spinedoc wrote:richboy wrote:
You agree now I guess. I swear a year ago you were saying the exact opposite. Talking about how Rashard played like Tmac. That his lack of post touches would not be a problem.
The only way you force a team to guard Rashard with a SF is if you have a PF that can take advantage in the post against a smaller defender. The problem is how many teams have 2 bigs capable of doing that. You have him at SF and Battie at PF teams could still play Rashard as the second post player because Battie has little post game.
No, I said Rashard reminded me of Tmac, not that he played like him. If Tmac was bigger, I'd imagine he'd be like Lewis and vice versa. It was a bad analogy. I know Tmac is a more athletic and dynamic player, but their jumpshots look similar, and sometimes their drives to the hole do as well. I also added that they even have the same knock against them, that they settle for the jumper too much. It doesn't matter now, and it was lost on you, thats ok.
The lack of post touches your talking about is that I don't think Lewis needs to camp out on the low block to be successful like you do. He can post up guys farther out, and you can run iso's for him to take advantage of the mismatches. And, you don't have to have a pf that plays in the post all the time in order to do that either. A pf that can take his man away from the hoop will have the same desired effect as well. We just need a pf that will command the attention of the other teams four though. But you keep referring to Shard as being the second best post player all the time, but you keep missing the point, and make incorrect assumptions of what that even means. His ability to post up has nothing to do with him having to play pf in order to take advantage of that. Also, if he is posting his man, he can easily pass over him and hit the cutter or kick it out for a mid-range shot. It doesn't have to be back out to the three point line. Battie can hit the open jumper, and Dwight can cut to the hoop off of that play too. I guess I just don't understand where your coming from with your analysis. It seems so pigeon holed and constrained. There is so much more you can do with him then you give him credit for imo.
Its not lost on me. You said Rashard would explode like Tmac. That he played similar to Tmac
Really this is a joke. Its like we need all this things right to make things work well for Rashard. Greatness doesn't have excuses. Like I always say the definition of greatness is being great despite when you could have opportunity for excuses.
A PF that makes jump shots doesn't do the job completely. If you was that afraid of Rashard in the post you could still defend the PF with a SF since he going to be hanging on the perimeter anyway.
Your missing the point. I think the problem is you look at it in the eyes of lets do what we have to do to assure success for Rashard. The problem is Rashard is not the best player on this team or most talented. Coaches run the plays that have the best chances of success. Your force feeding the ball to Rashard in these situations. Perfect example. Lets get the ball to Rashard in the post and he can kick out to Tony Battie. Rashard isn't that good of a passer out of the post for one. If your SVG are you running get the ball to Rashard so he can kick to Tony Battie plays. Battie who shot around 32% on midrange jump shots his last season. Dwight one of the most efficient post players in the league. Will get double teamed a lot more than Rashard. Instead of kicking it to Tony Battie your kicking it to Rashard Lewis. You turned Dwight into a cutter. If your SVG do you want Dwight cutting or you want Rashard cutting.
To me it sounds like you should have issues with SVG play calling. That you think he should be running more plays for Rashard Lewis and less for Dwight. This of course would make you feel better. Instead of just admitting that Rashard was not a good fit because a big part of his game can not be taken advantage of because of Dwight. Instead of a compliment to Dwight from the perimeter I guess what you wanted last summer was to transform Dwight into a weakside cutter.
One thing should be said. Rashard is not a great post player. He a great post up player in comparison to most SFs. The Sonics tried the whole build an offense around Rashard post ability stuff and for the most part it was a failure. Rashard in the post did nothing but help himself score. He couldn't help make anyone better because he not much of a passer. Anytime someone wants to shut him down they send a double team and he struggles to find the open man. If I'm the opposing team I would love to see more post ups for Rashard and less pick-n-rolls and post ups for Dwight.
Catledge wrote:richboy wrote: MP is not good enough to make statements like well its okay if we overpay.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we should pay whatever it takes to get MP specifically. I'm saying that right now it would be better for us to pay somebody a little more than he's worth -- or in the case of a James Posey, give him a year more than we would want to at his age -- in order to give us an upgrade over Bogans/Evans.
As to MP specifically, I agree that he's not a good ball handler and can be a bit of a head case, but he's taller, longer, stronger, and more athletic than either Bogans or Evans. I think that's precisely what we need at the two, and why I'm also a big fan of Childress and Posey. None of the three would be a perfect fit -- Childress is limited by his outside shot, Posey by his ball handling and age, Pietrus by his ball handling and basketball IQ -- but I'd rather spend a little extra for one of them than be stuck with guys whom we know are bad ball handlers and not very good defenders.
This team is not a Mickael Pietrus away from beating the Pistons or Celtics. As much as you want to get your man you could be looking to dump him if he doesn't improve his game. We alrealdy drafted Lee and now we would give the entire MLE for someone to do what we hope Lee is going to do. Although at this point Mickael has been more of a 3 million per year player than a 6.
Regarding JR Smith. Its a mystery to Nugget fans why he doesn't play more. The book on Smith is well his defense isn't that great. Yet the Nuggets played better defense with him in the game and his opponents PER was right at league average. Some say its his shot selection. Yet he shot 46% from the field despite taking 5 3 point shots per game. He shot 53% in the playoffs. His shots per minute is not that high either. Some say well he doesn't pass the ball well. He isn't Tracy McGrady with making decisions. Fact is he only had 39 passing turnovers for the season and 3 assist to 1 passing turnover ratio. Really Smith lack of minutes is more a result to the fact that the Nuggets don't like Iverson at the PG.
