MaxwellSmart wrote:Well, at least Marbury can penetrate/drive to the hoop--which is something I have NEVER seen Eddie House do.
He'd be the middle-ground that cassell was supposed to be if cassell wasn't 40 years old.
He can shoot the long ball unlike Rondo, 35.7% from 3 in 07, 35.4% from 3 in 05, 37.8% from 3 in 08
Note - all that on bad teams. Expect those numbers to go up as a bench guy on a team that gets open shots.
And he gets to the rim, unlike house. a true shooting percentage of 52% isn't great for your career, but it's better than House' 49% - at least considering circumstance. Marbury has been a playmaker for most teams he's been on just by structure. House on the other hand has been on teams like Boston (Big 3), Sacramento (peja, vlade, webber IIRC) and New Jersey (Vince Carter), so expect a hike in TS% if he played House' role.
He can bring the ball up the floor, he's played point guard his whole career. It's a question whether he can run the Celtics' offense, but somehow I think it's not that hard if you put him in with the big 3 and run the offense through the post. The fact that he can handle the ball well enough to break a press is plenty of reason he'd be worth bring in.
His main problem the last few years isn't that he's a cancer, it's that he's been injury prone. In 05 he played all 82 games and, yeah, they only won 33 games, but that was with him as the franchise player and no good basketball players on the team. KG's last year in minnesota, HE only won 33 games. Think about that for a second. Bad teams aren't expected to win.
In 06, the knicks were by no means good, but they DID string together a 6 game win streak with marbury, and two games after that win streak is when he went down and that was when thier season truly ended. They finished with 24 wins.
In 07 he played 14 more games than the season before and they won 33 again.
In 08 he played 21 games and they won 24 again.
He's not exactly a perfect point guard but he's still an effective player who can give you post ups, penetration, and outside shooting. If he does sign with boston, it means he's ALREADY prepared to come off the bench. And at age 32, he's not really that much more washed up than the big 3, though the injuries are the main thing. Since he is in fact healthy, hey man, i say go for it. I mean, for a backup, do you need chris paul here? When you're getting a guy who, ideally, can give you production similar to a manu ginobili type of effectiveness off the bench, i say you take it.
And defensively, he's underated. yeah, there's been stretches where his defense is just plain bad, but i've also seen him play VERY good defense, and with his body, he's not exactly about to be posted by bigger guards, either.
And his assists. I know people treat him like an allen iverson, IE a pure scorer who can only pass out to contested jumpers, but much moreso than an AI, he CAN run a pick and roll semi decently, him and Kurt Thomas had chemistry going back in the day from what i recall.
