TunaFish wrote:The Rebel wrote:eathb_au wrote:One thing that irked me in the past was Raymond Felton making a big deal out of coming off the bench for Lawson despite easily getting starters minutes and then eventually forcing a trade in the off-season
One thing I have never understood about Barton, it seems like the team and a large segment of fans are willing to overlook any attitude or entitlement he has shown. I don't understand it.
It seems like last week when half of this board and fans of other teams were starting threads about MPJ in the playoffs. I watched the exact quote, and he basically said that we have a lot of players maybe we should give them a chance instead of running the same play all game every game. Sure we all know that he really wanted to say "give me the **** ball", but he had the sense to know that would solve nothing and only create issues with his teammates. It certainly appeared that Malone has treated him better and talked much better about him since that night, which tells me that Malone respected the way he did said it. Yet so many that defender Barton were all jumping on the MPJ hate band wagon.
Barton reportedly is well liked in the locker room, they loved his confidence when the young guys were learning, but both of those can be a detriment if he refuses to earn the job he thinks he is entitled too. Everybody knows with his positional versatility and the way Malone loves him that he is going to play 30 mpg, but he wants the title of being a starter more than he wants to do what is best for the team.
Maybe I am old school, but there was a time when the only guaranteed starters were all star players and maybe a veteran legacy guy who would play a few minutes but only see real minutes in good matchups. Jokic and Murray are the only guaranteed starters, if the rest cannot handle that then they should be shipped out now before it becomes a problem in the locker room.
Remember the beginning of the season when Murray had his usual early season scoring blips and Jokic had a funk where he didn't want to shoot? They still won a lot of games because of Will Barton. He has started a fair number of games over his career (159+) and played his best basketball by far in that early part of last season.
Barton flipped a switch defensively and the advanced numbers that this guy produced only reinforces what was apparent. An Injury took away the bubble just as it shackled his playoffs at the end of the previous season.
Put yourself into his shoes, you play great and win a starting role playing the best basketball of your career and only lose that role when you are injured. Barton is betting on himself. If he can play the way he played early last season and play that way now, he has a fair argument that he should start. He's proven that you can win games with him. He wants a chance to prove how good he is now and he has a golden opportunity to play a big role for a contender.
As he says, Malone will decide.
Nobody said he has lost his job, his job is open for competition, if Barton is better than his backup than he will be the starter. This is the NBA, not the rec league team. Your job is in danger every day, and everybody can lose their job for any reason. I have spent a lot of time in a highly competitive job, I could have been fired for someone else's mistake at anytime and saw people get fired almost every day. You know that going in, if any NBA player is stupid enough to believe that there job isn't in constant danger than they are pretty damn dumb.
Barton was our 3rd best player last year, nobody is arguing that. 2 years ago prior to his injury Harris was our 2nd best player and better than Murray, that is also a fact. 3 years ago Millsap was arguably our 2nd best player. Does that mean they should get to start for as long as they are here? Fact is for the last 2 years those 3 and the bench have let Murray and JOkic down, partially due to age, partially confidence, and of course injuries. Literally the only guys left that played off the bench are MPJ and Morris, because they were the only ones that performed when it mattered most. Why should any of them be guaranteed a starting job or even minutes?
Every player in the league is betting on themselves, that is not what Barton did. Since he signed his contract he refuses to say anything about competing for the job, he continually just says that he is the starter or that he signed here because they were going to make him the starter. I am not the only one that has noticed it, other fans notice, and the reporters obviously take it that he thinks he is entitled to the job. So if he thinks he is entitled to the job what happens when he doesn't get it? If Harris is hitting jump shots, MPJ has improved on defense, and Millsap is still hitting 3 and being the 2nd best defender on the team, than why does Barton deserve to start?
