In this interview from four years ago, Greg Jackson comments on preparing Jon Jones for his fights:
He has a unique creativity. To me, he’s more of a unique person...and he’s actually a real challenge for me as a coach, because I want to make sure that he’s got his basics really strong, but I have to keep the creativity...Those two things, making them concurrent...it’s such a challenge.
I tend to come back to this around the run-up to the draft, as Mckenzie rankings and mock results are churned up over and over until the actual event takes place. Beyond that, it’s an interesting observation that has applications for anyone trying to understand the development of a set of skills in any field. From my own coaching, it’s something that becomes more and more apparent the less time you have to develop the skills that make playing your game possible. You have an ideal set of plans you’d like to enact, patterns of play you want to enforce, habits you want to build based on the makeup of your team, that you believe puts them in the best position to win. This is very difficult to achieve in the best circumstances, and sometimes feels impossible in the context of beer league hockey, based on individual availability, the price and scarcity of ice time, and the limited human tolerance for multiple evenings of hockey a week starting at 11pm, “for fun.” You wish for more opportunities to play in the beginning. By the end, your body hates you and is ready for the offseason.
Recent trade speculation brings me back to Jackson’s comments while thinking about the way Tyler Myers is perceived. Tyler Myers is a lot of things to a lot of people. I think he’s a very good hockey player, with some qualifications. I believe part of the disappointment over his inability to sustain the production of his Calder-winning 2009-10 season stems from reading the point totals behind it out of context. I also believe that some of the criticism is justified. It’s not controversial to say that Tyler Myers isn’t going to become the omnipotent Chara/Weber-esque alpha blueliner a lot of Buffalo fans would like him to be. He’s not Erik Karlsson or Drew Doughty, either, to point to two particularly skilled examples from within the 2008 draft class*(footnote). I think of Myers’ game as combining the styles of the players mentioned above, both in the way he plays and his impact on the ice.
