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Message: [QUOTE="miamicuse, post: 4185727, member: 7237"] I believe this coach/player relationship and trust is not there, or it is not the same as it was years ago. It has been reported that the players work closely with the assistants during practices, they were recruited by the assistants, their relationships are with the assistants. JB is more like the overlord to the assistants. JB is not as active as he was in the past. He has developed a system that allows him to do his work with less stress and strain. I saw an interview two years ago where JB was giving a tour of the Melo Center, and his office on the second floor has multiple giant TVs. The interviewer asked him if its too much work to coach at his age and he responded (I don't remember the exact words but just paraphrasing here) that no, he feels good, the work it's not that demanding, he is not running up and down the court like the players do, and they have done a few things to make it easier for him to stay on top of things, as an example he pointed to those giant TVs and said he can be up here watching the practices on these TVs instead of down there sweating and yelling. I got the feeling the players have close relationships with the assistants. They are the good cops and JB plays the bad cop role. The assistants advocates for their players. Having watched many Devo podcasts with interviews with former players I was really surprised how many said they were this close to transferring despite having to sit out one year. Players like Hakim Warrick, Josh Pace, Scoop, Dion, CJ Fair etc... Dion actually packed his bag and Mike went to the Greyhound bus station to stop him and talked him out of it. Scoop was so pissed off after a Villanova game in which he said he went to JB to ask if he would play him in front of his home town folks in Philly because if he is not playing he wants to just stay in Syracuse and not make the trip. JB told him yes he will play and then he end up getting a few scrap minutes at the end, he was so mad he had decided to quit and stay in Philly and not go back north with the team. JB came into the shower to hug him and that changed his mind. Mike is not here anymore to keep on the players, doing positive reinforcement, averting crisis after crisis. ...and JB being more and more standoffish in player recruiting and development which allows him to still coach at his age, but he no longer has the close relationships with his players for them to feel the tough love when being yelled at. Today's JB wouldn't go to the shower to hug a Scoop Jardine I bet. So not having Mike anymore to recruit and glue things together made a difference. Bernie Fine too. Not doing as much recruiting and running practices watered down his relationships with his players. The current assistants may not be as effective as Mike was in holding things together. Getting old and probably increasingly thinking "I am too old to care what you guys think of what I say" makes a difference. The opening of the transfer portal obviously made a difference. [/QUOTE]

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