In the Cousins threads, and in other places before that, I have seen people claim that the PF spot is our weakest position. Is it really? Let's see. Disclaimer: I haven't had the time to do much statistical research. So much of what I have here is subjective. I would love to see some posters who are great at stats churning to chip in. What we need our PF to do, in order of importance: 1. Spread the floor. Both Lin and Harden thrive on attacking the basket. We need bigs who is a real threat shooting from outside, preferably with 3-point range, but at least a reliable midrange shot. 2. Defense. It is always important for a big man. With many good scoring PFs in the league, it is very important that our 4 can defend. He doesnt' have to be a great shot blocker. Just good man and team defense is enough. 3. Running game. It is no secret that we are a running team. All 5 guys need to be able to run. 4. PnR. We are an efficient offensive team when we run. But our half-court game is not that great. We can't just rely on Harden ISO every time. Asik is good at setting picks but not good at catching the ball or finishing at the rim. A PF who can set good good picks and can finish at the roll man would enhance our half-court offense. 5. Low post game. Again, a guy who can score in the low post will give us more options for our half-court game. This is not as useful as the PnR for now because we do not have a lot of 3-pt threats. Harden is the only reliabe outside shooter. Douglas is coming around. Parsons and Delfino are inconsistent. You need outside shooters to make the post game effective. But it is going to be important if we want success in the playoffs. 6. Rebounding. Like defense, rebounding ability is always expected for the 4 spot. But I put it as the last because we are an above average rebounding team (9th in total rebounds and 19th in rebounds allowed; 3rd in DRB% and 21st in ORB%) despite having a poor rebounder as our starting PF. (BTW, I believe rebounding is a natural talent. One can only improve marginally with experience and effort. So there is no comments about "potential" for rebounding ability.) A PF who can do all these well is a superstar. We either 1. Get such a superstar (unlikely) 2. Get someone who has the potential to be a superstar and hope he develops 3. Do it by committee What we have: Patterson Outside shooting: Great midrange, okay 3-pt but may be able to improve. Grade A- Defense: Good team defense, decent man defense. Grade B+ Running: Okay. Grade B PnR: Poor pick setting, good midrange pop, okay catching and finishing at rim. Grade B Low Post: Below average, but may be able to improve. Grade B- Rebounding: Poor. Grade D- Star potential: Not much, injury concerns. Grade C- Morris Outside shooting: Very good shooter with 3-pt range. Grade A Defense: Undersize and below average man defender, my be able to improve team defense. Grade C+ Running: Good. Grade B+ PnR: Too small for setting good picks, good scorer off the roll. Grade B Low post: Haven't seen his low post game. Grade D- Rebounding: Okay. Grade B- Star potential: Still have room to grow at scoring. Too small for defense. Grade B- Smith (He might be more of a 5 than a 4, but let's put him there for our discussion.) Outside shooting: Not much. Grade F. Defense: Good energy guy. Decent overall defender. Grade B Running: Good. Grade A- Low Post: Doesn't have the moves, but very good finishing at rim. Grade B PnR: Good hands and great finisher at rim. Grade B+ Rebounding: Good. Grade A- Star potential: Hard to tell. Grade C Motiejunas Outside shooting: Good shooter with 3-pt range. Grade B+ Defense: Haven't seen much, guessing not good, may be able to improve. Grade C- Running: Looks good so far. Grade B+ PnR: Looks okay so far in SL and preseason. Grade B Low post: Looks good so far in SL and DL. Grade A- Rebounding: Looks okay so far in SL and DL. Grade B Star potential: Has all the tools. Grade A- Jones Outside shooting: Has 3-pt range but very inconsistent. Grade C+ Defense: Okay so far in limited time. Grade B Running: Has the speed and handle to be very good. Grade A- PnR: Hasn't shown much but should be able to improve. Grade B- Low post: Hasn't shown much. Grade D- Rebounding: Decent so far. B Star potential: Hard to tell. Grade B White (He hasn't played much, so most is guess work.) Outside shooting: Poor so far as can tell. Grade D Defense: Haven't seen much. Grade C- Running: Has the speed and handle to be very good. Grade A- PnR: Hasn't shown much, but has very good BBIQ. Grade B Low post: Hasn't shown much. Grade D- Rebounding: Decent. Grade B Star potential: Has the talent but not the mind. Grade I Overall Outside shooting: We have good shooters in Patterson, Morris and Motiejunas. Grade A- Defense: We have decent defenders in Patterson and Smith. Grade B Running: Very good. Grade A- PnR: We have decent PnR guys across the board. Grade B Low post: The only good low post players so far is Motiejunas. Patterson and Smith have potential to be good. Grade C+ Reboudning: Smith is our only good rebounder so far. All the other guys except Patterson are okay. Grade B Star potential: I like Motiejunas's potential. Jones is kind of iffy. White is anybody's guess. Grade B+ Conclusion: 1. We are very good at the most important aspect for our PF: floor spreading. If we are going to build our offense on our backcourt's skills, then we have it already. 2. All of our PF fit well with the running game. 3. As of now, all the other aspects of the PF needs are mediocre. But defense will likely improve. If we want to contend, we need a low post game, which we don't have much now. 4. I really hope to see Motiejunas develop. He's our best hope of star potential at the 4. Jones has some potential too. Patterson and Smith look most likely to be good rotation players. Morris is a tweener. I hope he can be useful at the 3 spot. Bottom Line: Our PF position is not weak at all. We already have what we need now. There are good star potentials. We do not have to gamble. I'd say we either grab a proven star PF when available or we wait to see if one or more of the young guys can develop. To me, our weakest position is the SF. (Maybe someone can start a discussion on the strenght of our 3 spot.) I love Parsons and he is a great glue guy. But I'd rather upgrade the 3 spot than any other positions right now.
Parsons is a better player than any of our PFs. You're significantly overrating Morris and Patterson. Jones/Motie/AWOL are too young to really rate at this point.
yeah, we don't have too many personal fouls.. I think we should foul more. We're a running team so don't need a post up player. Well, Jeremy played one last night against a dunking champion, Nate Robinson. It was soo easy.
What is your point? You want Parsons to be our full-time PF? In which areas? I think both of them are very good shooters for spacing purposes. Am I overrating them in that? Agreed. There isn't much we have seen so far. Rating of potential is subjective. But there are reasons why some players were picked higher than others. It's not exact science. But it's not totally baseless.
As starters go, PF is our weakest starter vs the league, currently. As a position, I think SF is our weakest position. What we can do in uptempo allows us to compete 48 minutes at PF. We can take the opposing big out of their normal game. At SF, we basically go small with Delfino whenever Parsons is out, which can make us vulnerable on defense against star SFs. However, our SF combo can really pass well and run; Parsons/Delfino are key to our uptempo attack. One point of contention regarding your ranking, I'm not a big fan of saying our half court offense is either ISO or PnR. We play the weave heavily, which uses soft picks and we use a lot of pin down screens to open our bigs. The weave is getting us a ton a wide open 3s, if not drive to the basket. Notice how a player 'A' will get a pass going towards the key and do a shuffle pass back to a passer 'B' who filled 'A's vacated spot. The pin down is releasing a low post man. We do this is fast sets too. So, it is more important to rate a PF in this offense than to say we need a picker in a standard PnR.
We need a post up player at the 4 or 5 that can also spread the floor. Asik takes care of rebounding and interior defense. With Parsons, Morris, and Delfino...our SF position looks good. We need a strong 6th man at one of the guard position. If its a PG than Harden can stay in at the 2 or at the 1 if the 6th man is an SG. Toney is playing well right now but he's very streaky and unreliable.
Morris - rebounding.....B-???? Clearly you haven't watched much. It hasn't been brought up because we have been winning. His rebounding at the 4 position is atrocious at best, makes Patterson's numbers look like an A. TBH, the best thing for us would probably be to upgrade the 3 with a significant piece, then move Parsons to the 4. His numbers as a PF this and last year, both on O and D, are more significant than they are at the 3.
It has been 4 games now since MM started. I don't know if anybody mentioned this but his ability to push the ball once he gets the rebound is a skill set that Ppat does not have. He also has the ability to drive to the basket and dish. In a small sample size, it appears that our offense flows better with him starting at the 4.
I wonder if we can get Ryan Anderson from the Hornets. Would be a great player to spread the floor with and could be a potentially better asset over time for Morey. He's also only 24.
i agree. Morris is a surprisingly good passer on the fastbreak. Patterson can't do that. Morris should start. And this is coming from a fan of PPats. Morris makes me yell at the TV, because the cameraman always misses his fastbreak passes. They can't keep up. It makes me furious. Dudes...we are a fastbreaking team; get with the program and keep up.
Wishful thinking - PF is definitely our weakest position. I'd trade Patterson in a second for Landry. We need scoring at the four more than anything - clutch, fourth quarter scoring.
Put me in the group who believes we have our ideal PF in Donatas Motiejunas. He can .... spread the court, run the floor, put the ball on the floor, great passer and can "post up"! He just need's some time to develop, and given the average age of this team, we have the time for him to develop. Luckily, according to Morey, D-Mo has been doing really good in practice so his time to shine might be just around the corner.
