Trevor Booker starting permanently could fix this team

[Dark Faze]

It's a talent issue as much as a coaching issue. We have 9 crappy players right now. Well 8 crappy players and one that's struggling but we do have hope for (Beal).

But to excuse Witt because of a lack of talent is a mistake. He's in over his head. Has been the whole time, but standards are so low right now, he's been fortunate enough to remain employed for nearly two years now.

Right now being in the East is really masking how bad we really are. IMO in the West, were a 50 loss team. Were basically Portland of last year (33-49). A decent starting 5 with no depth whatsoever. Now a good GM like Neil Olshey was able to add a starting quality C and add depth and the Blazers have made an amazing turnaround. But instead of having a guy like Aldridge coming off a down year, we've got the fragile Nene who probably isn't going to rebound to play 36 minutes a night going forward. And while Olshey was wise enough to let a non-defensive big like J.J. Hickson go and replaced him with Robin Lopez, I doubt Ernie would have the foresight to do the same with Marcin Gortat. Plus Olshey already had his best 4 players locked under contract. We have Ariza, Gortat & Booker all as free agents (3 of our top 6 guys).

I already see extensions coming for Ernie & Witt. The bar is just set too low to expect anything else. But next year will be interesting. It's going to cost a pretty penny this off-season just to maintain status quo. As the East begins to get better and guys like Nene & Gortat decline while Ariza is no longer playing for a contract, the glow of being a playoff team in the East may wear off quickly next season.

oh no doubt, I fully expect the East to be much more competitive next year.

The Sixers and Bucks will probably be adding an all-star via the draft. The Bucks will add one of Smart, Wiggins, Jabari to the roster with the way things are looking. You can basically lock them into a playoff spot next year. Same thing with the Sixers who are far below the cap already with a ton of expirings. They are going to add Noel and a top 5 pick alongside quality free agents and MCW. Playoff team.

The Cavs will be a playoff team with them clearly using whatever resources they have to get better in the short term. Playoff team with Deng surely. Other moves rumored by the deadline.

The Bulls will get Rose back.

Add Marcus Smart and a healthy Tobias Harris to the Magic and well...welp

This just isn't the year for a lameduck coach and GM to make long term decisions. Ted is nuts.

[dckingsfan]

I don't know if it's my lyin' eyes/selective memory or small sample size
but it seems to me that Book has been more reliable in hitting his mid-range J.
I admit that I still cringe when he does it but it's said that he has put in time
working on it so it may be that that work is paying off. That always was
a major hole in his game.

18/30 in has last 4 games - and they had to run a double team on him yesterday.

[dobrojim]

I don't know if it's my lyin' eyes/selective memory or small sample size
but it seems to me that Book has been more reliable in hitting his mid-range J.
I admit that I still cringe when he does it but it's said that he has put in time
working on it so it may be that that work is paying off. That always was
a major hole in his game.

18/30 in has last 4 games - and they had to run a double team on him yesterday.

His shooting overall has tended to be reasonably efficient. I was talking more specifically
about his shooting outside of the paint, his face up J when he's not guarded up to
18-20 ft.

[JAR69]

I don't know if it's my lyin' eyes/selective memory or small sample size
but it seems to me that Book has been more reliable in hitting his mid-range J.
I admit that I still cringe when he does it but it's said that he has put in time
working on it so it may be that that work is paying off. That always was
a major hole in his game.

18/30 in has last 4 games - and they had to run a double team on him yesterday.

His shooting overall has tended to be reasonably efficient. I was talking more specifically
about his shooting outside of the paint, his face up J when he's not guarded up to
18-20 ft.

According to Vorped, Book is shooting 45.5% on 2s outside the paint in the last 30 days, and 42.6% for the season. Last year, he shot 34.6% from that range, and was at 37.4% the year before.

http://vorped.com/bball/index.php/player/shotchart/1172

[Ruzious]

He's shooting well enough that teams have to guard him from 18 feet and in. That should help the team and his +/-.

[tontoz]

For some reason this year's shooting numbers aren't showing up on br or hoopdata. I wonder why.

[fishercob]

For some reason this year's shooting numbers aren't showing up on br or hoopdata. I wonder why.

Obama?

[hands11]

I don't know if it's my lyin' eyes/selective memory or small sample size
but it seems to me that Book has been more reliable in hitting his mid-range J.
I admit that I still cringe when he does it but it's said that he has put in time
working on it so it may be that that work is paying off. That always was
a major hole in his game.

As long as he doesn't have a long player closing out on his, he looks pretty comfortable taking it. The mid range looks pretty reliable. But a player like Davies is going to bother him. To long and to quick.

[dobrojim]

where are long and quick?

[Nivek]

For some reason this year's shooting numbers aren't showing up on br or hoopdata. I wonder why.

Obama?

ObamaCARE.

Hoopdata decided to stop updating the site because NBA.com's stats page has a lot of the same info (though not nearly as well laid out for users), and (ironically) because b-r started offering a lot of the same data. I pinged the guys at b-r to see what's up. The message I got back was that this kind of stuff would be up "soon."

[Dat2U]

No no no. He's a 20 minute backup who can't stay healthy, is a terrible P&R defender and contrary to what you say, doesn't space the floor any better than Nene.

Just because he looks good against certain matchups doesn't mean he's capable as a full time starter. Line him up against some of the bigger PFs in the league and were suddenly at a distinct disadvantage.

Sorry, Dat, but on this subject you are wrong.

Booker is the top rebounder per minute on our team -- by a fair amount! And especially offensive rebounds.

He also has the 2d best Ortg and the 3d best Drtg on the team. He has the highest FG% on the team (and the 3d highest eFG%).

As to "can't stay healthy" -- how is that relevant? Obviously you don't start him when he's injured!

Booker is not a great player; I'm not suggesting we can stand pat at the 4 because we have Trevor Booker! But, right now, he's the best 4 on the team by far. And he is playing a lot better than Nene, that is certain!

Just because a guy performs well in a specific role doesn't mean that he's capable of handling more. Booker is a solid backup, when healthy. But there are specific issues that stats won't necessarily show and those have been discussed ad nauseam.

Another way to look at it is consistency. There's no consistency with Booker's performances. From night to night the variance in his performance is often based on the particular matchup. Booker does well against shorter PFs, against bigger PFs he can disappear for long stretches.

And being someone that "can't stay healthy" is very relevant. Look at Nene. You have to be careful with how you use him because he's fragile and has a lot of wear & tear. Same with Booker, maybe not the wear & tear but it's only a matter of time before he gets banged up again... especially playing him more minutes against starters were he'll take more of a physical pounding. If a guy has shown an inability to handle a larger role most of his career, why suddenly ask him to do things that might be beyond his scope? Because we don't have any better options that we like? That's a mistake, Booker is a solid backup who can start against certain matchups but asking him to do more would likely backfire.

Don't know if I was proven right or not. But the experiment is over. I'd love to see a breakdown of how different a team we are with Nene starting vs. Booker starting.

[nate33]

Don't know if I was proven right or not. But the experiment is over. I'd love to see a breakdown of how different a team we are with Nene starting vs. Booker starting.

I'm sure the starting unit is better when Nene starts. But the bench is historically bad without Nene.

I don't really care who starts, but I think it's critical that one of Wall/Nene stay on the court at all times, and it's also important to keep Nene's minutes down around 32. That's easiest to do by bringing Nene off the bench.

[tontoz]

Nene played 36 minutes last night. I don't think anyone here believes he can do that consistently.

The team needs him the most late in tight games. We saw how much they struggled to finish when he was out.

[dckingsfan]

Nene played 36 minutes last night. I don't think anyone here believes he can do that consistently.

The team needs him the most late in tight games. We saw how much they struggled to finish when he was out.

Gortat also 36 - Booker 24.

[fishercob]

Guys, we're missing the forest for the trees. The problem isn't Booker, making $2.35M and contributing every penny worth of that.

The problem is that NENE, our highest paid player at $13M per year for this year and two more just isn't that good.

His numbers fell off a cliff after Denver re-signed him and have never recovered. I held out some faint hope this summer that he was going to show up this season, lighter, healthy and that his production would bounce back close to what it was a couple of years ago. But we're 36 games in and that's not happening. He's not a bad player, but you want him to be your second best big -- not your best -- and certainly not at $13M.

So yeah, I'd love to bring Nene off the bench, but'only because he's not producing like the star that Ted and Friends told us he was. Until he's replaced with a better player, the Wiz are going to stay pretty mediocre.

[Ruzious]

Guys, we're missing the forest for the trees. The problem isn't Booker, making $2.35M and contributing every penny worth of that.

The problem is that NENE, our highest paid player at $13M per year for this year and two more just isn't that good.

His numbers fell off a cliff after Denver re-signed him and have never recovered. I held out some faint hope this summer that he was going to show up this season, lighter, healthy and that his production would bounce back close to what it was a couple of years ago. But we're 36 games in and that's not happening. He's not a bad player, but you want him to be your second best big -- not your best -- and certainly not at $13M.

So yeah, I'd love to bring Nene off the bench, but'only because he's not producing like the star that Ted and Friends told us he was. Until he's replaced with a better player, the Wiz are going to stay pretty mediocre.

As far as helping the team win, Nene is a better value than Booker.

Wall Beal Ariza Booker Gortat - Win % of 26. -33
Wall Beal Ariza Nene Gortat - Win % of 61. +53

Wall Beal Webster Booker Gortat - Win % of 20. -24
Wall Beal Webster Nene Gortat - Win % of 63. +30

Those differences are staggering. And we know the backups play much better with Nene than they do with Booker.

Nene's overall +/- per 100 possessions +9.1
Booker's overall +/- per 100 possessions -9.3

[Kanyewest]

Bringing Nene off the bench would still conserve his health when it comes down to the postseason. I wouldn't want to him play 36 minutes per game like he did against Chicago during the regular season.