How Real Are The Struggles Of Tyreke Evans?

A few weeks ago (not even that long, honestly) I brought up the topic of Tyreke Evans’ struggles and asked the readers here if they were worried about the sophomore’s play, both mentally and physically. The answer was a mixed bag of results with some readers being torn, others genuinely worried, but the majority felt no concern at all.

So now, we fast forward…

I’ve made no secret of my unhappiness with Evans’ decision making. I’ve also made no secret of his youth and that I feel over time his decision making will improve, how much is the million dollar question.

Tyreke is an extremely talented kid – and I stress that – kid. He’s had the weight of the franchise put onto his shoulders and promptly delivered a 20/5/5 season as a rookie (all be it a bit aided), something that only the elite of the elite have ever done. He’s dealt with struggles off the court ranging from his desire to play out a real life game of Ridge Racer to his secretive “personal” issues he dealt with only a few short months ago. In addition to those, he’s dealt with nagging injuries and now we’ve come to learn he’s had “issues” with the coaching staff, namely Paul Westphal. The degree of severity in those issues are in the eye of the beholder – none of us really know just how non-existent or large they really are.

But during last evenings tilt with the Mavericks, Tyreke after starting hot struggled down the stretch and ignored open teammate after open teammate. He was continually punished on defense (granted, a poor matchup for him with JJB’s speed), and capped it off by driving into multiple defenders with the game on the line and promptly sat on the court for a good five or six seconds while the play continued – simply watching out of frustration one could assume.

The amazing part is Evans had a near triple double – but you’d only have noticed in the box score.

Listen, I hate to harp on Evans. He’s a young kid and he’s going to make mistakes. The problem is, he doesn’t seem to be learning from them – if anything, they’re becoming worse and more frequent and that’s the upsetting issue. His decision making has just been atrocious and it seems to regress more and more. The qualms about his talent level are non-existant – he’s already one of the most talented to ever grace the maple of Arco, err, Power Balan, ah fuck it.  It’s the basketball IQ that has become worrisome, which is hilariously ironic considering how much better his decision making was as a rookie.

So we ask again, King fans – are you worried about Evans now?