Sam Mitchell
Sam Mitchell
Samuel E. Mitchell, Jr.is a former professional basketball player and coach who is currently head coach of the U.S. Virgin Islands national basketball team. He was most recently the interim head coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association. He was also the head coach for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Associationfrom 2004 to 2008. Mitchell has also done analyst work for TSN and NBA TV as well as radio work for WHAL-AM in Columbus and...
ProfessionBasketball Player
Date of Birth2 September 1963
CityColumbus, GA
Our young guys are playing hard and competing and we just got to get some other people to jump on board.
We can live with inexperience, guys making mistakes because of inexperience. I'm not disappointed in the effort of our guys.
You have to keep giving them minutes. The more minutes they get, the more comfortable they're going to be. These guys all have talent; we just have to continue to work.
Probably 80 per cent of it (is due to youth and inexperience). They come out with veteran guys who understand the league and know how to play. We come out with second-year guys, it's tough.
I think our guys are just overwhelmed, this is a brutal way to be introduced to the NBA,
Every week we're going to get better. Obviously our young guys need time to grow and learn how to play at this level. The most difficult thing is going to be to have patience.
The guys want to win, this is what we do and I hope people understand that. As bad as they want us to win, trust me, there's not one fan that comes to the game that wants to win more than myself and these players.
I'm going to try to empower my guys to help teach, to help motivate, to help encourage them, to help these guys when they have a bad stretch to keep their confidence up.
Right now, everyone's going to predict different teams and they should. San Antonio, Miami, those teams on paper have guys stronger. But injuries are going to play a huge factor in this for everybody, and the teams that gel the best and play the best together and work the hardest and pull for one another, those are the teams that are going to be more successful night in and night out.
Our practices have been great, ... But mentally we have to be able to focus and carry it over at 7 o'clock on game nights.
You learn. If you're not capable of learning year to year, you don't last long.
We're not the only 0-3 team in the NBA,
We're just making mental mistakes that we're not good enough to recover from,
I guess I'm getting my test on patience. I'm going to be patient, but it's tough.