[Basketball Diary]Daegu coach juggles growing injury list
Daegu Orion center Joo Tae-soo, with ball, wrestles with Jeon Jung-gyu of the ET Land Black Slamer in Sunday’s 95-84 loss. [NEWSIS]
First, the team’s two foreign players, Corey Benjamin and Mark Sanford, suffered torn ligaments in training camp. They were replaced by Leon Trimingham and Robert Brannen.
Then Lee’s starting point guard, Kim Seung-hyun, went down with a herniated disc after one game and has yet to return. Kim’s backup, Jeong Jae-ho, hurt his ankle in a recent practice and missed three games before returning Sunday.
Brannen was hurt and replaced by Jarrod Gee in mid-November. But Gee was cut after four games, and the Orions signed Carlton Aaron.
The 6-foot-9 Aaron injured his shoulder in his seventh game, after throwing his 326-pound frame to the floor for a loose ball. He is out for three weeks, and the Orions announced Saturday that Shawn Hawkins would be Aaron’s temporary replacement. Meanwhile, Trimingham, the team’s top scorer at 20.4 points per game, is nursing a groin injury and has missed the last three games.
Here’s hoping that Hawkins, a 6-foot-6 graduate of Long Beach State, doesn’t get hurt in his first game in some freak incident. No team deserves so much bad luck just halfway into the season.
And did I mention the Orions, who have been to the playoffs the last six seasons, are dead last in the Korean Basketball League standings at 4-19, having lost 14 of their last 15 games?
The lowest of the lows came Saturday. The Orions missed their first 10 field goal attempts of the game against the SK Knights in Seoul. A fan in a Knights jersey yelled, “C’mon Orions, get a bucket.” Guard Kim Byung-chul’s three-pointer with 1:52 left in the first quarter gave the team its first ― and only ― points of the quarter. The Orions set the record for the lowest first-quarter score by a KBL team.
The Orions finished the first half trailing 43-20, tying the lowest total by a team in an opening half. Lee Dong-jun’s dunk with 23 seconds left in the half gave the team the 20th point.
The final score Saturday was 95-60 for the Knights, the biggest margin for a loss in the KBL this season. Sunday, Daegu lost 95-84 to the ET Land Black Slamer. The Orions have given up 90 or more points 11 times this season.
Coach Lee lamented the injuries. “It’s been really frustrating,” he said. “One player gets better, another is hurt. When that player gets healthier, then another injury pops up. They’re all giving me a headache.”
The Orions are eight games out of the sixth and final playoff spot. Lee’s job is to reach the post season, but if the team is to pull off that feat, he may might want to change his substitution pattern.
In Saturday’s blowout, the Orions only played six guys, and three, Lee Dong-jun, Kim Young-soo and Joo Tae-soo, went the full 40 minutes. Sung Joon-mo, Park Jun-yong and Lee Eun-ho dressed but did not play.
Then on Sunday, eight players were in action, but Park played 1:41, and Jeong Jae-ho, returning from an ankle injury, played just under three minutes. Neither recorded a point. Lee Dong-jun and Joo again played the entire game.
Granted, injuries have tied Coach Lee’s hands. But I don’t see the point of running two post guys, Lee and Joo, for 40 minutes in the Saturday road blowout when another tough road game was scheduled the next day. Lee is 6-foot-6 and Joo is 6-foot-7, and without both Trimingham and Aaron, they’ve had to battle bigger foreign players in the post.
Why doesn’t the coach go to his bench more? In a league short of 7-footers, Lee Eun-ho (6-foot-6) and Sung (6-foot-7) are two more big bodies the Orions can throw in the paint, if only to give breathers to Dong-jun and Tae-soo. In his five-year KBL career, Park has been a deadly three-point shooter and a lockdown perimeter defender when he had a chance to play.
Maybe Coach Lee is trying to win with more proven players in lineup. And since the Orions are still mathematically alive, I can see his point.
But considering the circumstances ― a long-term injury to former MVP Kim Seung-hyun and the short bench ― I think their season is already lost. That isn’t to say the Orions should throw away this season; they can start rebuilding from within, rather than wait until the draft in January.
By the way, I really like what I’ve seen from Aaron. He knows how to use his body to fight off taller men to get points and rebounds.
And any 300-pounder who throws himself to the floor for a loose ball can play on my team.
By Yoo Jee-ho Staff Reporter [jeeho@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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