much better than Michael Vick and I guess Ronald wouldn’t trade with Vick for anything now. I hope Curry can get back to where he was with the Raiders before all the injuries.
I agree. Was just playing devil’s advocate! Peppers was a freak of nature, though…
“Peppers was clocked at 4.55 on turf in the 40-yard dash before the season. He recorded a 37.5 vertical jump, bench-pressed 420 pounds, squatted 575 pounds and measured nine percent body fat at 6-6 1/8, 290 pounds.”
Both Bob McAdoo and Wilt Chamberlain were track and field stars. Mac was sort of like Brandan Wright, a one and done at UNC and had similar athleticism and size, but was a much better outside shooter, or I should say, probably the best outside shooting center of all time.
If McAdoo had had a stable playing situation, he probably would be up there with Kareem and Wilt, rather than merely in the Hall of Fame. I think McAdoo is almost more famous in Europe than in the U.S.
So was Rasheed Wallace. He was a real good sprinter in High School.
Speaking of which. Felton beat Detroit last night with a shot near the buzzer.
Also along those lines. I pulled out a copy of NBA Live 06 I had for my PC and proceeded to manipulate the roster to put all the UNC players on the same team. How does a starting lineup of Felton, Stackhouse, Wallace, Jamison and M.Williams sound?
I honestly wonder if McAdoo didn’t deserve to be among the top 50 NBA guys of all time after comparing his stats with James Worthy’s. He won 2 championships with the Lakers to Worthy’s 3, but McAdoo had a much higher peak productive value as a player.
Basketball Reference has McAdoo as a guaranteed Hall of Famer based on statistics, while it has Worthy and Wes Unseld listed at 72 percent and 73 percent chance of being selected for the Hall of Fame.
With Haywood coming off the bench with his 12 points and 8 boards and McCants for some instant offense.
I also have Vince Carter and Sean May sitting on the bench.
THF, who would your NBA live 06 Dook team consist of?
THF, i wouldn’t play sean may until he loses some weight. =)
i guess brandan wright was not yet in the leauge… i like vince over stack in 2006 but hey, that’s your team. any way you could create a player named jackie for some defensive help? i would seriously question your video game skills if you can’t go undefeated with that team…
yes, i’d have peppers up there in terms of athleticism. and i can’t picture a skills list without hansbrough in it. he definitely doesn’t belong in the athletic list, and his skills (however awkward looking they may be) have been extremely effective to date.
oh, and as far as the subject of this post is considered… against BC and against wake, green was the only one who showed a cocky smile on his face after making plays. we need our leader to show a sense of confidence that would spread to the entire team. he IS that guy. and i know he’s terribly popular among the female crowd, which is not a bad trait to have if you want the younger ones’ respect.
Duke team:
PG: Duhon
SG: Maggette
SF: Deng
PF: Brand or Boozer
C: HA HA!! No, really HA HA!!
Well I also jacked up all of my players’ rating to 99 across the board. They smoked some team 105-60 shooting 75% from the floor.
I think I will go in and move all the Duke players onto one roster…oh wait I don’t think there are enough!
I created a player under my name as well which is fun.
wiliam: I can’t believe you didn’t have Billy C & Scott in both categories.
I would add Miller & Jamison to most talented.
COME ON C MICHAEL!
you forgot shavlik randolph and josh mcroberts!!! and with redick coming off the bench?! this is an all-world team right here.
D’oh!! How could I omit such studs?!?!?
The sad thing about THF’s NBA06 lineup is the “Couldabeen” 1996-97 UNC team of McGinis, Stackhouse, Carter, Jamison, and Wallace probably would have been better.
2005-06 would have been pretty good too…
PG: Felton, Q, Ginyard
SG: McCants, JR Smith, Noel
SF: Marvin Williams, Terry, Danny Green
PF: Sean May, Hansbrough
C: Dwight Howard, Sanders
Well, JR Smith ended up being trouble once he go to the NBA so we could have done without him.
Yeah, they would have been at each other’s throats, C. Michael, don’t you think?
Well, with McGinnis still on the team, it might have been something other than throats they would have been at…
As for JR Smith, given Roy’s propensity to recruit high caliber people, I wonder if his issues stem from a lack of maturity, that was then amplified by being teammates with Carmelo?
I thought he was hurt.