Archives For Earl Watson

If you can coach, you can coach: Natalie Nakase and Earl Watson

Spencer Hall —  December 3, 2012 — Leave a comment

Natalie Nakase

Natalie Nakase is an assistant film coordinator for the Los Angeles Clippers and former head coach of the Saitama Broncos, a men’s professional basketball team in Japan. You’d be forgiven for thinking that her résumé sounds a little backwards chronologically. The film coordinator intern isn’t usually a former professional head coach. But Nakase is a firm believer in putting in the work and paying her dues. She might be at the bottom of the org chart now, but she has her sights set on coaching in the NBA and was recently profiled in a great ESPN Outside The Lines piece by Kate Fagan and Shelley Smith.

Read that entire story, if you haven’t already, and then come back and join us.

As mentioned in the OTL story, Nakase is a close friend of Jazz point guard Earl Watson from their UCLA days. The two remain close and both share a similar mental approach to the game and to life. A conversation with either will often include references to books like Outliers, The Power of Now, and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.

Her other primary NBA mentor is former Knicks, Pacers, Spurs, and Sonics coach Bob Hill, who took Nakase under his wing as the coach of the Tokyo Apache:

Hill’s mentorship continued after Nakase moved on to Saitama, with the two talking regularly. When Nakase returned to Los Angeles this past spring, she knew what she wanted to do next, and Hill encouraged her. If you want the NBA, he told her, don’t take your eyes off that goal. Never turn down an invitation to step foot inside an NBA facility.

Connections matter in the NBA, just like they do anywhere else. And with his lengthy résumé, 64-year-old Hill is just one degree removed from every decision-maker in the league. A quick phone call or email from Hill on Nakase’s behalf can go a long way toward making people pay attention. Just having him in her corner gives her huge confidence.

“He’s the reason I’m chasing this dream,” Nakase says of Hill. “I was so fascinated by his experiences. With him, basketball was 24/7, and I wanted to be a part of that. He opened my eyes to what basketball can be.”

The main hurdle for Nakase on her way to a spot on an NBA bench is simply the fact that it hasn’t happened before:

The NBA possesses more of a herdlike mentality than it cares to admit. Just look at the analytics revolution that is sweeping the league. A few teams — the Boston Celtics, Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder — had success making decisions based on new statistical formulas, and the rest are now scurrying to catch up, hiring their own numbers guys. Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey says all NBA teams want to be ahead of the curve, but few can afford the risk. “It’s always easier when you have one example to point to, so when you take that idea to your owner, you can say, ‘See, it worked here.’ Nobody wants to be the first.”

This mentality is one reason women aren’t being hired as NBA coaches — because no team has done it yet. The league loves to recycle, with teams routinely installing coaches and general managers who’ve been hired and fired multiple times. But, as Morey puts it, “I find it hard to believe that all of the best and smartest thinkers in basketball just happen to share the same chromosome.”

I asked Earl for his response to the feature on Natalie and her path to coaching in the NBA:

Earl Watson: I think it’s disappointing to even talk about gender. I think it’s just stupid. If you have the skills, you have the skills. It’s very ignorant to even bring up her gender. It’s amazing what she does. She’s dedicated to what she does. It’s not a fad and it’s not a trend for her; she’s been focused on trying to achieve her goals since I met her when she was 17 or 18 years old at UCLA. So it’s not like she’s trendy or all of a sudden trying to create a movement–she’s been about it. She gets a lot of criticism–even from her own gender–for not wanting to coach women, so I guess it’s like reverse stereotypes. So her goal is to continue to push forward, to get better, to grow–and she’s good at what she does. She’s good.

She’ll continue to work hard. The league is evolving so quickly–beyond borders, beyond color, beyond gender now. But it’s going to happen soon and she doesn’t want it any other way–she wants to work for it.

Like any coach, you have to have success. Like any coach you have to put in the work, pay your dues, you have to learn the game, be a student of the game. More than anything, you have to be addicted. Addictions are good if they’re positive. For Natalie, basketball is her addiction. She’s growing. She’s a student of the game. She puts in the work. She can go out there and show you the drill. There are a lot of male coaches who can’t show you the drill. So it’s amazing how she brings a lot to the table–a lot more than what people see because she’s a female.

SRH: I think there’s a perception sometimes that they players aren’t open–that there’s a jock culture. My perception is that the players in this league don’t get as much credit as they deserve for being open-minded and accepting of different kinds of people. Where do you think the league stands?

EW: I think those are very old views. I think a lot of times we get so… put in a box as people; we observe and we view and we analyze, whatever, the situation is in life, and we go off what we heard or what we grew up watching. Life is constantly evolving. Evolution is constant. If you want a players attention? You have to really know the game. You have to really be a student of the game and really understand what you’re talking about–and communicate. Communication is key in anything you do–especially in this league. If you communicate and you teach things the right way, players immediately respect you. If you don’t know what you’re talking about? Players can sniff it out immediately.

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Not mentioned in the OTL story is the success of Nancy Lieberman. One of the greatest players of all time, Lieberman recently coached the Texas Legends, the D-League team for the Dallas Mavericks. As a side note, Lieberman was a good friend of Frank Layden and once played for the Jazz on a summer league team. In an interview in 2011 for Yago Colas’ spectacular Cultures of Basketball class at the University of Michigan, I asked Lieberman to reflect on her experience coaching men:

Spencer Ryan Hall: I like the way you’ve responded to the questions about coaching in the D-League, saying that men are used to having women in their lives and it’s nothing new for a young man to receive advice from a woman.

Nancy Lieberman: Exactly. It’s no different than being the youngest coach in the NBA, for example. Coach Spoelstra with the Heat is up against some of the same challenges. The bottom line is whether you can do your job. It’s the same thing.

Imagine someone starting a new job or getting a new boss and saying ‘I can’t work for a women, she’s too emotional.’ Or ‘I can’t work for an African-American.’ It sounds ridiculous because it is. People have to be judged on whether they can do the job or not, and I’m glad we live in a world where people have opportunities to chase their dreams.

I’ve actually played in the minor leagues, I’ve coached and played in the WNBA, I’ve been a commentator with ESPN. I actually know a lot about the things these guys are going through.

If I were to give up on my dreams simply because people said I couldn’t do something, I would have quit a long time ago. We have a rule on the team that says “No excuses, no explanations, no deflections.” And that goes for me, too. I can’t make excuses for myself or ask for special treatment because I’m a woman. I have to get the job done.

While receiving an award from Niagara University recently, Lieberman noted that most of her biggest advocates have always been men:

“Every important job I’ve had in my life I’ve been championed by men,” Lieberman said. “I get grilled by people asking me, ‘Who did what to you? When you played how did they treat you in the locker room? They had to do something mean to you.’ … The men were so supportive of me ecause I was so supportive of them. There’s this trust and now I’m trying to bring that to women.

“My generation, the pie was so small that Cheryl Miller, Ann Meyers, myself all had such a big piece of the pie that there was a lot of envy or as I call it haterade,” Lieberman said. “Now there’s so much. We think we’ve come a long way. And we have. But we’re still in the baby stage.”

Here’s hoping we see Nakase on the sidelines sometime soon.

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JazzRank 12: Earl Watson

Evan Hall —  October 23, 2012 — Leave a comment

It’s a testament to the Jazz’s depth this year that the team’s back-up point guard has been knocked down to #12 (perhaps unfairly) by the voting bloggers. Still, no one would deny Watson’s emotional impact on the team. Earl Watson has had a quiet offseason, and with the addition of Randy Foye as a possibility at backup point guard, his on-court presence with the Jazz will almost certainly be more limited this year than last. That said, don’t confuse on-court presence with on-court influence, because if you can guarantee anything with Earl Watson, it’s that his voice will be heard by both his teammates, the referees, and the opponents. “Intangibles” may be a useless word to describe basketball skills, but in terms of non-basketball skills that still affect basketball games, Earl Watson has all the intangibles. So here are my top 3 favorite Earl Watson non-basketball plays:

3. One time, he said this: “I hate losing more than I like making money.” Then, there was this whole interview. In that two minute clip, Earl Watson demonstrates his whole arsenal of non-basketball intangibles: he never deigns to “media speak,” he makes no excuses, he takes losses on the chin and he lets the anger motivate him.

2. The Three-Salute. This is the combination of one of my favorite basketball Earl moments with one of my favorite non-basketball Earl moments. After drilling a back-breaking three against the Lakers, Earl turned to the crowd, and saluted them with three fingers. There was much debate last year over who had the best three-point celebration (the Russell Westbrook guns-in-the-holster, and Derek Fisher’s three-hatchet), but this one didn’t get nearly enough run.

1. The ball-slap. Against the Mavericks last year, Dirk Nowitzki, upset with a call, slapped the ball out of Derrick Favors hands, and an intimidated Derrick Favors (may I never have to utter that phrase again) did nothing to retaliate. Earl Watson (listed at 6’1”) angrily stepped forward and got in the face of Dirk Nowitzki (listed at 7′ and a German to boot). He slapped the ball out of Dirk’s hands, delivered some choice words, and subsequently got T’d up. Watch the whole thing yourself, but do so with the warning that Favors’ timidity might distress you more than a little.

Offseason Accomplishments: Led the team in Retweets; became Enes Kanter’s quasi-Public Relations representative; appeared on Better Kansas City working a classy jacket and an edgy shirt-tie combo.

Patronus: Raccoon. Not a bulldog.

Stat to watch: Defensive Win Shares. The only definitive advantage Watson has over Tinsley is on defense. Watson, a veteran, is younger than Tinsley and holds up better over long stretches, but with the addition of Foye, neither Tinsley nor Watson is going to be playing for that long, which means that the only thing Watson can bring that Tinsley can’t is tough perimeter defense. If Foye is injured, or if Corbin wants to play him at the 2 (admittedly, a stretch), Watson can act as a temporary solution for what is one of the Jazz’s biggest weaknesses: defending athletic point guards.

Three Potential Outcomes of the Season

1. Because of injuries, because of his defense, or because he fits the system better than Tinsley, Watson becomes the go-to back-up point guard. While I would certainly have complaints about this turn of events, it would probably mean that the Jazz were moving to an uptempo offensive system, and Watson is a perfect point guard to lead the Jazz’s bench in a revamped, fast break offense.

2. Because of an injury to him or because of Corbin’s rotation decisions, Watson plays out the season primarily as a garbage time reliever for Tinsley and Foye. The possibility of this scenario hinges on whether Corbin believes Foye can play at the two. If he doesn’t, Watson may be aced out of playing time.

3. The Jazz trade him. This is highly unlikely, but with an overload at the point guard position and Watson’s contract expiring at the end of the season, it’s at least a possibility. A sad possibility though to be sure, because even if he’s not playing consistently, Jazz fans are collectively happier with Watson on the roster, and if the team is ever locked in a dicey, slugfest with the Lakers, I think we can all agree that Watson has earned the right to be there.

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The Earl of Watson

Spencer Hall —  January 8, 2012 — 4 Comments

Earl holds court. Photo credit: triplecord.com and weddingstylemagazine.com

By Matthew Coles

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Whenever I cover Jazz games for the Associated Press, I hear fans loudly yelling for the young guys to play. “Free Alec Burks,” they’ll shout. Or, “C’mon Corbin, you know you want to put Derrick Favors in there.” I hear people chanting for Enes Kanter. Yes, it seems Jazz fans are ready for the Youth Movement. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

But the guy who often changes the nature of the game more than any of those rising talents is the shortest dude on the team who has rarely been a full-time starter in his 11 years of pro experience. Reserve point Earl Watson admittedly can’t shoot the long ball well, isn’t a great dribble penetrator in the set offense, and is a poor free throw shooter for a guard.

What he can do is get under the skin of opponents, throw the best 30-foot alley-oops in the business and change the fortunes of his team before you have time to ask, “Where did Devin Harris go?”

Against Memphis Friday night, the Jazz outscored the Grizzlies by 21 points when he was on the floor. When Harris played, Memphis had eight more points than the Jazz. Often, the plus-minus stats (which are by no means bulletproof) are reversed as Watson has the tendency to turn the ball over and his 3-point attempts are apt to lead to fast breaks the other way. But what he does do is make something happen.

“Every night is going to be different. Some nights I’m going to score and other nights I won’t shoot and get assists. The whole point is to win the game and I’ll do whatever it takes,” Watson said after he tallied 11 points and five assists in the 94-85 win over Memphis.

He puts ball pressure on opposing guards and makes entry passes tough. When the ball does get inside he digs down and harasses the big fellas in the paint.

“That’s my style of play. That’s how I thrive. If I don’t do all that, I think I’m worthless. So I try and find a way to get creative like that,” Watson said.

The Grizzlies’ Marc Gasol got so fed up he tried to swat Watson away like he was a little mosquito but missed. Rudy Gay had seen too much of Watson in his grill, so he somewhat playfully punched Watson in the chest during a break in the action. Watson merely smirked and walked away.

“Sometimes I’m fighting the bigs and sometimes I’m bothering the guards —whatever I have to do that will bring energy and change the tempo,” Watson said.

Watson, who has career averages of 7.0 points and 4.5 assist, says he’s been around long enough that he knows what teams are going to do and which teams he can really affect. “I pick my spots,” Watson said.

The UCLA product was a hero against Memphis but one night later in Oakland, Watson had just two points and three assists and his second unit was outdueled by the Warriors. Harris was definitely more effective Saturday, but Watson maintains that’s the beauty of the situation.

“I think [Devin and I] complement each other and, at any given time, either of us can change the game. I think that puts a lot of pressure on a lot of teams. I play enough minutes that we can both stay fresh and continue to attack,” Watson said.

The Jazz fans who were around in the late ’80s and ’90s surely recall the uneasy feeling they got every time John Stockton went out of the game for a rest. Some backups, like Howard Eisley, were better than others but you could almost sense the Delta Center patrons collectively hold their breath until Stockton ran back to the scorer’s table to re-enter the game.

With Watson, it’s different. Harris is no Stockton of course, but many expect elevated play when Watson spells the starter. And, no matter what, they expect a change of style and tempo.

Watson was a free agent after last season and didn’t sign a new contract until a few hours before training camp began last month. The Hawks made a play for the spunky guard but the Jazz were his first choice. He says he has a special relationship with GM Kevin O’Connor and feels a strong loyalty to him. His two-year deal is guaranteed and worth $1.4 million a year — a bargain for the Jazz.

“I came back here because of the young guys. I am really excited about Favors and Gordon and Jeremy, all of them. The team and the chemistry and coaching staff brought me back,” Watson said.

While most pundits peg this abbreviated season as one of rebuilding for Utah, Watson senses better results.

“Everything is going the right direction,” Watson said. “I feel like we haven’t even scratched the surface. Everyone is so positive and the energy of the team is just amazing. And I feed off of energy.”

The experienced anchor of the second unit also creates that energy. He has the young guys that run with him believing that anything is possible and they have the playoffs as a goal.

“We feel like our five off the bench could start in this league,” he said. “We five off the bench believe we can dominate and change the game. We really believe it — and sometimes believing is bigger than reality.”

That kind of abundant faith is probably why a 6-foot, 30-something who can’t shoot straight is often Utah’s designated game-changer.

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