Reviews on the New Earl Able at the Pearl

Edge recently saturday downward with NBA Hall of Fame bespeak guard Earl Monroe, ameliorate known as "The Pearl" and "Blackness Jesus," to discuss the land of guard play in today'south NBA. The former Knicks and Bullets star, known for introducing flair and playground-style handles into the league upon his arrival in 1967, weighed in on brawl-handling, his favorite players to watch, and new-era training methods.

Edge: Do y'all encounter any players today with the kind of improvisational qualities that yous and some of your contemporaries had?

Earl Monroe: I gauge in some instances information technology's unfortunate, because a lot of people say I brought this into the game. How you handle the ball, seeming every bit though you're palming the ball, that's how I'd dribbled until they saw I wasn't palming it. My rookie yr, they were calling me for palming all the fourth dimension, and so nosotros had to show a tape of me dribbling the brawl and doing that and then they could come across my palm wasn't turning the ball over.

Today, the palming is more than visible and more than adequate, because if they chosen everybody for palming, games would be three or four hours long. It is a bit different in terms of how you handle the ball and what you do. I of the things with guards is perception, being able to encounter the floor. You have to see not just in existent time just you have to come across it happening before it happens. Y'all have to more than or less dictate what you're doing to make information technology happen the fashion you can see it in your mind, and that'southward what a guard should exist able to do as far as running the squad.

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Earl Monroe of the Baltimore Bullets moves the brawl against Oscar Robertson during a game confronting the hometown Milwaukee Bucks at the MECCA Arena in 1970.

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​Edge: Who are some of your favorite guys to picket these days?

EM: I similar Chris Paul, I like LeBron. He makes it happen. It's a little scrap different because [LeBron'due south] actually a guard. He plays forward or whatever but he'southward really a guard, and his whole thing is laissez passer-get-go anyway, so that'southward what makes him a lot different than a lot of players. Throughout the league there are a lot of guards that are so effective, you wait at Tony Parker, yous'd never think he'd be doing what he does, at his peak and with his leaping power, and all he does is shoot layups. You lot have guys that understand the game and understand what they have to do to make themselves successful. [Derrick] Rose, I used to like him—I say used to, because he hasn't played in a couple years—but he's one of those guys that just lets it all out, and I think that's one of his issues, that he has to understand how to pull it back and then go for it.

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Edge: Y'all mentioned Tony Parker—he'south kind of an anomaly at present, because you encounter and so many guys that are bigger and stronger, making one move to get to the basket rather than the crafty, midrange-type scorers.

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EM: That's all role of how they play out in San Antonio. It's kind of almost a non-statement type of play, but it'southward very effective because they play together. You similar to see them, they're not a very flashy team, merely they're a very effective team, and that's I think, I used to wait at the Yankees, they were a very effective team. [No matter which] guys you lot had coming in, y'all knew that they were gonna do this, you knew they were going to do that, and that'southward pretty much what San Antonio's guys do.

Edge: Today there'due south such a big accent on force and speed preparation. How much weight did people put on information technology back and then equally opposed to today?

EM: Well, we didn't practice the strength training. I remember our thing was different because we played all year. We were playing in the NBA and then we'd play in summer leagues, so we kept our strength up and our flexibility and things like that as we played during the year. These guys with the forcefulness training and what they practise at present is so specialized. It but makes them that much stronger, and the durability unfortunately seems not equally good, because you get a lot of sprains, breaks, you know, guys are out a lot. Which seems strange because you're stronger, you're fit, merely yous're not fit enough it seems.

But I think you have to have it, you lot have to be competitive enough, so a team hither that does certain types of weight training and another team that does another type—weight training for me involves some weight, just a lot of extensions, y'all try and go on your muscles equally long as possible. When your muscles tighten up is when you get the hamstring pulls and things like that.

Earl Monroe of the New York Knicks looks on from the demote against the Washington Bullets during an game in 1977 at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland. Monroe played for the Knickers from 1971-80.

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I sometimes wonder if some guys, I don't know if they necessarily expect like information technology, simply they might be over-muscled. Especially when you're exploding—talking most Derrick [Rose]—he'due south so explosive naturally, but if y'all put a lot of extra weight on top of that, it tin can exist harder for the whole body to take.

EM: I recall the problem can be when y'all're doing weights and all that, you become enamored with size. The guy who keeps a long, lean frame, that's the guy you know is going to be your thoroughbred. Isiah Thomas had a theory when he was here in New York that those were the kind of guys he wanted to have on his team, the guys that were long, lean and able to go up and down the floor. It changed the concept of what the game was going to be about, because you knew y'all could get the ball up off the backboard and run.

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Border: Why do you think there's been a shift toward bigger signal guards?

EM: I call back that the shift is because at that place aren't a lot of centers, and everybody wants to be a signal guard. You have centers, like Andray Blatche, he'due south vi'11", whatever, he was playing guard and all that kind of stuff, yous get to the league and you still have some of those tendencies. Guys just handling the ball too much, you gotta get information technology out and get information technology to the guys that can distribute, make full your lanes and then forth. The game itself is just a real simple thing—information technology's the guys who play it that brand information technology difficult.

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Source: https://www.si.com/edge/2014/06/09/qa-earl-pearl-monroe-fundamentals-tony-parker-and-nba-finals

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