I don't want to say I told you so but...

[Bowens]

Man this just blows.

I really thought this would be Felton's coming out party this season, but he still can't be 'that guy' at the point for the 'Cats.

Honestly, I haven't watched enough games to judge, so what the hell is up with Felton?

Has the team hurt his development at the point by pairing him with Knight in the past, and McInnis this season in the backcourt?

Or is he simply just not the guy for this team?

Frustration

Frustration is right. Nobody really knows what Ray's deal is. IMO, I just think he's too nice, laid back, and not really a leader. He's just not tough enough. Or hasn't been, not saying he can't be in the future. And the inconsistency is whats hurting us as a team and him.

Now the point guard spot is the toughest to learn, so it could mean he's still adjusting. Problem is, this franchise needs a stabilizing presence in the backcourt because we really need to start winning right now. And it didn't help that MJ brought in Shiny Head to coach this team. Horrible choice for our youngins.

As far as him being the right guy for this team, the jury is still out on that. However, I think we would draft or trade for a top point guard this summer if the opportunity presents itself. Either way, it should be an interesting offseason between figuring out what to do with Okafor, and figuring what Ray's role will be next season.

And it would not surprise me if Ray and Okafor aren't here next season.

[W_HAMILTON]

When it comes to disappointments, Okafor and Felton shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath, especially considering what Okafor has been doing lately.

[Bowens]

When it comes to disappointments, Okafor and Felton shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath, especially considering what Okafor has been doing lately.

Oh yeah, Okafor is making his contract push. Too bad we're losing all of these games

[W_HAMILTON]

Because a few players playing better individually doesn't make us a better team, something I said all along.

We need a PG that can bring the talent we do have together, lead them, and make them better.

[Bowens]

Because a few players playing better individually doesn't make us a better team, something I said all along.

We need a PG that can bring the talent we do have together, lead them, and make them better.

You might be right. I'm a huge fan of good pass first point guards who are leaders and unfortunately Ray is falling short of that. I thought coming out of college he would be much better than he's shown. He does show flashes of being real good, but it's not for the entire game. So frustrating to watch this guy because you want him to play well, and for some reason it's like he's in a fog for half the game.

And I don't blame his poor play on Shiny Head or McMinus. He needs to step up like Wallace does and get angry and play with passion.

[Walt Cronkite]

Spectre, I over exaggerated my post a little, but I wasn't trying to be a dick or anything. Paydro and I talked off forum about how poorly Warriors play defense and we discussed why that was. Once he said he agreed 100% with Vexco and Ham though, I had to burn him a little bit.

You guys know Wallace didn't play right now, right? That's 20 points and double digit assists or rebounds these days, not to mention the impact he makes on the other end. Felton has played well lately imo. Lets give him a couple of games, I see no rush...

[W_HAMILTON]

I don't base my judgement on "a couple of games." When you do that, you end up looking like a jackass, when, I don't know, you criticize guys like Richardson or Okafor, guys that in the past have played very well, and odds are will go back to playing well.

I base my judgement on almost three years of watching Felton try to play PG. I don't even jump on him for mistakes game-by-game anymore, because it's pointless. He has a good game, he has a bad game. It doesn't matter, because he hasn't shown he can get this team going, and he's never shown it.

People tried to defend him for years, and blame everyone else, and it's been painfully obvious that up until now, he hasn't "gotten it." Whether he gets it in the future, who knows? I don't know what he will do in the future.

If you want him to get even more opportunities than he's been getting, fine. If you think someday he will magically get it, fine. But don't say he's anything special now, or that he has been anything special in the past, and for damn sure don't blame everyone under the sun for his failures at PG.

People need to accept that he hasn't been as good as many said. Whether he gets up to that level people have been hyping him at for years, who knows? All I know is that at least up until recently, he has not had it. If he gets better in the future, good for him and good for the team. But it's because he gets better, not because he "was finally given an oppotunity," because he's been given opportunities, and he's squandered all of them up until now.

[amcoolio]

I wouldn't pass blame on Wallace either. Everyone on the team is to be blamed. Wallace all of a sudden tried to become a Dwayne Wade and shoot as much as he can. With our other offensive options, I don't blame him, but right now we could really use his 2005-2006 style of play with J-Rich on the wing, instead of both on the wing WITH two PG's on the floor.

None of Felton, Wallace, Okafor, or J-rich are capable leaders though. the latter three are perfect complimentary players. If we had Paul, Baron Davis, Billups, we wouldn't be having this conversation and the Bobcats would be 28-17.

[Paydro70]

It would be no more "Magical" for Ray to get it than Payton, Nash, Billups, or any other PG who got much better after his early seasons. Those point guards also got plenty of opportunities. Ray will continue to get more.

The question is, at what point does the team acquire his potential replacement. For some of us, the answer is "ASAP." For me, I would be okay with another season of Felton, with a competent backup, and we make a bigger effort to fix the frontcourt. Certainly, however, it's worth taking the opportunity if it arises; a good PG available wherever we're picking (better than the best big), a nice FA who we could sign, etc. I guess what I'm really saying is that I don't think we need to TRADE Felton or cut him or whatever.

[W_HAMILTON]

It took Nash five seasons to start as many games as Felton started his rookie season.

Felton has averaged over 30mpg his entire career. Billups averaged more than 30mpg one time in his first five seasons.

So, that leaves Payton, and for every one Payton, I could just as easily rattle off guys that looked promising at one time or another and never panned out, and went on to pretty average careers.

If he's going to take the 7 year path to success like Billups or someone, that's nice. On the bright side, we're almost halfway there! On the negative side, he'll end up wasting away half of our guys' careers, as well as half of his own.

The correct answer is to let him play PG, and unless he "magically" gets better, actively search for a starting caliber PG that is capable of running this team, then move him to the bench as a combo guard. Best of all worlds. The team gets a PG capable of running our offense instead of waiting seven years for Felton to learn, and if he ever does experience this Billups-like epiphany, well, we'll still have him, instead of cutting him loose like most of those teams did when their PGs took over half a decade to develop.

Felton running this team like he did the first 1.5 months of the season is simply unacceptable.

[Paydro70]

...okay, this is kind of a stupid discussion, but you're obviously slanting the numbers. Nash averaged 32 minutes his third season, 27 his fourth, then 34 his fifth. He got injured, Ray didn't, and he got two seasons as a backup to Jason Kidd before he got thrust into the limelight. Even then, it wasn't until his last year with Dallas that he started to show the "I can average 10 assists per game" Steve Nash we know now. Don't pretend that he didn't get opportunities or was an obvious prospect early in his career. He looked like any other decent young PG.

Chauncey started 70 games his rookie season and was bad. Then he had two drastically shortened seasons (the first of which he averaged 33 minutes). Then he played another 200 games or so, THEN started to look good. The fact that these players got injured does not mean that they weren't given chances, or showed more promise than Ray.

I have no idea how Ray will turn out, and neither do you. If he becomes good, it would not be magic, or even crazy or shocking. He was a physically gifted #5 pick from a top program who played at least okay his first 3 seasons. He hasn't played great, and doesn't look, at the moment, like a future star, or even the solid point guard of the future for this team.

My question, which I think is the only sensible one, is how quickly and how greatly the team invests in a replacement for Ray. Your answer, which it seems to have been for the last year, is to trade as soon as possible for whatever we can get. Mine is that it's okay to keep him at least another year, and that only if a really great opportunity comes along should we think we have to seize the chance at a replacement.

[W_HAMILTON]

It's not slanting numbers.

Those are the facts.

Felton started 54 games his rookie year. Nash didn't start 54 games until his 5th season in the league.

Billups averaged more than 30mpg one time in his first five seasons. Felton has averaged 30mpg in every season he's played.

Those are facts.

I don't care enough about them to delve into their injury situation, but now that you mention it, it makes the point even worse. So, it's not like all these guys you bring up were being allowed to start 86% of their games and given 35mpg and still sucking, in fact for some of them, they spent large portions of their pre "break out" phase injured, which of course is going to set a player back and derail his development.

If Felton missed 69 games, his development would probably be even more stunted. So, how that helps your cause, I'm not sure.

On the bright side, I guess it knocks off two years of the Seven Year Chauncey Billups Path to Success, woohoo!

[Paydro70]

Facts can be interpreted different ways. When you look at a player who played 14 games his third year, and pretend that he "didn't get a chance" that season, that is slanting. He got his chance, and hurt himself, so he didn't play. Because a player didn't get hurt, and played 220+ games his first three seasons, does not mean he lived out his potential. If you really think that, I suppose this conversation is over. Sure, Ray is absolutely done because he played all his games at 21-23 on an expansion team, spending 1/4-1/2 his time as an SG.

Development is not automatic based on games. Years have to be taken into account, as well as minutes, as well as situations. It is utterly ridiculous to declare that Ray has lived out his chances, while Nash and Billups still had lots of potential left in store.

[W_HAMILTON]

I didn't say he has "outlived" his chances. And you're not helping your case; as I said, I didn't look into whether or not they had been injured. If one of those guys missed all but 14 games, that hurts your argument; that means he's not out there being given every opportunity in the world, that means he's injured, and of course you're not going to develop as a player when you sit out most of the year and have to come back from a season-long injury. While one of those guys was sitting on his ass injured, Felton was starting and playing big-time minutes.

Which situation do you think is more likely to result in development? I'd love for you to say the guy that's sitting his injured ass on the bench, because that means there is still some hope for Sean May.

I'm saying he's received plenty of chances, and wasted them all away. He's apparently getting yet another chance.

There's "lots of potential left in store" for most of our players, including every single one of our younger players.

[Paydro70]

Well I kind of responded to this in the other thread, but here you made a separate argument.

Yes, players can improve while injured. By no means can a player be said to have no "opportunities" because he was on the bench. The guy is still with the team, learning from coaches, watching film, attending practices, learning the scheme, getting used to his teammates and the lifestyle of the NBA, and at a very basic level, getting older and wiser. If a player tears his ACL, he doesn't just lock himself in a bubble for a year, then emerge exactly the same as he was the time before. He was watching and learning, and is not the same person he was before, even if his knee is fully recovered.

Of course it's not as good as playing, and it's not as likely to cause improvement as playing, but it's not UNlikely to make a big difference either. Look at TJ Ford... he spent a whole season after his rookie year rehabbing and came back as a better player. Sometimes losing time to injury means the player is never the same, because they're unhealthy. If they fully recover, they didn't just "lose" that year of development. It's not as good as if they played, but it's not the same as never having been in the NBA.

Sean May doesn't really need to improve much. If he came back and played as well as he did last year, I'd be thrilled, he'd be a very good player. His problem is that he can't stay on the court longer than 2 games before he hurts his knee again. If May plays again, and he's actually healthy, I think he'll be quite good. The odds that he does play again are slim, and the odds that he'll be healthy are slim-to-none, however.

[W_HAMILTON]

Then maybe Felton should not play for the rest of the season and maybe he will develop quicker, seeing as how letting him start 86% of his games and letting him play 35mpg over the course of his career ain't worked.

[larryfitz]

Earl Boykins> Jeff Mcinnis. End of thread