Firing up Sergio Rodriguez?
Am I the only one who noticed that the two-game benching of Sergio Rodriguez is now being portrayed as something that was designed to fire up the backup point guard?
Come on, are you buying that?
To me, it was that the coach didn’t like the way Sergio was playing and decided to give Jerryd Bayless a shot at winning the position. Period. Bayless flunked the tryout and McMillan went back to Sergio. But now to make it appear that the Bayless thing was done merely to light a fire under Sergio, that’s a real reach.
Sure, it may have worked out that way, accidentally — but that wasn’t the reason for doing it.
NBA, Trail Blazers | Dwight Jaynes | March 31, 2009
Dwight Jaynes, Jerryd Bayless, Nate McMillan, Portland Trail Blazers, Sergio Rodriguez
I think it was done to appease the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
For all anyone knows, that silly assertion is as good as any.
Who cares why Sergio is playong better? The simple fact that he is playing better is good enough for me.
I’ll buy it. Anyway you slice it the situation is a million times better then the drama that surrounded the jail blazers earlier this decade. And a lot more people accepted and fed into that bs so why shouldn’t we take on something with a positive spin?
Come on Dwight, the only reach here is you trying to validate your initial point that Nate was playing with fire, and that he was running the risk of dividing the team. Nate gave Sergio a gut check,and that gut check produced the desired result.
The very 1st day Sergio was benched, Nate was quoted as saying, “maybe this will light a fire under Sergio”. He said it, it happened and now you aren’t buying it. You can bring a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. This was Nate’s purpose, he said exactly that and it worked out well.
Sure, guys… and if Bayless had played well, he’d have returned to the bench after two games, right? Because all of this was merely to light a fire under Sergio, correct? The point is, whatever he was trying DID NOT work and he had no choice but to return to Sergio — who he should never have left in the first place.
It is pretty clear that Nate was exploring whether Bayless could be relied upon to handle PG duties when needed.
To the extent that Nate was exploring Bayless’ readiness for teams where Sergio might be at a disadvantage, he chose a good time to do it. [Unfortunately, Bayless failed]. The playoffs are almost here, dont think that Nate will be exploring (experimenting) any further.
One hand: With possible backdrop above, if Nate had a talk with Sergio and explained what he was doing, it is indeed conceivable that the exploration of Bayless, would also have a dual purpose of lighting a fire under Sergio.
The other hand: Sergio was having confidence issues prior to the “benching”. So, if such a conversation did not take place, it is hard to foresee that this form of “benching” would shake Sergio out of his confidence issues.
Guess it all depends on the leadup!