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[QUOTE="IthacaMatt, post: 3631295, member: 405"]
Let me offer you a bit of info that might surprise you.  In his first 5 seasons in the NBA, Michael Jordan was a terrible outside shooter.  And I do mean "terrible".

He won the NBA MVP Award in 1988 for the first time, and did you know that he was MVP despite shooting 13% (!!) from three for the [I]entire season[/I].  Thirteen percent?!

Now, if you played him at guard early in his career when he couldn't shoot a lick from outside - and remember, this was before he became a point guard later in his career - well, some other coaches wouldn't have played Jordan enough minutes for the MVP to emerge from that awful outside shooting he saw in practice every day.

Food for thought.  Michael Kidd Gilchrest was a Michael Jordan clone as a young player.  But he also couldn't make an outside shot early in his career.  His early coaches didn't believe in him in the NBA, and he only played a "full season" once in 7 years.  He did eventually turn into a more serviceable outside shooter later in his career, averaging around 30% over his last three years.

But that same thing might have happened to Michael Jordan if he didn't have a coach who believed in his positives and ignored his negatives, to an extent, until he got better at those things.  Of course, Jordan was a workout savage, always trying to better his game.  Maybe Kidd-Gilchrest wasn't as committed.
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