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Hayward credits Coach Quinn, Earl Watson and Raja Bell!!!

The Midnight

The Midnight

#Baby_Talk
Contributor
Interesting blog by Hayward...

https://www.gordonhayward20.com/2014/12/23/making-headway-holidays/


Knowing how to lead in these situations takes work, but I’ve been lucky to play with some great teammates over my first several years in the league, and I’ve learned a lot about different leadership techniques by watching and listening to them.

Earl Watson is a guy I really looked up to because of how professional he was. He was really great with all of the young guys on the team. If we were going well and had won a couple games in a row, Earl would remind us that it was a long season and we had another tough game coming up, so we couldn’t get too pumped up on ourselves, and come out and lay an egg the next game.

If things were going poorly and we’d lost a few straight, he would remind us of the things that we do well, and of the stretches when we played well to show us our potential.

No matter what was going on, he kept us even keeled and in the moment

Raja Bell is another guy whose leadership really stuck out to me as a young player. He would always tell me, “Listen, this is a job. And even though things are going tough in your job you still have to treat it as a job. Every day you go to work, you have to turn the professional switch on, and make sure that you’re putting in all the time and the effort to try to get better.”

Whether things aren’t going well for the team, whether things aren’t going well for you individually, at the end of the day you still have to turn that professional switch on and try to do something to help your team and stay the course.

Coach Snyder has been helping me through a lot of these situations as well. Our relationship has been steadily growing since we first met. We’ve had a lot of good, ongoing dialogue about what he wants from us as a team, what he wants from me, and what I’m seeing and thinking out there on the court.

We recently had a long discussion after one of the games about what I can do better to help the team, and how I feel about our direction. Coach wanted to hear what I see out there on the court. I think that helped us both a lot, because at the end of the day, he can only coach us so much. He’s not out there. He can’t see everything.

It’s important to have a give and take between the coach and players in leadership roles. The head coach can’t necessarily have that type of relationship with everybody, but having that type of dialogue with a player like me connects him with all the players because I can bridge that gap.

So far, I think it’s been really good.
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Yeah, he has credited Bell a few times in his blog. Just goes to show there is something to "veteran leadership" even though the veterans may not be all that great of players anymore.
 
Id really like to see Earl back as an assistant coach, already a fan favourite- I loved the way he stood up to the likes of Nowitzki not taking any crap from them, he would be a great assistant a real link with the players
 
DForceAUS said:
Id really like to see Earl back as an assistant coach, already a fan favourite- I loved the way he stood up to the likes of Nowitzki not taking any crap from them, he would be a great assistant a real link with the players
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He's now a coach in the SA system, I believe (Austin Toros).
 
Cy said:
Yeah, he has credited Bell a few times in his blog. Just goes to show there is something to "veteran leadership" even though the veterans may not be all that great of players anymore.
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Or maybe part of the problem WAS Ty. We all blamed Raja for his piss-poor attitude. Maybe he had some justification.
 
Stifle Tower said:
Or maybe part of the problem WAS Ty. We all blamed Raja for his piss-poor attitude. Maybe he had some justification.
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Well bear in mind that Corbin is suspiciously and completely absent from this list even though he's spent A LOT more time with Hayward than any of those he mentioned. Corbin's way of maintaining his relationship with veteran players was to capitulate at seemingly every turn until he didn't. And then those relationships seemed to sour. At least as a head coach, I can't recall any players ever praising him for his ability to communicate to the players.
 
What I find strange about Ty is that as an assistant, I'm sure he was approached by many players bothered by how Sloan never really communicated with them when they had concerns about playing time, roles, etc. Jerry was all about "sit on the bench and be ready if/when I decide to play you." It was frustrating for many, especially if they got 20 mins. one game in which they did well and then were rewarded with a string of DNP-CD's. And then Ty took over and, IIRC, was guilty of much the same thing.
 
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