GT#43: NETS @ Grizzlies - 1/25 - 8:00pm on YES Network

[PetroNet]

I dont understand how even since PJ took over Marshon ONLY plays in the 4th quarter obviously he hasn't had a chance to play the rest of the game hes not gonna be hot right away, he could be a real spark off the bench if he got some decent consistent minutes even if it was like 2 minutes each quarter or something. u put him in for little stints if hes hot u leave him in if not take him out but give him some minutes prior.

i think some fans really just need to face the facts and realize brooks just isnt a good NBA, 5 on 5, team basketball player.

he isnt going to get minutes, because it isnt conducive to winning.

[NyCeEvO]

He a liability, in his last 13 games he has got into double figures once....

It's bad enough having Evans on the floor making it 4 vs 5 when we have the ball but for most of Jan we're getting little production from Wallace so it's basically 3 guys against 5 trying to score.

It makes things difficult.

1) you are incorrect, as he had 11 against philly

2) how many 4th option scorers are getting 10+ ppg?

He's not a liability because of his point total.

He's a liability because he's a complete non-threat offensively.

Teams basically don't need to guard Wallace. While I think it's more of our offensive sets that are keeping Wallace from slashing, he's basically been left to becoming a spot 3pt shooter and a garbage shot maker.

The guy takes 7.1 FGApg and has 3.0 FGMpg.

0.9 of his FGMpg are 3pt shots.

So for the entire time he's out there, he makes 1 three and 2 layups/dunks (or 1 layup/dunk and a 16-23ft jumpshot according to advanced stats) per game.

Even though someone like Kyle Korver isn't a great defender, you can't leave him for a second on offense.

Sure, his point total might not be the highest but the fact that he's a threat to score a 3 and he's known to do it a good clip makes his impact on a stretch offense pretty good.

Plus on top of his lack of offense to this team, his defensive play isn't elevating us to a new level. Lopez's rim protection and constant threat to block shots is serving as a greater weapon than Wallace's D on the team.

Yes, gets a steal every game and a block shot every other game, but it's not translating to good team defense.

He was signed to basically be the leader of our defense on the court and a guy to matchup well with the likes of Melo/LBJ/Pierce in the EC.

Wallace was injured for the first game against the Heat but played in our 2nd game against them. LBJ was "held" to 21pts on 8/15 shooting that night.

Wallace played in every game against NYK and was obviously Melo's primary defender. In the 4 games against the Knicks, Melo averaged 35ppg, has shot 49% from the field with a 59.1% 3PT% (13/22 3PTA/3PTM) and only has 8 turnovers in all 4 games.

Wallace was injured for the first game against Boston, but in the last two games Wallace did play in, Paul Pierce was held to 7/23 FG in both games combined.

While it's great that Pierce struggles against us, Pierce is 35 years old and 5 years Wallace's senior.

We want someone to be able to at least make life difficult for LBJ and Melo offensively and defensively and that's not happening with Wallace.

On offense, the LBJ and Melo would rarely need to pay attention to Wallace cuz he barely cuts to the rim anymore.

On defense, they don't really seem to have too much of a problem dealing with him.

Now, if we paid him to guard the best SFs in the East and they're still putting up good, efficient numbers on us and at the same time Wallace gives us crap on offense, why is he so important to our team success?

He's a liability right now and is not doing much for us overall in contributing to our success.

[MGrand15]

I dont understand how even since PJ took over Marshon ONLY plays in the 4th quarter obviously he hasn't had a chance to play the rest of the game hes not gonna be hot right away, he could be a real spark off the bench if he got some decent consistent minutes even if it was like 2 minutes each quarter or something. u put him in for little stints if hes hot u leave him in if not take him out but give him some minutes prior.

i think some fans really just need to face the facts and realize brooks just isnt a good NBA, 5 on 5, team basketball player.

he isnt going to get minutes, because it isnt conducive to winning.

You also need to face the facts and realize that just because you hate a certain play style doesn't mean it's completely useless. We have 2-3 perimeter players that can get to the rim consistently - Deron, Crash and Marshon. Taking him out of the rotation in favor of Watson, Bogans, Stackhouse is what leads to our 2nd unit being so easy to defend unless Blatche can score in ISOs.

For all the complaints about shot selection, he's still one of the more efficient players on the team while never getting enough consistent minutes to get a flow going. He gets to the line and gets to the rim - two incredibly valuable skills in the NBA.

Clearly you have a vision of how you want basketball to be played but all the stats say Marshon deserves minutes. It blows my mind that PJ does the same thing Avery did and only plays Marshon in the 4th after everything else clearly isn't working.

I really feel like PJ has taken quite a step back rotation wise recently. He's been playing Deron and Watson a ton together (terrible combination). He should've yanked Deron early this game since he was playing TERRIBLE. Humphries does some good things out there but he and Evans are redundant. Not playing Mirza this game was unacceptable - especially considering all the blown defensive assignments from the 4 spot.

[N Ireland Nets]

So whenever you guys are ready to accept that Wallace is a complete liability and isn't a elite defender or even close to it anymore, just let me no.....

PJ's rotations are a complete joke, Evans and Hump were horrible all of the 1st half and we were over 20 points down yet Teletovic didnt get a single minute of meaningful time.... a joke.

you are so overboard with wallace it isnt even funny. "a complete liability" dude get a clue. stackhouse is a complete liability. brooks is a complete liability. wallace is a net positive player. elite defender? no. worth 40 million? no. but he is a solid to good starting SF. and he is CERTAINLY better then stackhouse/bogans.

We arent going to get Rudy gay for the trash we have to trade. if we could, we would do it, as our FO loves rudy gay.

Dude get a clue?!?

What the hell you talking about, just because I see Wallace as a complete liability on the floor due to him having little to no impact on both ends of the floor means I'm allowed to be critical.

I'm allowed to call Wallace a negative asset due to his play, age and contract. I'm allowed to point out that Bogans and Johnson are having a bigger impact defensively on opposing small forwards than Wallace is.

If Wallace isn't cutting to the basket, which is understandable when your scoring 51% of your layups , while failing to stop the opposing small forward, then whats he doing for us?

Anyway, it seems the beat writers and NBA analyst's are onto Wallace now...

ZachLowe_NBA: So...when do we start talking about Gerald Wallace's season -- the first in a four-year, $40M deal?

Wallace's numbers have dropped across the board, ppg, rpg, free throw % and field goal %.

I fail to see what's wrong with what I'm saying. When someone is on the court and scores 1 point in 25 minutes theres something wrong and something needs to happen.

For January Wallace's stats, 5.9ppg, 2.8rpg, 2.3apg, 0.7blk, 1.0stl, 1.6pf, 1.1to shooting .372 in 24.9mins per game for January.

I never once said Bogans or Stackhouse are better than Wallace, show me where I did, I'm pointing out that Wallace is playing like complete trash and looks a shadow of his former self in his 1st year of a $40m contract which also cost us a high lotto pick.

[Paradise]

At this point, I can careless as long as he's playing good defense and motivating his teammates. A liability is someone who consistently kills the flow of the offense and defense in a game by game basis.

Jerry Stackhouse and Reggie Evans right now would be considered those. Not Wallace. I'm not going to kill him because he's making 40 million dollars. Might as well kill everyone else then too since they aren't averaging MVP like stats for their max deals.

Offense is the last thing that I'm worried about. Anyone can reinvent themselves offensively. Effort, defense, rebounding is what you can't teach and Wallace brings it.

[NyCeEvO]

Liability does not mean that you suck at every area of basketball.

Being a liability means that your services put the team at a disadvantage in a particular area.

Right now, due to the offensive system and his overall playing ability right now, he is currently a liability on offense.


But for argument's sake, let's say Gerald Wallace is completely removing himself being a factor on offense so that he can help out on the defensive end.

Where have you seen that defensive change individually or as a team?

He's not locking down or really even hindering the star players that need to be guarded. In fact, Chicago now are proving and Boston of a few years have proved that the best way to mitigate or neutralize the effect of star players like Melo and LBJ is not to have a great individual defender and so-so team defense. Having your team play great team defense through rotations, proper defensive spacing, and communication is way more effective against the stars of the NBA.

Maybe we need a Mike Malone to come in and teach us how to play defense, but right now Wallace's defense is just not really having an impact on our team defense. If he's not going to contribute on offense at least lead the defense. That's what we're paying him for.

[therealbig3]

There's no way to sugercoat it, Wallace was horrible in the Grizzlies game, and he's been horrible for quite a while now. He's NOT playing great, or even good, defense. Maybe slightly above average, because he still rotates well and is a good help defender, but he's also generally getting burned in terms of man defense, and he does not stick to shooters well at all. A lot of that is he likes to help off shooters and try to create TOs, but it also results in wide open looks when it doesn't work, and lately, it hasn't been working.

And he's been a huge offensive liability. I mean, it was discussed in the Knicks game...Keith **** ing Bogans was put in the game not because of defense (even though he was playing better defense than Wallace anyway), but because he was less of a liability on offense. Keith, the one trick pony that's not even good at his trick most of the time, Bogans was less of a liability than Wallace offensively. That's not a good thing.

I was just defending the guy a couple days ago, but it's getting pretty concerning just how bad he's looked recently. I really hope some of this is that he's just recovering from injury and that he'll play better...but he needs to shoot better from outside, finish A LOT better around the rim, and be a much more effective defensive player than he is right now, or else this contract is going to be A-Rod like.

[serp]

Wallace has been bad for a couple of games now nobody can deny that BUT he's far from out biggest problem. Besides the effort missing alot of times we are still missing a starting caliber PF/ backup C if you might want to try Blatche at PF AND a reliable shotmaker off the bench. Someone that is known to be a shooter/scorer . A guy like Reddick for example would be great. Someone that comes in and instantly is/can be a threat to score a couple of points and is also a threat from the ouside. We/I thought Marshon might be that but the only time Marshon hits shot is when he dribbled the ball 10-15 seconds before taking his shot .

[Marvin Martian]

I just checked Wallace's synergy stats on defense this season. Not only he is not elite on that end, it would fair to say that he is subpar.

[MGrand15]

I don't mind Crash starting but when we start playing him with too many non-shooters, things go badly. Deron's been struggling. Our PFs outside of Mirza cannot shoot at all. Lopez/Blatche don't stretch out the defense THAT much. Most of the time he's playing as the 3rd or arguably 4th non-shooter on the floor. That's a recipe for disaster.

If we played him at 3 with Mirza at 4 - it'd alleviate some of these concerns. If we played him at 4 with Bogans/JJ at the wings, it'd allow for much better balance on offense.

For the record - I'm fine with a grind-it-out starting lineup but after that, PJ has to do a better job of balancing the lineups. All of this wouldn't be a problem if Crash could make layups/was more efficient as the 4th option.

[therealbig3]

Deron actually hasn't been struggling, he's back to his Utah self in terms of his efficiency, since PJ took over. JJ has been pretty much the same player he's always been. Lopez is having a career year. Hump and Evans are Hump and Evans, and by virtue of the fact that they're being put in roles that they're not good enough for, they're our biggest problems at this point. But they're giving us what we expect...Wallace is the one that's been underachieving badly, and I don't even know if it's him underachieving, or if this is just him. He's actually shooting better than his career average from 3, he's craptastic at finishing around the rim, he's bricking a ton of his FTs when he actually does get to the line, and his defense has been poor (by his standards, simply average in general).

I mean, if we're going to give Deron, JJ, and Lopez crap when they play poorly...well, now that they're giving us the type of production we expected, the one guy who's been terrible all year and still hasn't turned it around is Wallace. He needs to be held accountable too.

[PetroNet]

Deron actually hasn't been struggling, he's back to his Utah self in terms of his efficiency, since PJ took over. JJ has been pretty much the same player he's always been. Lopez is having a career year. Hump and Evans are Hump and Evans, and by virtue of the fact that they're being put in roles that they're not good enough for, they're our biggest problems at this point. But they're giving us what we expect...Wallace is the one that's been underachieving badly, and I don't even know if it's him underachieving, or if this is just him. He's actually shooting better than his career average from 3, he's craptastic at finishing around the rim, he's bricking a ton of his FTs when he actually does get to the line, and his defense has been poor (by his standards, simply average in general).

I mean, if we're going to give Deron, JJ, and Lopez crap when they play poorly...well, now that they're giving us the type of production we expected, the one guy who's been terrible all year and still hasn't turned it around is Wallace. He needs to be held accountable too.

offensively, wallace is the same guy he has always been. he is at or above his career rate for finishing at the rim. his 3 point shooting is above his career average. His TS is down a bit, but still a very solid 53.0 %

defensively im not sure what all the beef is about. i think some of you either have unreal expectations or just havent really watched him as a player before this season. he is playing the same defense, or better, since his charlotte days. no, he isnt that same player he was in charlotte, but he is still an very good team defender and a very average man defender. he has a 104 DRtg this year and a 103 DRtg for his career.

his style of play is hurt on both ends. offensively he is the 4th option. you cant really expect him to average 11-13 ppg as a 4th option. what 4th option does that? defensively, he has to help..., a ton... because well, no one can keep their man in front of them on this team.

no, he hasnt been able to shut down lebron/carmello/durant. but again, he has never been a lock-down 1 on 1 guy.

wallace has been as expected this season. energy guy, hit some open 3's, slash recklessly to the rim, be all over the court defensively. miss 15-20 games due to injury, and struggle in antoher 5-10 games playing with injury.

if you want to say he is overpaid, that we made the worse trade in franchise history for him, that he is always injured, or that going forward it could get ugly. that is all true. but to say he has been a liability on the court is just laughable. especially when defensively our entire starting lineup outside maybe joe johnson has been worse. and offensively he has been our best option on the wing outside of joe johnson.

[vincecarter4pres]

Man you're turning into a Wallace apologist. Don't hand us that crap that his defense hasn't changed or that he's the same player he once was on offense. NyCe supplied a ton of stats which debunk all of that and the raw splits from the last month are absurdly awful.

Wallace has not been anything close to as expected this season. He has been absolute s*** outside maybe 10 games, mainly towards the beginning of the season.


And wait, he's overpaid, it was the worst trade in franchise history, is always injured and yet it's laughable to say he's a liability?

Dude, he's been a sack of garbage doused in kerosene ignited with a welding torch for literally 80% of the games he's played this season.

[PetroNet]

And wait, he's overpaid, it was the worst trade in franchise history, is always injured and yet it's laughable to say he's a liability?

i said, he hasnt been a liability ON the court. obviously when it comes to what we gave up, and what we paid for him, its beyond terrible.

but it is an immense overstatement the hate he is getting for being a liability. he isnt killing us on either end. he doesnt get alot of useage offensively and has been as good a floor spacer at the 3 as we have, as his 3 point shooting has been the 1 thing he has done well. defensively he hasnt been awful. you want awful, look at dwill, evans, hump, brooks, blatche, and in certain situations, lopez.

[vincecarter4pres]

The thing is he has been a liability on the court. You saying he hasn't does not change reality and fact.

I can say the taste of a tablespoon of salt is appetizing and delicious, that does not make my ludicrous statement true.

I mean you're telling us he's been a good floor spacer? Are you taking the pot?

And trying to justify his **** defense because of other **** defenders isn't helping your case. It's like telling someone what a great car a Ford Pinto is in comparison to a Yugo, a broke down mid 80's Hyundai, a Ford Taurus with a blown engine and a AMC Gremlin. Those cars being even worse does not make your piece of trash vehicle a good one.