corona wrote:as good as he wants to be.
george karl's been that hard nosed coach for him, and it seems to be paying off. karl doesn't play him if he doesn't work hard in practice, doesn't play defense or is too crazy with his shot selection. i think a lot of you guys are living in the past with your critiques of him.
denver's defense is better with him on the court than without. he's clearly become far more alert this season, his defensive energy is there consistently and he doesn't blow that many rotations.
offensive decision making has also improved tremendously. he's honestly the best passer out of the pick and roll on the nuggets. will still force shots and drives that aren't there from time to time, particularly after he makes a couple...but they also go in, and there's tons of talented players that do the same and are hailed for it.
has a very good stepback midrange jumpshot. i believe he's shooting nearly 50% from that 15-22 foot range this season. also have to consider that's not what he's out there for. karl has exactly 1 play for smith, used every other game...and it's for either a 3 or a alleyoop from iverson (depending on how the opposition plays the off-ball pick). they don't need him to be rip hamilton, they need him to spread the court and make the defense pay for doubling iverson/melo.
he shoots denver into far more games than he shoots them out of. denver's typically down by 8-10 points when jr enters near the end of the 1st quarter (thanks to anthony carter). a good portion of the time, he's the catalyst for why the team goes onto win games...and you rarely do you look back and say "well, if jr didn't go 3/15 and shoot us out of the game, we could have won"
for kicks...if you look at per48 scoring stats after the all-star break, he's 5th...behind kobe, bron, dirk & stoudemire. yea yea yea, its a per minute stat....but scoring 16 points in 22 minutes a night is no joke. kid can put the ball in the hole. he's had more 20+ scoring games for a player with 0 starts than anyone else in the league. he's more than a 6th man, and he should start for denver. its frustrating that karl has a love affair with an old player who spent last year in europe.
if he got 35 minutes a night for denver, he'd be a 20 point per game scorer with 4 boards and 3 assists on pretty darn good overall efficiency. if he got 35 minutes a night for most other teams (except sloan)...he'd probably score more (because melo/ai shoot more than any other combo in the league)
Agreed 100% - I think he's really matured quite a bit this year. Yes he still jacks up some bad shots, but even though he's scoring at a pretty ridiculous pace (30.4 pts/48, good for 7th in the league) he's scoring very efficiently overall (.600 TS%, higher than some other very efficient scorers like Kobe Bryant, .576 TS%, Monta Ellis, .581 TS%, etc.). People forget that the guy is only 22, and is surrounded by not the greatest role models when it comes to shot-selection. I'm not a big George Karl fan, but he does seem to be a positive influence when it comes to making JR smarten up.
With that said, I don't know if his future is really in Denver, as he is a bit redundant on a team with Iverson and Melo as volume shooters, and George Karl seems to have a bit of conflict with him. Denver needs a PG - I'd love to see the Raps try to get JR in a S&T for TJ, though most Raps fans wouldn't agree, and I suspect most Denver fans wouldn't eithe.
