Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:dandridge 10 wrote:
Come on CCJ, are you really comparing the Hawks youngsters to ours? Horford, Josh Smith, Marvin Williams, and Childress last year were way better than any of the youngters on our team this year. Heck, I'd trade any one of them for our youngsters in a heartbeat right now, except for maybe McGee and that is based on potential alone.
While I can understand why some people are high on some of our young guys for their potential, I just can't understand why some people think they are that good right now. While Young has had 4-5 good scoring games, he has basically been a "scorer" that can't score, and has contributed little else to this team. Blatche is in his fourth year and while he has played ok in stretches, I don't think he even comes close to the quality of the play of Horford, a rookie. McGee definitely has the heart and atheleticism to be a good player, he clearly does not understand the nuances of the game. Crit has shown promise, but can't hit an open shot to save his life. These players have holes in their games that are much bigger than the Hawks youngsters last year.
I think your opinion, just like a lot of others on this board, is just based on the "grass must be greener" on the other side approach. People liked to argue that this team would play better if there was a different coach. Well, we have a different coach and the team still sucks. People argued that we would play better if Caron was switched to the 2. Well, that has happened and we still suck. People argued that the Wiz would play better if the line-ups were changed. Well, Taps inserted McGuire and Blatche in the starting line-up and we still sucked. I know some people don't want to admit to themselves that this team is not very good right now, but the fact is the Wiz aren't. They got two "all-star" vets who do not play very good defense and are not prepared to carry the team on their own, a few substandard vets, and a bunch of youngsters that are not ready to play at a high level.
I think everyone will agree to play the youngsters more. I think we will eventually see that happen as we get closer to the end of the year (at least I hope). At that point, we'll see who is right on how much better we will be with increased minutes with the youngsters. So far, our youngsters have seen some increase in minutes (especially McGuire and Crit), with no change in results. I expect to see that continue the rest of the season.
Nowhere did I say the Wizards youngsters are better than the Hawks of last season.
The Wizards youngsters are better than the Wizards veterans who are responsible for this team having only 10 wins.
Personally, I wouldn't sell this current crop of Wizards short and definitely wouldn't trade Blatche for Marvin Williams. I'm not real impressed with Young at all, but he's a great scorer, potentially. dandridge, you have to remember that even last season the only rookie for the Hawks was Horford.
I'm not going into any exhaustive argument because we obviously will disagree on this one. I say the young guys are better than the old guys on this team and I'll leave it at that.
Not sure if you said it this, but let me try. They may not be better but ..
- They are certainly more athletic
- Sucking at D is one of our main problems and while DSong gives effort, he is slow. AJ is AJ, etc
- Crit is clearly our only PG on the roster
- NY clearly more of a scorer then DSleezy as a SG and he has played some SF
- McGee clearly the only center on the roster and can jump like a rabbit, rebound and block shots
- DMAC is a good rebounder and decent defending looking for his offense.
They may not be better but they are way more athletic and have more energy to give on D. And as youngs, you can tell them what to do easier.
But as we saw from the NJ game, as of today, we are just going to get creamed playing them and the fans are going to boo them at home when they do. I think the booing is the part we want to avoid. When that starts to happen, things can go down hill pretty fast. No one wants to go to work and get booed.
In the NJ game we got to see what we look like with no CB and AJ not playing well. The youngs all posted decent numbers in decent minutes.. all except DMAC. AJ was way off. We lost by 27 and got booed.
But at least the younger players got mins and had some success. You can teach them from there.
Young or vets, we can't defend the 3 and our overall D sucks. We give up to many points. Question is, with more athletic teachable younger players, do they stand a better chance of getting it done ?