I was thinking about Bronny and Dalton situations in preseason then I reminded of Phil quote about how he handled Kukoc fragile ego. I mean, I'm not in any way comparing Bronny and Dalton to Kukoc as basketball players, but when I watch those kids playing one thing that catches my attention is that both are better than that, they are clearly playing afraid of the moment, they are thinking about what they can do to avoid failures not what they can do to succeed and Jake was looking like that in playoffs. I don't remember any JJ rant towards Jake, but he had extreme reactions to Bronny and Dalton mistakes in the past and getting a feel for the game, for the players, for momentum and things like that is what IMHO separates the good head coaches from the championship caliber coaches.
Phil's quote about handling Kukoc's fragile ego
"I also used Harper as a foil to get through to other players. Toni Kukoc, for example, didn’t respond well to harsh criticism. If I yelled at him, he would often shrink and lose confidence. Ron, on the other hand, was bulletproof. He could handle any amount of abuse. So when Toni made a mistake, I’d sometimes take it out on Ron, knowing that Toni would get the message without getting his feelings hurt."
I think about some guys that never won, Rick Adelman teams always played beautiful basketball, Mike Dantoni invented the modern NBA, Tex Winter was the genius behind the Tri and he was still the guy showing Phil the adjustments needed, but then why it was Phil and not Tex the basketball sicko that won 11 titles as a head coach? Because Phil had the intangibles.
I'm not bashing JJ here, he has done the transition from a podcaster basketball sicko cosplayed as head coach to a solid head coach in the second half of last season, but I still see a lot of room for improvement and one of them is finding ways to keep the confidence of his players high, no team is going to win with the players second guessing themselves. I don't think Bronny and Dalton can be rescued, but we can afford things like that happening to key players, to our "Toni Kukoc".