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how should we judge felton for the rest of the season? what is the most important criteria in your opinion.

the gig is all his. he has no excuses. he has nobody to bail him out. sink or swim or bob up and down flailing around like a wounded walrus.

this is not a thread to discuss the past. this is not a thread to discuss brevin knight or jeff mcinnis. this is not a thread to discuss chris paul. this is not a thread to discuss sam's coaching (or lack of).

this is a thread to talk about what specific thigs are we looking for from felton for the next two months, specific things to give us the best idea of whether or not we should continue to build this team around felton at the point or find another point in the summer.

I went with the leadership option.

The thing that I always look for in a PG and have been wanting to see from Felts is poise, leadership, decision making, control and maturity.

He needs to show me serious improvement in at LEAST 3 of those 5 things over these next 2 months to convince me to invest in him for the future.

Other wise I am all about Rose and DJ come draft day and trading Felts the hell out of here.

Not breaking the franchise record for consecutive losses?

Doing better than Jeff McInnis?

PS - if it's more "bob up and down flailing around like a wounded walrus," there will be plenty of excuses.

normally i would say wins vs losses, but at this point in the season (with wallace hurt and subtle tank mode commencing) i dont think its fair to put all of that on him. therefore i am really looking to see how he steps up as a leader and if he can keep this team playing competitive ball and keep the team from falling apart.

i would also like to see the team feature the pick and roll a little more to showcase rays best talent, splitting defenders, getting into the paint, and putting pressure on the defense.

Good question but hard to answer.
1-can't go wins/loses because very rough schedule and I think Crash is done, so unfair considering not at full strength
2-points/Fg% is good, but could be misleading.
3-leadership is very important from him, but very hard to judge
4- assist/turnover is a very good scale (my vote)
5-teammates stats are going to be misleading, because without Crash and even McMinus everyones's stats should get better because of the playing time increase. Hammer will raise his numbers, because instead of getting 15 min he will be playing 25-35, Duds better get alot more time so his numbers will go up, and EO well who knows about him!

I want less forced shots (smarter shots) and really want him to try and feed his teammates and set them up!

fatlever wrote:normally i would say wins vs losses, but at this point in the season (with wallace hurt and subtle tank mode commencing) i dont think its fair to put all of that on him. therefore i am really looking to see how he steps up as a leader and if he can keep this team playing competitive ball and keep the team from falling apart.

i would also like to see the team feature the pick and roll a little more to showcase rays best talent, splitting defenders, getting into the paint, and putting pressure on the defense.

I agree here....
I just want to see him keep us in games...why don't someone keep track of how many freaking passes he gives to guys in position and they just miss open shoots....that happens a lot more than him not making a play...
But I really don't know how much of anything can be seen...considering the circumstances...I think most here have already made up their minds...everyone seems to look at every play for Ray but not anyone else...so at least leadership would not hing on every single time he touches the ball...

SamBone wrote:Good question but hard to answer.
1-can't go wins/loses because very rough schedule and I think Crash is done, so unfair considering not at full strength
2-points/Fg% is good, but could be misleading.
3-leadership is very important from him, but very hard to judge
4- assist/turnover is a very good scale (my vote)
5-teammates stats are going to be misleading, because without Crash and even McMinus everyones's stats should get better because of the playing time increase. Hammer will raise his numbers, because instead of getting 15 min he will be playing 25-35, Duds better get alot more time so his numbers will go up, and EO well who knows about him!

I want less forced shots (smarter shots) and really want him to try and feed his teammates and set them up!

1 - Agree
2 - Agree, but he is a scoring PG so this isn't to be overlooked, he needs to take smart shots and make his open jumpers (SET YOUR FEET MAN!)
3 - I voted for leadership. He did that last night in Boston and if he does this from here on out we'll be in most of our games. This is what defines a top notch PG IMO.
4 - Also very important, and I think he's always had a good assist/to ratio. At least this year he has.
5 - This is a tough one because he does get guys open shots all the time. The only ones ever making them though are J-Rich and Okafor (dunks).

like DaBassSource said, how many times does he put guys in position to make a play but they fumble the ball, get blocked, or clank a brick off the iron? This team is not offensively gifted and the only reliable scorers we have are J-Rich and Wallace (if it's not a jumper).

What I would love to see them do is put 3 guys on one side of the floor and run a pick and roll with Okafor to the rim. Then if anyone else converges and Okafor's not open he can pass it back out to the perimeter. Felton is actually one of the better guys in the NBA in getting by defenders and into the paint. We don't even set good screens half the time but where he fails is when he gets into the paint and 2 of our guys are crowding in there bringing all of the defenders.

I have faith, I've always liked Felton's style of play and if he plays like he did last night the rest of the season I think everyone (except maybe Hamilton) will be committed to Felton as the starting PG of the future for us. This is really our first true chance to get to see him play PG over a long stretch.

Somebody should start a thread, titled "20 game countdown" or something like that, ranking each Felton game in a rough way. To determine if he has done enough to start next year.

Obviously the Celtics game was good for him, but not so great for the team (we lost). However, given how the bigs played, I can't honestly blame that on Felton.

So I would rank the Celtics game (scale of 1 to 10):

Celtics - 7 (kept us competitive, put us in position to win with better play from others, however didn't manage any heroics).


I guess my rough scale would be:

1 - made us lose a won game
3 - helped us lose a winnable game
5 - no positive or negative, solid backup PG play (not starter play)
7 - Decent starter play, kept us in it, no major mistakes, positive contribution
9 - Excellent play, played great and helped us win or allowed us to stay competitive where we should have been blown out
10 - Heroics - won a lost game for us

After 20 games I would like to see a bunch of 7's and 6's and 8's.

They should never have replaced Brevin Knight with McInnis. And if only the FO had had the foresight to draft Paul, the coaching staff would be looking a whole lot better to everyone right now.

It looked a whole lot like the first 1.5 months of the season. Felton "playing well." Richardson scoring a lot, by taking an almost equal number of shots as points scored. Carroll playing well, which is more looking due to him getting more minutes when Felton plays at PG, as opposed to Felton doing much to make him better. And most of the rest of the team turning in average or below-average performances. We shot poorly as a team. Just about the only difference was that back then we scored 92-93ppg, and we scored 100 last night.

My measure is whether or not he makes his team mates better, and the answer last night was no.

W_HAMILTON wrote:It looked a whole lot like the first 1.5 months of the season. Felton "playing well." Richardson scoring a lot, by taking an almost equal number of shots as points scored. Carroll playing well, which is more looking due to him getting more minutes when Felton plays at PG, as opposed to Felton doing much to make him better. And most of the rest of the team turning in average or below-average performances. We shot poorly as a team. Just about the only difference was that back then we scored 92-93ppg, and we scored 100 last night.

My measure is whether or not he makes his team mates better, and the answer last night was no.

Watch the damn game...Oak was complete trash last night....Ray made plays all night, we missed alot of easy shots...

And that's always the story, isn't it?

W_HAMILTON wrote:And that's always the story, isn't it?

I have to seriously question your standards of point guard play since, strictly speaking, a current top-5 hall-of-fame point guard who happened to play much of the season in New Jersey would be, by your standards, relegated to the bench or worse.

New Jersey has a lousy coach. Kidd did not make his teammates better (outside of RJeff, who is the new go-to guy and focus of the offense), and Kidd certainly didn't help his team win a lot of games that were winnable. Kidd didn't show a lot of leadership, and in fact demanded and received a mid-season trade. Ergo, Kidd is trash?

C'mon. Just try to look at Felton's play a little more broadly. Just try.

I'd like to see a slight increase in his teammate's stats to gauge his success as a PG. Assuming he plays point for the rest of the way and we don't start Boykins with Ray at the SG he needs to prove he can elevate the guys around him. Point guards run the offense and deliver the ball in position to score or make a move, if Ray can't do that we either need another prospect altogether or at least a SG with above-average passing ability ala Roy to offset that deficiency.

PGs should always be judged on their ability to run an effective offense. We can all agree, I would assume, that McInnis did not run the offense effectively so even if Ray is only effective in stretches there should still be a statistical upturn. All the good PGs in this league, I guess Baron Davis is debatable, make their team better. If Ray can't do that he's a combo guard and we need to move forward realizing that and draft accordingly.

I honestly believe we released McInnis because the front office knows Sam would give him PT otherwise. This is their way of forcing Ray into a sink or swim situation because we have a realistic shot at Rose/Bayless/Mayo and the decision between the three would be partially based on what Ray is as a player. If he's incapable of being the floor general we go for Rose or perhaps Bayless, if he's still what we consider the future of that position that opens the door for Mayo.

good points about rose, bayless and mayo.

Uh, no? What the hell else is there to judge him by?

You give almost anyone 43 minutes, let them do far and away the majority of the ball-handling and decision-making, and let them shoot 17 times ... do you think they're going to give you 4pts and 2 assists in return?

He's going to get his "numbers," especially when you start waiving what little competition he has. If you give him 43 minutes and 17 shots and let him do the majority of the ball-handling, and he gives you 4pts and 2 assists in return, then his ass needs to have done to him the same thing that was done to McInnis.

He needs to be judged by whether or not he makes his team and his team mates better, and more importantly, whether or not he can produce at a higher level than any other run-of-the-mill PG would be able to if they were placed on this team and given the same sort of prominent role.

We've had PGs that made their team mates better. We've passed on PGs that make their team mates better. That's what this team needs. And that's what Felton should be judged by.

If he doesn't make his team mates better, what good is he? If he can't run our offense and make the players around him better, what good is he? Lots of PGs could come in and duplicate his numbers if they were given the same sort of role. So what is the purpose in keeping him?

I voted for option 3.

I look forward to seeing what Vincent does the rest of the way (If Ray is a crummy PG after 10 games and Boykins starts at PG..wow.)

9 home games left, if we can stay competitive in road games with Felton at the point I think that would be a good sign. Either way, going to be good to see what he's capable/incapable of.

I'm just happy we're finally doing this. We should've started the season off doing this rather than waiting till it's 3/4th's of the way done.

You can argue with Hamilton till you're blue in the face, he's made his decision and he's not going back on it. If Ray plays well and wins us a few games you just won't see him on the boards. As soon as he has a bad game there will be a thread.

It would be interesting to see a stat for number of times Felton delivered the ball to an open player and they missed the shot or fumbled in the paint. Or got a point blank shot, got fouled, and missed one or both FT's.

We played a competitive game with Boston and really had a shot to win it down the stretch. But our best player is gone, we have the worst FT shooting team in the NBA, and our bench is I believe the 28th or 30th ranked team in the NBA as far as production, yet we were very in this against the 2nd best team in the East with 3 all-stars....

Consistancy is important, so I hope to see more like this and against the middle of the pack and below teams we should be able to come away with some wins. Of course at this point I'm not sure that's such a good thing.

Like usual, you're wrong. I haven't made up my mind, you have. Even though time and time again Felton has disappointed as our starting PG, you refuse to admit as much.

If Felton ever played like the player some of you delusional people think he is, I would change my mind. But he hasn't, so there's no reason for me to do so. If he is the same player as always, that is unable to run our offense and make our team mates better, I will never approve of him as our starting PG.

PS - look at all the excuses for that game, and that was a game where Felton "played well." When the team sucks with another guy at PG, it's the PG's fault. When the team sucks with Felton at PG, it's everyone's fault but his. Yeah, we get it.

You're right, it's Felton's fault that allowed the Celtics to shoot 48% and score 108pts. Had he been able to stop all of those Ray Allen 3pters and Kevin Garnett Jumpers we would've won.

So going back on topic, how do you actually think we should judge him now that he's starting at PG? Is your vote wins and losses then?