Can Paul Millsap make the move to the SF position?

[carrottop12]

I'm gonna be in teh minority here, but, I never felt like we were being abused by bigs with Jefferson and Millsap out there. Night in and night out I felt like it was opposing guards lighting us up.

It's true that if we had Dwight and Duncan as our bigs those guards would face more resistance once they beat their man, but, overall I didn't think our interior defense was a problem. By my eye where we really struggled was on teh perimeter. Miles and Bell both seemed a little slow of foot to me and Harris wasn't a terrific defender either, although he was ok.

I'd think if we had a nice defender at the wing to run with hayward (Matthews perhaps???) and a 3rd swing off the bench that was a good defender, you'd see our overall defense looking much better.

Well, the numbers show that Millsap allowed opposing players to shoot 54% on him for the season, one of the absolute worst in the league, in comparison, Derrick Favors allowed opposing players to shoot 40% against him. Al Jefferson was in the middle at 48%.

You just can't have a guy who is going to let a guy shoot 50%+ every single night against you, especially at the PF position.

[jazzfan1971]

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Maybe that's a good stat, but, my eyeballs didn't see a big deficiency as a defender from Sap.

[Jazzfan12]

I'm gonna be in teh minority here, but, I never felt like we were being abused by bigs with Jefferson and Millsap out there. Night in and night out I felt like it was opposing guards lighting us up.

It's true that if we had Dwight and Duncan as our bigs those guards would face more resistance once they beat their man, but, overall I didn't think our interior defense was a problem. By my eye where we really struggled was on teh perimeter. Miles and Bell both seemed a little slow of foot to me and Harris wasn't a terrific defender either, although he was ok.

I'd think if we had a nice defender at the wing to run with hayward (Matthews perhaps???) and a 3rd swing off the bench that was a good defender, you'd see our overall defense looking much better.

Well, the numbers show that Millsap allowed opposing players to shoot 54% on him for the season, one of the absolute worst in the league, in comparison, Derrick Favors allowed opposing players to shoot 40% against him. Al Jefferson was in the middle at 48%.

You just can't have a guy who is going to let a guy shoot 50%+ every single night against you, especially at the PF position.

Comparing Millsap and Al's numbers straight up is misleading. Millsap plays the most stacked position in the league, Al plays the position with the least amount of talent in the league.

[Litany]

I'm gonna be in teh minority here, but, I never felt like we were being abused by bigs with Jefferson and Millsap out there. Night in and night out I felt like it was opposing guards lighting us up.

It's true that if we had Dwight and Duncan as our bigs those guards would face more resistance once they beat their man, but, overall I didn't think our interior defense was a problem. By my eye where we really struggled was on teh perimeter. Miles and Bell both seemed a little slow of foot to me and Harris wasn't a terrific defender either, although he was ok.

I'd think if we had a nice defender at the wing to run with hayward (Matthews perhaps???) and a 3rd swing off the bench that was a good defender, you'd see our overall defense looking much better.

Well, the numbers show that Millsap allowed opposing players to shoot 54% on him for the season, one of the absolute worst in the league, in comparison, Derrick Favors allowed opposing players to shoot 40% against him. Al Jefferson was in the middle at 48%.

You just can't have a guy who is going to let a guy shoot 50%+ every single night against you, especially at the PF position.

Comparing Millsap and Al's numbers straight up is misleading. Millsap plays the most stacked position in the league, Al plays the position with the least amount of talent in the league.

Can we see a breakdown of Millsap vs the other starting PF's in the league? I'd be interested in that. Meaning, what do other starting PF's allow?

[carrottop12]

I'm trying to find it on 82games, David Locke did almost two shows on the article. Millsap was ranked right along with David lee, Fujian Blair and Channing frye as one of the very worst on the league, ak was 5th best.

[eLo]

Millsap was ranked right along with David lee, Fujian Blair and Channing frye as one of the very worst on the league, ak was 5th best

wow i didnt now that, i always treat sap as very good defender, ok some machups are really bad for him , like vs Aldridge, but still that what you just told really surprised me, i mean comparing Sap to Frye in def that shouldt happen.

Ok i now that probably it was used lots of time in that subject, but if Artest can play with success as sf so can Sap, specially with that much better stroke.

[rampage_jazzman]

With the arrival of Favors who many (including me) believe is the future starting PF of this team, there have been many questions looming about the future of Paul Millsap on this team.

I like seeing Favors and Jefferson together on the floor and I think that they work well together and this will only get better as time goes.

Where does that leave Millsap? I want to go on record saying Paul Millsap is one of my favorite players in the NBA. I am not alone on this obviously which is why his jersey was the #1 jersey sold of any Jazz player this year (I saw this statistic back in December, so yes, that included when Deron was here). He is such a hard worker and he has improved EVERY year.

I think that is why people have felt like they are caught in a tough place. I have at least. I love Millsap, but I see the problems that having him start at the PF position creates, mostly on the defensive end.

I questioned people when they said why don't we move Paul Millsap to the SF position and have him start there. I didn't think it would really work and I didn't think it was a good idea initially. But now that I have had some time to think about it I think it is a great idea that we should seriously consider.

I don't know what the Jazz have planned for AK. I think he can do great things on the court, but I don't know that we will be able to sign him at a reasonable price, or if we should. If he does not play anymore games for the rest of the season, he will have missed over 23% of the games in his career due to injury. That is huge in my eyes. If they can keep him for cheap, maybe, but I am guessing he will be offered more than we should match.

Regardless, I like the idea of a starting lineup of:

Jefferson
Favors
Millsap
Hayward
Harris

With the backups being C.J., Evans, whatever role players they want to keep and the draft picks from this year (I hope its Derrick Williams or Harrison Barnes and Brandon Knight, but that is for discussion in another thread ).

One example that comes to mind when thinking of a SF with the same body as Paul and about the same height is Ron Artest.

Ron Artest is 6-7' and weighs 260 pounds and Millsap is 6-8' and weighs 250.

He has had success at that position and we all know that Millsap has a better shot than Artest and IMO an overall better offensive game than he does.

If anyone can make the move to make this work its Paul. He is such a hard worker and if he decides to do this, he could get leaner and quicker in the offseason to make it work.

I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts on this matter.

Young lineup... I am just wondering where the consisteny 3pt shot will be coming from...

[babyjax13]

Hayward shoots at a 40% clip and Paul/Harris will hover between 30-35%. As I've said before, I think Paul is more effective at small forward and I also think that with our personnel this team is perfect for a triangle offense.

[carrottop12]

Yikes, I think we have a terrible system for the triangle offense. Outside of Hayward and Favors, (and even then Favors is a relative unknown on his passing ability) I feel we are an average or below average passing team, that bodes horribly for the triangle. Also, you usually want a big, physical guard capable of spreading the defense in the triangle, again, terrible for Harris.