Mason Plumlee says he is not frustrated, but if not, he's sure close.
"It’s not what I expected," Plumlee told Tim Bontemps after Saturday’s loss to the Spurs. "I want to stay away from the word frustrated, because you just have to look forward, focus on what positives there is and just start playing better.
"If you just start saying, ‘I’m frustrated, I’m frustrated,’ that doesn’t get you anywhere."
Plumlee's sophomore season, coming after an All-Rookie Team first year and a World Cup gold medal in the summer, has been ugly, as the numbers attest. Not only that. It appears Jerome Jordan could move in front of him in the Nets rotation. Jordan doesn't even have a guaranteed contract.
Bontemps notes the difference between this year and last, when he excelled in Jason Kidd's small ball lineup.
He shot 65.9 percent from the field and made 22 starts as a rookie. In the two-big system Hollins runs, however, Plumlee hasn’t been the same player. He has struggled, shooting just 39.7 percent overall and getting 10 of his 58 shot attempts blocked. He is shooting just 40.4 percent (19-for-47) from inside 5 feet after shooting nearly 71 percent in the same range last season.
So is the problem simply getting adjusted to a new system?
"I don’t think it’s so much style of play, or anything like that, but I think that’s why I’ll be in foul trouble a lot," he told Bontemps. "I’ll be eager to do something, instead of just playing the same way in a shorter time period and building off of that, where you’re not pressing, you’re not forcing things."
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