EPTNBA Offseason Thread 2009 - Page 29
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tonight
United States11130 Posts
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tonight
United States11130 Posts
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XaI)CyRiC
United States4471 Posts
On July 04 2009 04:25 Servolisk wrote: I don't really agree. Of course, he is a great transition player, perhaps that overshadows his half court offensive abilities. He is a very versatile and creative offensive player. Check out two samples of things he does all the time: OK another one since Amare rocks. His quickness is very impressive, few PF/Cs can make quick moves to the basket like that from 15 feet out. Another one from far out (almost 3 pt line) since Amare rocks: Damn, for the first time I'm highly upset we have CV (and not Amare :@@@@@@@@@). After viewing those clips and thinking about it a bit more, I'll concede that I was too hasty with my judgment on Amare. I'll still stand by my argument that he doesn't have much of a back-to-the-basket game and that his ball-handling is pretty poor, but it's arguable that his ability to knock down set shots from pretty far out and his ridiculous athleticism still make him a pretty strong 1on1 player. However, I still have my doubts that he would be as good as he has been without a PG like Nash or some other player creating offense and setting him up. There weren't that many times when Amare was able effectively score 1on1 against his defender short of just trying to run past/through them and his jumpshot is a standstill set shot not a pullup. I remember him turning the ball over quite a bit, and he hasn't shown much passing ability, particularly out of the post. With all that said, it's a bit unfair to hold too much of that against him. He was playing alongside one of the best pure PGs the game has seen, so it's understandable that his ball-handling wouldn't be something he'd focus on. The offense also did such a great job of setting him up for scoring opportunities, so we didn't get to see a lot of him isolating or going 1on1 when it was so much easier for him to run a pick and roll with Nash. His defense is still very questionable however, and I'm still not entirely sure whether he's better as a PF or C. With PFs, he doesn't have as much of a quickness advantage (particularly the PFs that are so numerous today) so his offense suffers a little, but with Cs he's undersized on defense. I don't think we can know for sure what his limits are defensively until he plays on a more defense-oriented team (the "PHX with defense" team doesn't count). | ||
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city42
1656 Posts
On July 04 2009 04:08 XaI)CyRiC wrote: I don't think it's a good idea to base your observations almost entirely on when Bosh matches up against Dwight, since Dwight tends to make any opposing big man look bad. Bosh matches up particularly badly against Dwight because, let's be frank, he's PF and not a C. He's a solid defender who is long, quick and athletic, making him Odom/KG-like on defense (but not near KG in actual prowess of course). However, his biggest weakness on defense is his lack of weight and strength, which makes it very hard for him to guard "true" bigs like Dwight. He can match up pretty well against any PF and most Cs in the league, but ask him to guard some of the few true bigs we have int he league like Duncan, Pau, Dwight, or Yao, and he'll struggle. As we all know the number of those kinds of big post players has dwindled over the past few seasons, which allows a lot of players who would normally be stuck at PF to play C (i.e. Amare, Brand, Boozer), so Bosh isn't alone in this respect. If he ends up on a team where he can play PF almost exclusively, and I think he will show that he's a solid defender, if he hasn't done so already with the numbers cited above. The numbers cited above show that Toronto gives up 1.7 less points per 100 possessions with Bosh off the court in the 08-09 regular season. The opposing team's FG% and defensive rebounding also experiences a decline when Toronto doesn't have Bosh in there. You have to understand, the problems you described for Bosh are not easily alleviated. You can't just decide at age 25 that you're going to put on 40 pounds of muscle. Can you name a single big man who successfully added a ton of bulk in the prime of his career? The only close example is Moses Malone, but he came into the pros straight out of HS, and really bulked up at age 20-21. So, in the foreseeable future, Bosh will continue to have a nightmare against strong guys like Dwight. Where I REALLY disagree with you is the part about Bosh being able to handle most PFs. Check out Toronto's games against teams with solid PFs last year. Gasol, Amare, Dirk, Scola, and others consistently had above average games against Toronto. Also, while it's fair to criticize the narrow team selection of my Bosh observations, where is your information coming from? You simply say "he can match up pretty well against any PF" without offering either stats or articles from professional scouts or analysts. | ||
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bdams19
United States1316 Posts
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
On July 04 2009 04:42 tonight wrote: Xeris, I don't see how you are so hard on Bosh. I think he still has the potential to be much, yes I said it, much better Gasol. Bosh is quicker and more athletic. He's a better player end to end in the open court. Gasol is a fantastic passing big man though and I don't know that much about Bosh's passing. I would think Gasol is a bit stronger then Bosh, but I think Bosh vs Gasol one on one on the low block wouldn't be very one sided at all. You obviously haven't watched Chris Bosh play very much, top PF's routinely eat him for breakfast. What does "he's a better player end to end in the open court" mean? Lol. He's not a point guard. Playing in the open court isn't something you judge the skill of a PF on O__O! The only thing Bosh has over Gasol is being quicker and more athletic. Gasol is way more skilled than Bosh can ever become. Bosh is getting to the prime of his career and he has yet to make significant adjustments to his game. He's basically exactly the same player he was when he came into the NBA. He won't get much better than he is now. | ||
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BalliSLife
1339 Posts
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tenbagger
United States1289 Posts
Bosh this past year made huge leaps in terms of his overall game and I feel very strongly when I say he is a much better player than when he first entered the league. I fully expect for Bosh to get even better. My opinion of Bosh really changed over this past year because he showed tremendous growth over the year before. If you look exclusively at the stats, then Xeris, you are right that Bosh's stats have been roughly the same over the past several years. But watching his games, I saw a much improved offensive game and he developed an ability to take over games and dominate for the first time in his career. I don't know why Bosh struggled so much in the second half. It could be due to fatigue from the Olympics or due to the minor injury he had in the middle of the year. But for most of the first half of the season, Bosh was an absolute monster. Despite his subpar second half, he was still only one of two players (Howard being the other) in the entire league that averaged 20/10 this past season. People seem to forget that Bosh is 25 years old. There is a growth curve in sports and if you look at the stats of most players, their numbers improve gradually until their late 20's at which point it flattens out until their early 30's and then they start to decline. Gasol is 29, or will be very shortly and his game has in my opinion peaked. He most likely will maintain his current level of play for several years but he's not likely to get much better. Bosh on the other hand is 4 years younger and he still has a couple yeras left in his growth phase. Sure there are exceptions to this rule but the correlation is very strong. Right now Bosh vs Gasol is very close but if you were to select one of them to build a team around, you take the younger bosh since he has more upside and will be in his prime years for a greater percentage of the time under contract. This is coming from a huge gasol fan here. I think gasol's footwork and low post skills are tremendous and his length is a huge asset defensively. However, Bosh has a huge edge in terms of quickness and athleticism and more importantly, Bosh is developing a very consistent outside jumper. Bosh could use a little more bulk which will help him, become a tougher post defender and he surely could use a little more experience and savvy defensively. I think he is a slightly above average defender right now and the important thing is that he has the quickness, size, athleticism, youth and most importantly, the work ethic and attitude to improve into a premier defensive player. | ||
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
I dunno why people are just riding on Bosh...the guy reminds me of an early KG in terms of talent versus actual achievements right now. Given the way that the NBA is moving with their Centers (name 5 talented old fashioned post up centers right now), there is every reason why Bosh is so sought after. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
KG 23: -> 50-32 23 ppg, 12 rpg, 5 ast, 1.5 stl, 1.5 blk KG 24: -> 47-35 22 ppg, 11 rpg, 5 ast, 1.5 stl, 1.5 blk KG 25: -> 50-32 21 ppg, 12 rpg, 5 ast, 1.2 stl, 1.6 blk Avg shooting ~48% fg, 77% ft --------------------- CB 23: -> 41-41 22 ppg, 9 rpg, 2.5 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk CB 24: -> 33-49 23 ppg, 10 rpg, 2.5 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk Avg shooting ~49% fg, 80% ft *CB = Bosh, KG = Garnett, just in case.. --- When KG was Bosh's age, he carried his teams to 50 wins and playoff berths, once reaching the West Finals. They also had similarly bad supporting casts. KG was literally playing with Wally Szerbiak as his 2nd best player, to give you an idea of how bad they were. Billups was on those teams but he was far from being "mr.clutch" back then. So with comparable talent, in a MUCH worse Eastern conference, Bosh has done MUCH less, I really won't believe any Bosh hype until I actually see some results. Even Gasol carried the Grizzlies to 50 wins and playoff berths, and those teams had even less talent than anyone KG or Bosh have had. | ||
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
On July 04 2009 11:04 Xeris wrote: tenbagger... admittedly you have probably seen Bosh play more than me; but here's a comparison between Bosh and KG at their same ages: KG 23: -> 50-32 23 ppg, 12 rpg, 5 ast, 1.5 stl, 1.5 blk KG 24: -> 47-35 22 ppg, 11 rpg, 5 ast, 1.5 stl, 1.5 blk KG 25: -> 50-32 21 ppg, 12 rpg, 5 ast, 1.2 stl, 1.6 blk Avg shooting ~48% fg, 77% ft --------------------- CB 23: -> 41-41 22 ppg, 9 rpg, 2.5 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk CB 24: -> 33-49 23 ppg, 10 rpg, 2.5 ast, 1 stl, 1 blk Avg shooting ~49% fg, 80% ft *CB = Bosh, KG = Garnett, just in case.. --- When KG was Bosh's age, he carried his teams to 50 wins and playoff berths, once reaching the West Finals. They also had similarly bad supporting casts. KG was literally playing with Wally Szerbiak as his 2nd best player, to give you an idea of how bad they were. Billups was on those teams but he was far from being "mr.clutch" back then. So with comparable talent, in a MUCH worse Eastern conference, Bosh has done MUCH less, I really won't believe any Bosh hype until I actually see some results. Even Gasol carried the Grizzlies to 50 wins and playoff berths, and those teams had even less talent than anyone KG or Bosh have had. Except you forget to mention that Garnett failed miserably before those appearances, 6 times to be precise. While the Eastern Conference is much worse, you can make a case to say that the top 3 teams are legitimate contenders every year; the fall off is greater in the East than the West but the top 3 teams every season were capable of competing against the best in the West. And this disparity wasn't noticeable until more recently but even then the 07 season featured teams from both conferences sporting ~40 wins. The year they made it to the WCFs? They beat a crappy Denver team, they barely made it past a weak Kings team (the last year the Kings would make any worthwhile noise) before losing to LA. Nothing fantastic. Oh and they had Spreewell/Cassell for their good runs and before that Marbury (as cancerous as he is), also Wally was an Allstar for one season. Hardly a shit team, shit teams don't win the Western Conference by your reasoning  | ||
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tenbagger
United States1289 Posts
That brings me to my next point which is that basketball is a team game and I think that it is unfair that a star player on a weak team carries the blame. MJ's Bulls were very mediocre until he got some help. There are plenty of hall of fame players that never got close to sniffing a championship because of a weak team. Kobe, they best player of our generation lead his lakers to a 34-48 record when Shaq and Phil Jackson left and before they got Gasol. That season, he had Odom and Butler on his team which is more than Bosh had with the Raptors this year. A winning team requires a total team effort that starts with the coach and system. Look at what happened the one year Jackson left the Lakers and see how much they improved the next year with a similar roster. I think Flip Saunders was also an excellent coach and even though the wolves teams in the 90's were short on talent, they were a very well coached team. The raptors on the other hand were IMO poorly coached and had a poor system. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
On July 04 2009 12:04 Judicator wrote: Except you forget to mention that Garnett failed miserably before those appearances, 6 times to be precise. While the Eastern Conference is much worse, you can make a case to say that the top 3 teams are legitimate contenders every year; the fall off is greater in the East than the West but the top 3 teams every season were capable of competing against the best in the West. And this disparity wasn't noticeable until more recently but even then the 07 season featured teams from both conferences sporting ~40 wins. The year they made it to the WCFs? They beat a crappy Denver team, they barely made it past a weak Kings team (the last year the Kings would make any worthwhile noise) before losing to LA. Nothing fantastic. Oh and they had Spreewell/Cassell for their good runs and before that Marbury (as cancerous as he is), also Wally was an Allstar for one season. Hardly a shit team, shit teams don't win the Western Conference by your reasoning I was doing an age comparison... KG was in the NBA at 19... | ||
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Judicator
United States7270 Posts
On July 04 2009 12:26 Xeris wrote: I was doing an age comparison... KG was in the NBA at 19... I know but this When KG was Bosh's age, he carried his teams to 50 wins and playoff berths, once reaching the West Finals. They also had similarly bad supporting casts. KG was literally playing with Wally Szerbiak as his 2nd best player, to give you an idea of how bad they were. is misleading at best. Their teams are a lot further apart than you were letting on. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
In other words, Hedo rejects Portland after verbally agreeing and is probably going to Toronto? O__O! | ||
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XaI)CyRiC
United States4471 Posts
On July 04 2009 04:59 city42 wrote:The numbers cited above show that Toronto gives up 1.7 less points per 100 possessions with Bosh off the court in the 08-09 regular season. The opposing team's FG% and defensive rebounding also experiences a decline when Toronto doesn't have Bosh in there. You have to understand, the problems you described for Bosh are not easily alleviated. You can't just decide at age 25 that you're going to put on 40 pounds of muscle. Can you name a single big man who successfully added a ton of bulk in the prime of his career? The only close example is Moses Malone, but he came into the pros straight out of HS, and really bulked up at age 20-21. So, in the foreseeable future, Bosh will continue to have a nightmare against strong guys like Dwight. Where I REALLY disagree with you is the part about Bosh being able to handle most PFs. Check out Toronto's games against teams with solid PFs last year. Gasol, Amare, Dirk, Scola, and others consistently had above average games against Toronto. Also, while it's fair to criticize the narrow team selection of my Bosh observations, where is your information coming from? You simply say "he can match up pretty well against any PF" without offering either stats or articles from professional scouts or analysts. I will certainly concede that it's unlikely that Bosh will suddenly become a bigger, stronger PF in the mold of Duncan or Amare, but I don't think that that's fatal his ability to become a great PF. The PF position is being filled more and more by perimeter-oriented, long and quick, face-up players, rather than the traditional big, strong, back-to-the-basket types in the past, so his size and strength aren't as big of an issue as they would've been years ago. As I said, he'd ideally be played at PF alongside a C with good size and strength, to avoid being forced into mismatches against players like Dwight, Shaq, Gasol, Duncan, or Al Jeff (not many true back-to-the-basket Cs other than those guys really...). As for his +/- stats, the statistic itself is questionable as a measure of defensive prowess because it doesn't take into account who the players are guarding. Starters typically match up against starters, and bench players match up against bench players. Bosh, along with the other starters, were always playing against the best lineup the other team had, while the bench usually did not. That's a well-known factor that +/- doesn't account for. The basis of my opinion that Bosh is a solid (but not great) defender, or at least not the revolving door his critics seem to view him as, are the games I've seen him play in and my understanding of the circumstances under which he played (which is admittedly not worth too much). He was lauded by critics, experts, and coaches for his defense on Team USA, and I have seen him play hard and not miss many defensive assignments in the few games I've seen him player. He's playing on a really bad defensive team and usually guarding players who he shouldn't be, i.e. opposing centers like Dwight. While this isn't strong evidence that he's a solid defender, there's really a lack of any good evidence that he's as bad as people are making him out to be. | ||
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XaI)CyRiC
United States4471 Posts
On July 04 2009 12:35 Xeris wrote:In other words, Hedo rejects Portland after verbally agreeing and is probably going to Toronto? O__O! Interesting eh? Not sure how he really fits there considering the fact that Calderon is already there and is a great playmaker, and Turkoglu only shines when he has the ball in his hands a lot and is running the offense. | ||
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Xeris
Iran17695 Posts
Seriously what the fuck does he need with the extra 6 million? What can you possibly buy with 56 million that you couldn't with 50? Plus he (probably) lives in Turkey, so that's like 3409583409 Turkish money, and not only that but he's such a big star there he probably doesn't even have to pay for anything anyways. God damn. | ||
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il0seonpurpose
Korea (South)5638 Posts
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36390 Posts
On July 04 2009 14:37 Xeris wrote: Yep... 50 million dollars apparently is not enough for Hedo, he needs 56? Lol. That's fucking dumb, I hate how free agency really lets you see the character of some people. Honestly, Portland is a perennial playoff team now and many expect them to be contenders. Nope.. Hedo chooses the shitty Toronto team (that might be decent if they can keep Marion... but probably won't). Why? 6 million dollars. Seriously what the fuck does he need with the extra 6 million? What can you possibly buy with 56 million that you couldn't with 50? Plus he (probably) lives in Turkey, so that's like 3409583409 Turkish money, and not only that but he's such a big star there he probably doesn't even have to pay for anything anyways. God damn. canada = better taxes i think, so it might be significantly larger than 6mil the bigger issue with the reversal is the ethical problem of agreeing in principal to a deal and then reneging. taking 56 on a bad team instead of 50 on a good one is entirely understandable. why are you questioning someone's business decision? its a job and he took the highest paying one. sure you can disagree, but it makes complete sense, it's a 12% pay increase. i know the numbers are so large that its hard to discuss them seriously, but you never know what can happen in your career. he could be injured, he could need the money later. he could want another $6 million car. its a pretty bad argument to say "well its only $6 million more, what a greedy guy." you can't fault him for taking the bigger K, it's completely reasonable and within his right to get paid on the free market, people do that in the real world every day. | ||
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