Andrew Bogut has what you might call a false positive ID for being injury-prone. While it’s true that Bogut has lost a huge number of games over the past three seasons to injury, much of that has stemmed from a serious of freak injuries. He doesn’t have the worrisome food problems that plague so many centers, he doesn’t suffer with a back condition. While there are lingering issues from those injuries and they do and will affect him, he’s a pretty tough customer overall. Especially defensively. Read more after the jump.
And in an interview with NBA.com, he’s looking for that same toughness from his Warriors teammates as they embark on a make-or-break season. He wants them ready to fight. As in, each other.
“If there’s not one fight in practice during the season — you never want to fight just to fight — but if there’s not one little scuffle or one little verbal, something’s wrong. Guys aren’t competing, guys aren’t there for the right reason, guys are just punching the clock,” he said. “I guarantee you if you interview the Lakers and the Celtics with Paul Pierce and Garnett, there’s scuffles at practice, there’s physicality, elbows thrown. You have to go through that when the time is right. If something needs to be said and someone doesn’t like it, you’ve got to go out and say, ‘Hey, that’s part of being the leader.’ This team won 20-something games last season [23]. Things have to change.
“A responsibility of mine is making sure that we’re staying on top of each other, staying focused. If I miss a box out or if I miss a help D and David Lee comes after me, I want that. If I don’t get it then I’m going to be asking questions why. If they don’t tell me I made a mistake that was blatant, that we’ve been drilling every day for the last 200 days or 100 days, and none of the leaders or none of the people on the team have come up to me and said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ something’s wrong. I expect that from them. They should expect the same.
via Almost ready, Bogut plans to bring badness back to the Bay | NBA.com.
The Warriors have talked about making defense a priority for years, but it always seems to fall short. They have a team now with a lot of upside in that department. It’s going to be up to Mark Jackson, who is still inexperienced in coaching, to get it to mesh. They have to communicate, they have to work, but they also have to do what Bogut is talking about here.
Both the Heat and Mavericks have talked about his concept in the past extensively, the idea of holding one another accountable. You need mature, experienced players to do that and the Warriors have them. They’ve got to make sure the standard is there for what to expect from each other, and be willing to call one another out.
Maybe not outright fighting, though. That never goes well.
Also, before any of this, they have to stay on the court. That’s the Warriors’ first challenge this season.
