Wells: Lance Stephenson's Immaturity Overshadows Talent
by Tom Lewis on Mar 7, 2011 10:19 PM EST
in Indiana Pacers News
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PrintMike Wells joined JMV on Monday afternoon and added some flavor to the Pacers' post-game drama in Houston. JMV prodded for details and Wells mentioned that he actually put his ear up to the door to try to determine who was yelling at whom but so many voices were involved he couldn't tell which words were directed at what players.
So what were they arguing about?
Defensive breakdowns and some maturity issues. You gotta guy like Lance Stephenson who is just getting some playing time and some of the veterans were upset with the way he was playing out there, as far as not wanting to give the ball up and also some of the passes he was making.You know, Lance is a very talented player and I'm never going to take that away from him. I just feel like he needs to grow up. He's very immature still. I've mentioned that to a number of people about his maturity problems and a lot of people say, well he's only 20 years old, but my response to that is, you may be 20 years old but at the same time there's a difference between acting 19 or 20 and acting 15 or 16 and I feel like Lance is more in that 15 to 16 range and again, where the leadership lacks, he thinks he can get away with that.
Wells goes on to mention that Stephenson has rubbed teammates the wrong way because he doesn't want to listen to the older guys because he thinks he knows it all. Listen to the whole thing and you'll hear some strong words from Wells regarding Stephenson's approach to his initial chance to play in the NBA.
Personally, I've been holding my breath waiting for some negative impact to arise from Stephenson's rise in the playing rotation. At least I can exhale and shake my head. Heck, my face didn't even turn red waiting for something to pop up. As well as Stephenson has played on the court, there's much more to playing at the highest level than simply making plays with the ball in your hands.
So with Stephenson and Dahntay Jones creating the most noise in the Pacers' locker room, I can't see anything worthwhile emerging from the yelling. I can see Jones complaining about defensive breakdowns, but he has no point to make on dominating the ball and breaking the offense. That's all he does. Sometimes it works great, sometimes it doesn't.
Meanwhile, the actual playmakers who should have the loudest voice, who should raise their level of play and leadership remained drowned out. I mean, we're talking about two guys in Jones and Stephenson who play a mere portion of the minutes in a game, neither considered anyting more than a role player off the bench.
Where are Danny Granger, Roy Hibbert and Darren Collison? How about old pros, James Posey and Jeff Foster? They've already let a minor issue (seriously, no 20-year old rookie should make the locker room so crazy) fester into a problem. How long before they're desperate enough to do something about it and save the season?
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You would think
sitting on the bench for 4+ months because your team is waiting to see if the criminal charges against you would be dismissed would cause a person to grow up. Guess not.
This is actually a point that Wells brought up
He said during the interview that Stephenson was served “humble pie” by having to miss the first 2/3rds of the season. But apparently he wasn’t? Optimistically, I hope Lance is just excited to be out there and so he just wants to prove he belongs. But pessimistically, I look at another of Wells’s comments, that he “has been catered to all his life.” This is the same thing I worried about when the Pacers almost acquired O.J. Mayo. If these young guys who’ve been gassed up their whole lives as “superstar” talents and have never had to work for anything, or never have had no experience developing teammwork skills think they can waltz into an NBA locker room and take over, and there’s nobody there to stop them, it’s a major problem.
From watching him its clear he has talent, and Wells mentioned also that he thought Lance has been the team’s “best passing point guard” recently, which is shocking for a guy getting blasted for dominating the ball. But it just shows how bad Collison has been lately.
"You're hitting the wrong person. Don't you know you're hitting Ron Artest?"
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Thank you, Wells
I’ve always hated the “he’s just young excuse.” There’s a big difference between a 19 or 20 year living in their parents’ house while going to college, or a 19 or 20 year old living in a dorm with a bunch fraternity brothers. A 19 or 20 year old in the NBA has so much more on their plate. These guys are getting paid a lot of money by a professional organization that’s constantly in the public’s eye. In some cases they’re even representing the community in which they play. They may not have to be role models, but they should have the decency to be professionals and represent their organization and fans in a professional manner.
But, hey, let’s not put this all on Lance. Everyone and their dog knew about the red flags surrounding Lance Stephenson coming out. Yet, Larry and his private detective fell for Lance’s act because I’m sure they really loved his talent.
I haven't listened to it yet
But I’m gonna stick my fingers in my ears and pray Wells is blowing this outta proportion
Larry Bird turned Troy Murphy into Darren Collison
Not suprised
this is why Lance went so late in the draft. Now you have to figure out if the talent is worth all the baggage. I’m excited to see Lance play but if he is causing problems put him in his place,on the bench.
Sounds like we need some leadership.
Obviously, in terms of coaching we’re seeing two very different personalities in JOB and Vogel. We need a middle ground, where guys don’t hate the guy but they know they can’t f*&^ with him. I’m really disappointed that their are no players that speak up. I don’t know how you fix this kind of problem, I don’t see people in the free agency that could offer this leadership quality…. Not sure what we do here. I suppose you gotta come down on Lance hard if he’s really being such a bad teammate, like gut19 said, perhaps you bench him. Although, I don’t think that’s really gonna change his personality, it’d might even make it worse in some regards. It’s a hell of a problem.
by infinityzero.systemerror on Mar 7, 2011 11:24 PM EST reply actions
god that audio is a brutal listen..
didn’t realize darren was playing THAT poorly. only good part, “paul george is a perfect rookie” thank god.
Yes, I loved when he said that too
Paul George listens to veterans while Lance doesn’t. I think what seperates guys like Kobe Bryant and Tracy McGrady/Steve Franchise is that Kobe is willing to practice and perfect his game constantly. He may think he’s the best player out there, but at some point a coach or a veteran got to him and instilled this notion that to continue being the best he had to constantly work.
It reminded me of a comment that Doug Gottlieb made on the Mike and Mike show the other day, that Jordan didn’t used to be “in control.” He thought he had to take over every situation and never trusted his teammates. He compared Jordan’s “selfishness” to LeBron’s insistance that be the guy who makes the assist. LeBron isn’t technically selfish but he is, according to Gottlieb, because he MUST be the one to make that crucial pass…the stat is so important to him. But once Jordan learned to trust the role players on his team (something LeBron has never had to do) he became such a more dominant player. I’m not comparing Lance to Jordan or Kobe or LeBron, but I think he needs a serious role model; someone who will take him aside and show him how important it is to work together as a team in order to win, even if it means shutting the f*** up and being respectful to coaches and veterans. The worst case scenario, the way he’s going, is to end up out of the league in a year because no one wants his toxic personality. The best case is for him to end up a waste of talent like Francis or McGrady.
"You're hitting the wrong person. Don't you know you're hitting Ron Artest?"
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This is going to sound drastic and it's a complete overreaction
But I’m ready to cut Stephenson right now. I don’t have nearly as rosy a view as most people of his production so far. It’s true that a lot of his problems are things that fixable. However, can anyone point to a single thing in his past or present, demeanor or attitude which will make me think they will get fixed?
Setting all that aside, what’s his ceiling in terms of production? Jamal Crawford? Steve Francis? Stephon Marbury? I would much prefer the frustration of a mediocre team which is undertalented but plays hard and smart than a team with plenty of talent but plays mediocre because the players don’t understand basketball or team concepts.
I know i’ll get lots of responses to this saying give the kid time. That’s probably the reasonable thing to do. But right now I’m holding out very little in the hope department.
There are really only two plays: Romeo and Juliet, and put the darn ball in the basket. ~Abe Lemons
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and Hickory-High
I've been fine with cutting him since the staircase incident
At this point though it becomes a really embarassing financial move. I say give him until the end of the season to see if the talent outweighs the negative lockerroom chemistry problems (my guess is it won’t) then dangle him to some team that wants to take a chance on him for a second rounder or something so we can start from scratch. This is the opposite of how we handled Tinsley and Shawne Williams, but its how we should have; cut bait when their value is either static or on the upswing rather than tanked because they couldn’t even convince their coaches to play them due to their attitudes.
"You're hitting the wrong person. Don't you know you're hitting Ron Artest?"
Come visit The Fantasy Ninjas. We'd love to hear from you.
Lance Stephenson is 4 months younger than Paul George
so when George’s attitude is lauded, it really highlights Stephenson’s immaturity.
That said, if the Pacers are going to get on each other in order to raise the overall level of play, they probably have bigger issues to worry about than what their 11th man is doing. I think it’s more detrimental when Collison and Hansbrough look for their own shot too much or don’t play defense than whatever Stephenson does in his 10 minutes on the court.
hmm
From what I’ve seen D Jones has kinda been practice partner/defensive mentor for PG this yr especially when Obie wasn’t gonna play either one of them. Wouldn’t surprise me if he and Stephenson had a some of the same relationship and perhaps this was all more productive than were assuming.
To me if a guy’s in only his third game and facing extended garbage time with a lineup that EVERYONE (not just bird) wondered what they could do, I would expect him to test his limits. Lance has been through a lot this yr maybe he wasn’t having Dantay’s pseudo/defacto-captain attempt to toughen up the rookie. Maybe Stephenson shot off his mouth about how it didnt matter because he was better than price and jones maybe he was right.
Big game against philly tonight. I expect Lance to keep coming off the bench before price. But I’d expect to see him staying outside a little more and working on one of AJ Price’s biggest weaknesses—-effective feeding of Paul George. I’m in favor Lance getting minutes as well to avoid having to hear the words goon squad when ever possible.
by TravelDunkerton on Mar 8, 2011 11:02 AM EST reply actions
So confused by this Lance hatred
Why are people piling on Lance when Darren Collison hasn’t played a good game in 2 months? Go back and watch the last two games when Lance was on a roll and Dahntay was standing up on the bench cheering him on. Are we really putting this much angst and speculation on someone trying to hear through a door?
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