tlee324 wrote:playa-hater wrote:to be honest Brown is always aggressive.. too much so. Tatum is sometimes too passive. and both can be dumb asses..
I think you can live with aggressive mistakes than passive ones. That's why many fans ignore Marcus' flaws, because most of the time it's through hustle.
Nah, I think there has just always been an obsession here with per game scoring and shooting percentages. For my money, Marcus wears his faults on his sleeve while the faults of other, often much higher-paid guys still fly under the radar. While not one of our most talented players, Smart is definitely our smartest player, and arguably our least flawed and best all-around player. It's between him and Tatum on the latter two. Or possibly Fournier, who I am not yet as familiar with.
Kemba is one of the league's worst defenders, and one of the worst playmakers among point guards. Jaylen has zero feel for team offense, and is still rocking a Carmelo-esque 1:1 career assist to turnover ratio. None of our top 3 scorers are particularly efficient. Tatum, Jaylen, and Kemba are all ride or die checkers that rarely pass or get to the line. It took Jaylen 26 FGA and 7 FTA to get to 32 points tonight. Took Tatum 21 FGA and a whopping 2 FTA to get 25 points tonight, and he had 8(!) turnovers to boot. Both shot near 50% for the game, but the overall efficiency was not very good at all, nor is it that uncommon for them (or Kemba).
There is this notion that Marcus can't shoot and is careless with the basketball, but I don't think the stats back that up. He eFG% is higher than Kemba's and only 2.6% lower than Tatum's. He leads the team in assists and is 4th in turnovers, while also being our best defensive player. I feel like both Tatum and Jaylen make way more dumb plays a game. Marcus draws charges while Tatum gives them up like it is a part-time job. Jaylen can't dribble or pass his way out of a paper bag, and routinely gives away possessions for no reason.
In sum, I guess I just don't get why we take about his flaws so much, given that he only makes $13m a year. It's low-hanging fruit for casuals IMO. If he could shoot better, he'd be our team's best player and on a max contract. Meanwhile, we gloss over the flaws of much higher players because I guess that is just too much of a painful truth about this team and where they are (not) headed.
/rant.