What Exactly Happened To DJ?

[spectre]

Oh I agree. I was just shocked at how low DJ's were.

5.6 PER
43 TS%
35 eFG%
16.5 AST%

As bad as Felton's numbers were they completely blew DJ's away.

[spectre]

Again, second year guy in a huge sophomore slump vs a guy who was having a career year. The disparity in their performance was nowhere near as large as it should have been. Interesting that they have the same DRtg and their win shares are within .2 of eachother.

Sure...but since you brought up being the starter next year (as did the OP), the qualifiers aren't applicable.

DRtg isn't an individual stat; it's a team stat (who you're on the court with).

Either way that still wouldn't be showing DJ in a good flavor as most of his time was guarding Williams. His defense should absolutely be better considering the contribution Williams made.

EDIT:

That last paragraph isn't true nor is it fair. As DRtg is a "team" stat it doesn't really mean anything individually as (unless I'm mistaken) the bench got beat just like the starters.

The only other defensive stat that comes to mind for individuals would be defensive PER. I don't know what it would be with DJ on Nelson...but vs, Williams he absolutely won that matchup as he had a PER of -0.8. I didn't even know a player could have a negative PER!

We know Nelson blistered Felton; he had a PER of 29.6 (WOW!).

[BobCatsFanInTx]

I take exception with the whole "what happened to DJ question." DJ did disappear for much of the season but late in the season we were all saying DJ appeared to find his confidence.

DJ himself mentioned finding his confidence. Though we did not see DJ have a complete season we did see him lift his game considerably after the All Star break.

Now as far as the playoffs, nearly the whole team did not show up. Other than Crash and Tyrus Thomas nobody really seemed to make an impact.

To me the outcome was quite predictable based on how our Bobcats finished the regular season. They made many of the same mistakes against the Magic. When it was do or die to make the playoffs the Bobcats looked like crap in barely beating teams clearly out of the playoff race. I saw no cohesion amongst most of the team late in the regular season.

So, though I would agree that DJ was not the same this season as last he did shows flashes of that guy. He also showed flashes of being a facilitator this season.

Most of the players on our team are not above being waived or traded but let us not jump the gun and do so based on the playoffs or their play late in the regular season.

I truly believe the only player who has consistently hurt us is Boris. He just does not seem that invested in our team. It is really a shame because he has the talent to be a real asset to our team most nights. More often than not he does not show up.

When Emeka was day dreaming though many nights of basketball we knew he had an attitude problem or was just lazy. I feel the same with Boris. Both have talent and we have seen it when they apply themselves, but that is not often.

Anyway, other than Diaw, I don't think anybody else is a problem for next season.

Larry Brown needs to get the guys to play smarter but other than that I think we have enough talent and the right character guys to improve next season. Add a few solid pieces and we can improve to a top 4 seed imo.

[ballwhore]

Out of shape if I remember correctly most of you were saying how he bulked up which he did. So if putting on muscle equals out of shape I guess so. By the way a two week stint at UT is not exactly atttending class. Two weeks and twice a week equals four sessions and he was still driving back to houston in between. This I know! LB wasn't good for DJ hell bottomline be it that he shouldn't have let him ruin him but I can tell you now he is overjoyed and was when he thought he was gone to the Pacers to get away from LB. So, like i said your source doen't know sh#t he attend class four times in two weeks and left because it was too much with working out.

[spectre]

So what happened between last season and this season? Did he "hate" LB his rookie year too?

[DY_nasty]

Not to be a dick, but younger guys who are on the fence always play better towards the end of the season. The playoff seeding starts to set in, teams begin to tank, games overall tend to be much more relaxed. His games at the end of the season looked 'okay' (which sometimes can be better than Felton) compared to earlier in the season when he looked downright awful in every phase of the game.

[ballwhore]

So what happened between last season and this season? Did he "hate" LB his rookie year too?

Put it like this..Have you ever paid attention to the bench. If you did you would be able to tell how long it's been. No excuse hell I said he had a bad year. Im just saying days when I show up dreading my job my work isn't going to be good. Is nedding Change unheard of or something. F#ck it say LB broke him even people take to coaching different ways and some of the shit he said to him DJ didnt take well. In some ways you can attribute it to hey kid grow up in others way it's just a clash of personalities. We'll see like I said one decent year one bad next year will tell the story.

[Plowright]

Anyone remember the supposed DJ for Glen Davis trade? Well at the time i followed Jared Dudley on Twitter an he said something alon these lines " heard trade rumours about my main man DJ, i know he has had it tough this year and i hope this trade comes through" Now this was just a week or so after the cats played the suns and DJ and Jared went out for dinner together in pheonix which i also got from Jared's twitter acount. This makes you think that DJ had vented his anger and dissapointment through Jared Dudley as he wasnt a part of the cats organization. Just letting "y'all" (as southerner's say it lol) know that DJ has been anything but happy...

[spectre]

*DJ wouldn't work out for us...so there was something "there" from the beginning.

*Felton said that he took a lot of the bitching from LB in DJ's rookie season and this past year DJ got more of his share.

*I remember the Dudley tweet...it was enlightening to say the least (even if he did spell "his boy's" name wrong).

*During the last Clip game their announcers said this (quoted from the GT):

Per Clips' announcers after he made that midrange:

Talked to DJ and asked him why such a terrible 2nd season up til the last 5 games. Said he was playing too passive, trying to get his team mates involved. What got him out of it...said he "just got out of it".

Obviously LB was trying to get DJ to become more of a distributor (something he didn't show a lot of his rookie season) and according to him it was a big factor in throwing his game off.

There's obviously something that's been going on from the beginning.

My question to the OP...if DJ wasn't going to school over the summer except for just a couple of weeks why in the hell did it take him so long to come into camp? He didn't arrive in Charlotte until the week of September 24th, 2009...just a week or so before the official training camp.

If he wasn't at school him arriving near the last minute certainly doesn't make him look very good.

[Proudiddy]

Put it like this..Have you ever paid attention to the bench. If you did you would be able to tell how long it's been. No excuse hell I said he had a bad year. Im just saying days when I show up dreading my job my work isn't going to be good. Is nedding Change unheard of or something. F#ck it say LB broke him even people take to coaching different ways and some of the shit he said to him DJ didnt take well. In some ways you can attribute it to hey kid grow up in others way it's just a clash of personalities. We'll see like I said one decent year one bad next year will tell the story.

I certainly believe a coach can break down a player no matter how good they are. Confidence is HUGE in sports, ESPECIALLY in basketball.

My juco coach was like a Bob Knight type guy, or at least he thought he was. My whole life, I've been a playmaker - get to the basket, flashy passes, etc. When I started playing there, he didn't like my shot form - it got in my head. It had worked my whole life, but now all the sudden, it's not good enough? I started pressing when I'd get the ball and do stupid stuff. I ended up pretty much being a spot up shooter hoping someone would give me the ball in the corner... I was the 5'10" version of Bruce Bowen, lol. Defensive standout, occasional shot from the corner.

I was scared to touch the ball b/c I didn't want to make a mistake. And that crazy part is, in everyday life, I love for someone to tell me when I'm messing up slacking so I can fix it. But with my coach, it came off as a personal conflict, like it wasn't my game, it was ME. And it got in my head and completely messed my game up.

Next season, I came back and was killing. Getting steals, going coast to coast, hitting 3s, everything... But, I had to pretty much set myself up over the summer to competely ignore him - which is hard to do when it's your coach.

So, I can empathize with DJ. I could see it in his game when he'd get the ball. How can you perform to your best ability when you got a coach that you know doesn't want you to shine b/c of their personal loyalty to Felton? When you know your coach doesn't have confidence in you, it makes it hard on you to have confidence in you. Just look at DJ's Free Throw % drop. How do you explain that? It's you, the ball, the basket and your mind... It's confidence, it's someone tearing you down...

Any idea if he's feeling better about the situation going into next season ballwhore (with the rumors of Felton not being brought back)? I've been saying DJ should start over Felton since day one. I hope DJ likes it in Charlotte and gets that chance next season.