J. O'Neal vs Bosh

[Filippo]

With the TJ for jermaine trade being imminent, I would like to see how bosh and oneal compare to one another and how their skillsets will mesh together in Toronto.

[Baller 24]

O'neal is a very good player when healthy, and in his prime he was a top 3 PF in the game, behind Duncan and KG. It actually wasn't that long ago, I think 2005 was the last season he actually put up good stats, but the season before that he also led a Pacers team to win 61 games which was the best in the league, while also getting 4th in MVP voting.

[Silk Wilkes]

A lot of people had agreed a while ago that Bosh moved past O'Neal a little while ago. However, they're both excellent players. O'Neal is definitely the better defensive player but I personally think Bosh is better offensively. It's should be a nice combo because their games complement well and both are very nice shot blockers.

[CBS7]

Bosh is by far the better player right now. Also I never would have called JO a top 3 PF in the game.

JO will do a good job stepping in at C and improving the Raptors' rebounding and defense, and allowing Bosh to go back to his natural position at PF. He won't have much of an impact on offense, though.

[Kosta]

Bosh is by far the better player right now. Also I never would have called JO a top 3 PF in the game.

JO will do a good job stepping in at C and improving the Raptors' rebounding and defense, and allowing Bosh to go back to his natural position at PF. He won't have much of an impact on offense, though.

Right, a 20+ ppg player for his career won't have much impact on offense..

O'Neal won't have to force anything in the Raptors offense, playing off of Bosh is going to free him up so much more than he's had in Indiana the last several years.

[Red Robot]

Bosh in my mind is the far superior offensive player. He shoots well, gets to the basket, and draws fouls.

O'neal's impact will be mostly on defense. He's still a good defensive player, a shot blocker, and something the Raptors were definitely missing. He's going to be able to cover for Bosh a little, and unlike with Nesterovic, Brezec, and Bargnani, nobody's going to need to cover for him. He could help the rebounding a little, but he's a comparable rebounder to Bosh and Nesterovic.

O'neal has never been an especially efficient offensive player, but last year he went from a key contributor to a drag on the Pacer offense. Instead of featuring him in the offense, the Raptors should just let him get what comes easily. If he doesn't get his efficiency up, he will hurt more than he helps. I agree that he should have a much easier time of it next to Bosh. And he's certainly not useless on offense. He can score and the other team will need to account for that. But it's important that the Raptors give him a role and don't let him continue shooting .350 on jumpshots or taking looks away from Bosh & co.

I think it's a really good situation for O'Neal.

[CBS7]

Bosh is by far the better player right now. Also I never would have called JO a top 3 PF in the game.

JO will do a good job stepping in at C and improving the Raptors' rebounding and defense, and allowing Bosh to go back to his natural position at PF. He won't have much of an impact on offense, though.

Right, a 20+ ppg player for his career won't have much impact on offense..

O'Neal won't have to force anything in the Raptors offense, playing off of Bosh is going to free him up so much more than he's had in Indiana the last several years.

He's had 4 20 ppg seasons. He's a 18.5 ppg (taking out his first four years) player that has been incredibly inefficient throughout his career.

In 03-04, stacked Pacers team that won 61 games, with Artest, Harrington, and Miller, he shoots 43%. His true impact has always been on the defensive end, he's very overrated offensively. A guy with a career 45.9 FG%, who has never shot above 48.6%, and has shot 43.9%, 43.6%, 47.2%, 45.2%, and 43.4% the past 5 years isn't going to come in and have a huge impact on offense.

[Kosta]

Bosh is by far the better player right now. Also I never would have called JO a top 3 PF in the game.

JO will do a good job stepping in at C and improving the Raptors' rebounding and defense, and allowing Bosh to go back to his natural position at PF. He won't have much of an impact on offense, though.

Right, a 20+ ppg player for his career won't have much impact on offense..

O'Neal won't have to force anything in the Raptors offense, playing off of Bosh is going to free him up so much more than he's had in Indiana the last several years.

He's had 4 20 ppg seasons. He's a 18.5 ppg (taking out his first four years) player that has been incredibly inefficient throughout his career.

In 03-04, stacked Pacers team that won 61 games, with Artest, Harrington, and Miller, he shoots 43%. His true impact has always been on the defensive end, he's very overrated offensively. A guy with a career 45.9 FG%, who has never shot above 48.6%, and has shot 43.9%, 43.6%, 47.2%, 45.2%, and 43.4% the past 5 years isn't going to come in and have a huge impact on offense.

He's never had an option like Chris Bosh to play alongside with, from what I remember he was the number 1 option on offense since '01 for the Pacers, even with Reggie and Rose, he still averaged the most points. And neither of those guys were of the offensive caliber of a Chris Bosh at that point in their careers. Don't underestimate his ability to get to the line either, not including last season he put up, 6.5, 7.2, 8.9, 5.9, 6.6 FTA the 5 season prior. His TS% is well over 50% for his career. I expect those percentages to improve as a 2nd option.

[CBS7]

Yeah, but how much? I can see him shoot 46-47% but I don't expect him to start shooting 50% all of a sudden.

[Kosta]

Yeah, but how much? I can see him shoot 46-47% but I don't expect him to start shooting 50% all of a sudden.

I think 46-47% is a reasonable expectation, I could very well see him reaching near his career best of 48 or so, he's never reached 50, depening on how much of a role he has on offense, I wouldnt say it's out of the question. He's not the go-to guy anymore, he's going to have one of the best playmaking PG's in basketball feeding him the ball, and Mitchell's system is predicated on ball movement, so I expect him to develop better shot selection. Keep in mind, I don't think he's going to be a 20 point scorer for us, I'm thinking 16 maybe 17 points a game. This also gives him the chance to focus even more on the defensive side of things. And this also helps out Chris Bosh a great deal, since Bosh became the number one guy on the Raptors, the best second option hes had was probably an aging Jalen Rose. He's never had this kind of caliber player to play alongside with. At least not since he has broken out and become an all-star/1st option. I'm not coutning Vince Carter because he's wasn't the main guy back then.

[canguy20m]

2005 wasn't his last good year
2006/2007 (the season before this one) he was a 19.4/10 player (in about 35 mpg) and he also got almost 3 bpg.

last season the only time he was really healthy and didn't miss every 2nd or 3rd game (the month before he went to the dl) he averaged 19/8 almost 3 bpg and shot .485.

[tsherkin]

JO probably won't even play more than 30 ppg, so projecting 20 ppg out of him is a bit foolish.

Still, while he's traditionally been a fairly inefficient scoring weapon, he does project as having value on offense for Toronto if he's as healthy as he is saying. Aside from the defense and rebounding he'll bring, having a guy who knows what it's like to score down in the post is still a positive and if he's shooting 46, 47%, that's comparable efficiency to a good wing scorer.

If we can get him something like 12-15 shots per game, that'll be just fine. If he's getting 12 shots a game like he did this year when he was on the floor, and shooting 47% or so, that's 5.64 FGM per game and he'll probably add another 3 ppg on FTs. So that's around 14 ppg.

14 ppg on that kind of efficiency is acceptable as a reasonable second option, especially when he's drawing defenders closer to the paint and is an excellent dump option for guys cutting and slashing through the paint or getting there off of screens.

And JO with Calderon? He'll probably sidescreen with him a lot and he can hit that mid-range jumper (likes it TOO much, actually) and he can roll well enough if he's healthy, so that might help boost his efficiency. When was the last time he played with a really GOOD point guard?

Jamaal Tinsley has been on that roster for too long and other than that, he had Jalen Rose and Travis Best. Not exactly high-value offensive threats. Calderon will be the best point guard he's played alongside since becoming a significant offensive threat, and since our system does tend to emphasize bigs who can shoot that 17-footer, I think he'll be fine in Toronto offensively.

He won't HAVE to bang too much, because we'll be looking for shots for Bosh, for Calderon (popping, getting to the rim around screens), shots for Kapono on kick-outs... O'neal won't have to spend too much energy trying to create shots, just taking what comes in the offense. That'll make it easier on him than it has been and the Raptors pass well enough, so that should help as well.

IF he's healthy, he'll be fine until we trade him to take value from his expiring deal.

[CBS7]

2005 wasn't his last good year
2006/2007 (the season before this one) he was a 19.4/10 player (in about 35 mpg) and he also got almost 3 bpg.

last season the only time he was really healthy and didn't miss every 2nd or 3rd game (the month before he went to the dl) he averaged 19/8 almost 3 bpg and shot .485.

He also shot 43.6%. That is just terrible. The rebounding, nice, shotblocking, great, defense, also good. But him shooting 43.6% is just terrible.

I agree with tsherkin, that is the type of production I'm expecting from him. 14-15 a game, shooting 46-47%.

[zhangjiawei]

For Toronto last season , they lost Gabajosa and play AB at 5 , so they were weak at defending the paint... They had to use Rasho more since Jan, and Moon at 3 instead of Kapono.

Now, JO once was a defender around 2003-2005, could replace Rasho well, and maybe best defender of history of Toronto .... Both JO and Bosh move smothly and could make mid-range jumpers. They will be good partners if JO keeps healthy, on the D end.

For offence, Toronto has played a V offence since 2006-07.Always, shooters at the 3pt line of baseline to space the paint, Bosh and Jose/ TJ pick and roll in the high post, then the play begun. It's something popular in Euro , which needs simply shooters, big guys with speed and great pg.
Suns also ran the play in last 4 years...JO will not get so many chances to waste as in Toronto...

[og15]

I just wish he didn't like his jumpshot so much and was an efficient scorer. I'd agree that maybe 1-3 years he was a Top 5 PF, but I've had Brand over him since as long as I can remember, and while we'll hear how Dirk can't defend like him, Dirk's a so vastly superior offensively, and impacts his team more. Dirk has been better than him for a decent amount of time too. Of course now, there's a lot of guys we would put over him, but injuries is why.

His defense should be big for the Raptors though, I really like that from him.