03-04-2021, 09:45 AM
I was concerned when we had the three starting players out injured earlier in the year that we were building towards a problem. The team actually played better IMHO than when they were present. Whether that level of play could have been sustained is an open question, but it did create an interesting situation when the players returned. Who gets to play? This was not the first team to have major problems with that re-integration of former starters returning from injury.
Coach Haase may not have handled the situation well. That may bear some scrutiny. Some players also may not have handled it well. The trajectory of Williams is also a bit of a puzzle. My personal bias leads me to expect that problems were inevitable for a "one and done" with this Stanford Team. From the beginning it was pretty clear that da Silva was intended to be the offensive focus of the team, and probably rightly so. If you are "one and done" you don't want that. You want to be the focus of the team. If you are good enough to outshine da Silva,you can shift the focus to yourself. However, if you feel that you don't have a fair chance, or simply aren't good enough, it won't happen. Making this situation work out so that nobody feels slighted is probably impossible in the best of times. When a team is not winning and appears fragmented things will just go down hill. That is where we are.
I think Coach Haase isn't the type who will turn his program over to a freshman "one and done", no matter who the guy is. Normally at Stanford that isn't an issue. It may have been this year, I don't know. This is not to say Williams was a "bad" guy, but rather to say his intended career path probably didn't fit real well with how the team is coached and "run". It is equally true that any player in their last year with the program really has no objective reason to care about the future of the team. It is only about the present. Your personal goals may not match the team goals. Even if they do match, you may think the coach is not going in the "right" direction. You have no more time to convince him of that fact. That can often be a source of discontent among the seniors. It may be that everybody involved is actually acting rationally given their own situation. It unfortunately may not lead to a very good basketball team.
Coach Haase may not have handled the situation well. That may bear some scrutiny. Some players also may not have handled it well. The trajectory of Williams is also a bit of a puzzle. My personal bias leads me to expect that problems were inevitable for a "one and done" with this Stanford Team. From the beginning it was pretty clear that da Silva was intended to be the offensive focus of the team, and probably rightly so. If you are "one and done" you don't want that. You want to be the focus of the team. If you are good enough to outshine da Silva,you can shift the focus to yourself. However, if you feel that you don't have a fair chance, or simply aren't good enough, it won't happen. Making this situation work out so that nobody feels slighted is probably impossible in the best of times. When a team is not winning and appears fragmented things will just go down hill. That is where we are.
I think Coach Haase isn't the type who will turn his program over to a freshman "one and done", no matter who the guy is. Normally at Stanford that isn't an issue. It may have been this year, I don't know. This is not to say Williams was a "bad" guy, but rather to say his intended career path probably didn't fit real well with how the team is coached and "run". It is equally true that any player in their last year with the program really has no objective reason to care about the future of the team. It is only about the present. Your personal goals may not match the team goals. Even if they do match, you may think the coach is not going in the "right" direction. You have no more time to convince him of that fact. That can often be a source of discontent among the seniors. It may be that everybody involved is actually acting rationally given their own situation. It unfortunately may not lead to a very good basketball team.