Not terribly interested in your guys' discussion, but I just wanted to contribute two thoughts: 1) Rick Barry was playing point forward well before Magic. In fact, he did so as a Rocket. 2) IMO playing on such stacked teams depressed Worthy's numbers. He wasn't just a guy who filled the lane when Magic ran the break, he had an unbelievable first step and could blow by just about anyone. He also abused smaller defenders in the low post. It's not an accident that his numbers went up in the playoffs, when the pace slowed down. He was an incredible talent.
The only thing I remembered about Rick Barry was his underhand free throw, and it was money$$$. Back then, living in LA, I didn't really get to see other players as much. My memory is fading and can't really comment on that. Worthy was still relatively young at 30 when Magic retired. His shooting percentage went down substantially, so did his career. <PRE>Season Age FG FGA FG% FT% PTS 1989-90 28 8.9 16.2 .548 .782 21.1 1990-91 29 9.2 18.7 .492 .797 21.4 1991-92 30 8.3 18.6 .447 .814 19.9 1992-93 31 6.2 13.9 .447 .810 14.9</PRE> Two year before Magic's retirement and two years after. (This doesn't prove one way or another.)
Dwight Howard all the way. Cp3 and blake griffin are overrated. 1st round exits for those 2 overhyped players? Theyre both good for advertisements but that's about it.
Here's a baseball analogy: Chris Paul is to Dwight Howard as 1999 Sammy Sosa was to 1999 Pedro Martinez. It was a hitter's era back then, and Sosa's HR and RBI numbers were king back then, mindblowing. But it was the Sammy Sosa era. Everybody looked like him. You could get 40 home runs from a bunch of different guys at that time. Pedro on the other hand was dominant in an era when no one was. Maybe Dwight is not as good as Pedro was back then, but the point stands. It's Chris Paul's era. There's a lot of Chris Pauls, or people that look like him and can give you 80-90% of his production. And because of this, he can't get any production in the playoffs. Mike Conley can put up a good fight with him in a series. On the other hand, there's no one close to Dwight. He had his worst year of his career last year, and we can pretty much guarantee his value won't be any lower ever again until he hits 34-35yo. Now's the time to pounce.
I understand why the majority have chose Dwight; however, I would go with Paul for the following reasons. 1) I like Asik. He's affordable and played well for his FIRST year as a starting center. Maybe he can work with Dream and work on some post moves which can increase his game. 2) Dwight worries me. His "whiny" attitude and possibly airing out his feelings towards the media can destroy our team chemistry. Also his injury history worries me too. 3) I'm not sold a J-Lin. I like the kid, and hope he can get better. But CP3 >>>>>>>>>> J-Lin and it's not even close. CP3 is a top 5 player in the nba. He will also get our team mates get better and better looks at the ball. The one thing I can see being a problem is he may demand the ball more which may affect harden's game, but Harden's Iso-game can hurt us. However, if Harden and CP3 could have a balanced attack, I would like to go in that direction. HOWEVER, we have a better chance of getting Dwight, so that may be the easier path. Overall, I'll take either at this moment, but I'm leaning more for CP3.
I agree Dwight has more impact on th game, and I also believe that's usually the case comparing a star c and pg. Magic was a big playing pg. didn't he also get time playing C his rookie year when Kareem was hurt?
He's played for the Hornets and the Clippers, franchises owned by the two worst owners in the league, Shinn and Sterling, the former of which was in such financial distress the league had to buy him out. I don't think Paul's lack of postseason success is a strong indicator of his abilities.
Yeah, Magic was a huge PG. Only one game Magic took over C for Kareem. Kareem went down with a serious sprain in Game 5 of '80 Finals. Lakers led the series 3-2 at the time, and going back to Philly for Game 6. When they annouced Magic would replace Kareem at Center, almost everyone thought Lakers were finished. I did too. Well, Magic had a performance of his life that game. He manned the center on defense and ran the point on offense. After five close games, Game 6 turned out to be a blowout. It was one of those most awe-inspiring Finals performances I had ever witnessed by a rookie. CP3 might win a title or two in his career but it sure doesn't take more than eight seasons to know he is not in the same caliber as Isaiah T/Magic/Big O.
Why are some of you falling in love with Chris Paul, his highlights, or his commercials? Two players, Kyrie Irving and John Wall, look how good they are with their teams. You have a higher percentage of winning with a superstar PF/C than a superstar PG. Always take a player that shoots a higher percentage shot from the basket than a player that shoots outside usually your PG and SG, or Chrissy Bosh. Superman has a better smile than CP3's, so that was the ultimate reason I voted for D12.
Paul is the more conservative play. He's smarter, makes everyone better, less prone to injury, and cheaper (barely). Howard is a good fit, too, but I would rather see the rockets get a guy who can make the young power forwards develop, offensively. Howard has never averaged 2 assists per game. He's not going to make guys a whole lot better. Jones and DMo will benefit from a guy like CP3. All that being said, between CP3 and Howard, the rockets should sign the first guy willing to come to Houston and not think twice about it.
Totally disagree with your diagreement. Paul would improve our offense, even if it is already good. I think have a distributor like him that can command the offense is a big benefit in basketball. Forget what kind of points other teams run -- there's more than one way to succeed, and if your PG isn't a good floor general you can make him a spot shooter instead. That doesn't mean that having a general isn't useful. He will take a little away from the utility we get from Harden in that same area, but I think it's still a net benefit, and a greater net benefit than we get from Howard's middling offensive skills. As for the defense, I expect Howard would be beneficial, but not transformational. Asik is already a very good defensive center. Swapping in Howard changes the complexion maybe but not the efficacy so much. Running Asik and Howard as twin towers would probably help quite a bit, but not a good idea for the offense.
Howard and Paul play different positions. It's an impossible comparison without looking at the context. 1) If we'd be signing them outright and making no other moves, I'd take Dwight because we already have 2 solid point guards, but we don't have 2 solid bigs. The Twin Towers model is flawed if neither can shoot, but playing Dwight and Asik together is still at least interesting because they're talented. There's little practical way to play Harden, Paul, Lin AND Beverley for major minutes so we'd be wasting our talent. 2) If we are signing them and THEN using the current star at their position as bait to hunt for a power forward, I'd rather have Paul + Asik + (Smith, Millsap, etc) than Lin + Howard + (Smith, Millsap, etc). Only question is whether a Lin-centered S&T package actually gets one of those guys. Assuming it would, I'd way rather have Asik as our 4th best player than Lin. I like Chris Paul better as a player, and I think Chris Paul is better as an upgrade over our current starter, but really for me it all boils down to how it affects the alleged second move, and the PF spot.
I'd rather CP3. SUPER upgrade at PG over Lin. Best back court in the universe with he and harden. Asik can man the C spot just fine. Just need to solidify the PF and we'd be top 3 in the west for years to come.
mmm Still 1 basketball. Harden would have to play off the ball a lot. I don't expect him to be as effective as he is now, especially considering Harden is one of the best, if not the best player in the pick and roll... I hear that Paul will improve our offense (probably negative on defense) and Dwight is not a significant upgrade over Asik, however, Dwights +offense will be greater than whatever Paul can give us. Paul+Jordan+Griffin still wasn't enough to beat Memphis, and those are 2 guys that are supposed elite finishers. Jlin's impact will be about the same as Paul, especially if Paul is throwing the oop to worse finishers... That's my own convoluted logic Thing is, we need to upgrade our PF - that would vastly outweigh any incremental improvements at the PG or C position
That's not convoluted logic; it's incorrect logic How the heck does adding CP3, an all-nba first defensive team player (who is consistently on the first or second defensive team over the last few yrs) create a NEGATIVE on defense for us? lolwut? Yeah, like adding Lebron James over Chandler Parsons will give us negative on defense. And to say JLin's impact will be about the same as CP3's? smh...
Nice response. I guess I would be more inclined to agree with you if we had seen this work even once before - the case where a ball-dominating, vertically-challenged distributor making max money led a team to any meaningful success. I'm totally with you on there being more than one way to win - I could see the Rockets winning a title without adding another max player while improving in other areas. Dallas just did that 2 years ago. I just don't think that allocating that much money to the least important position in my opinion is the way to go.
Tony Parker and the Spurs? And if success is not winning a ring but just getting to the Finals...Westbrook?
