Here's another one: Al Jefferson - fools gold. Consumes the paint space offensively. Consumes touches. Consumes the shot clock. Not productive enough. He's a good guy with a great personality. Fun to be around. But he's fools gold on the court. Not nearly productive enough to be cashing huge checks and taking up so much salary cap space.
Saying he's actually a negative only because he is a bad freethrow shooter makes nearly all centers useless.
He is riding the cusp of being a huge disappointment. I know we have high hopes. But the cracks are there. Personally I am hoping we can move him this off season for either a lottery pick in this year's draft or a future unprotected pick. I totally understand why you would think he is fools gold.
Free throw shooting is an obvious, basic skill. Why did I pick out Deandre and Andre when there are other bad ones like Omer and Dwight? 1. They're not quite as bad as Andre and Deandre. 2. There are other demonstrable reasons that I have come to with Andre and Deandre involving basketball iq. If you watch both guys, they simply hang around looking for blocks and boards. When they actually play other opposing bigs that have offensive skills that can iso on them....not good. So, like I said...fools gold. While the dunks look good on video and the points and boards look good in a box score....neither guys plays winning basketball. That's my totally reasoning behind Brandon Jennings. He's got skills that are off the charts. But he's an emotional r****d. Hasn't changed or grown in 4 years. He's not a leader. You can put together his highlight reels and look at box scores where he threw up 40/7 or whatever. Doesn't matter. I just showed you a video of where he was drilled down by minimum salary Nate Robinson. Jennings is fools gold.
WTH is all this talk about "Today's NBA." The Pistons won the championship in '04... That was only 9 years ago. Could Shaq not survive in today's NBA. Is Dwight Howard's FT shooting the reason the Lakers are mediocre? I understand the point you are trying to make, but I think you have overstated it a bit.
That's true they could use some practice at free throws but I would have taken them over our centers the past few years not including Omer. That length and athleticism bring another dimension on the rebounding and defensive end.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=234351 http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=235493 http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=234593 http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=235794 He really isn't a bad player, but he isn't all that great either. He doesn't rebound, has no post game, and is a poor defender. Carl Herrera would have you thinking he is a combination of Duncan and Garnett, only missing out on rebounding numbers because Asik steals all of them...
There's a huge difference between a player being a 35% FT shoot and a say 55% FT shooter. The PPS difference is ginormous. Hacking a 55% FT shooter will backfire every now and then. Hacking a 35% FT shooter rarely will backfire. I actually agree at least to some extent with the OP on all the names he has thrown out. I won't go as far as saying that those guys are bad players, however I do believe that all of them are or will be overpaid, which is the real problem, really. If Al Jefferson only takes up MLE money you can bring him off the bench and put him in positions to be successful. If he's your starter making $10M+ however, you're simply paying far to much money for a guy that is a huge liability on defense and not very efficient on offense, which is why Al Jefferson -- at the money he's currently making and will be making in the future -- just does very little for me. Jordan, like Jefferson, while not useless, is also taking up far too much of the salary cap for what he does. I chuckled when it was reported the Clippers didn't want to give him up in any deal for KG. That's so Clippers, who are a very flawed team in general in my opinion. Chris Paul might take them to the second round, but I just can't see them going any further. Not this year and not anytime soon. Among the playoff teams fighting for home-court in the West the Clippers are by far the easiest team to scheme in my opinion. Jennings, I think could be a useful player on the right team. The problem is that like Jefferson and Jordan, Jennings likely will get overpaid and thus become "fools gold" himself. He probably won't be playing for a good coach on a good team either, because good teams generally avoid overpaying guys like Jennings, Jordan or Jefferson. Drummond I was not very high on coming into the draft, however I can't really comment on him, as I've seen no more than a couple of Pistons games this year. Certainly I did not expect him to put up these type of numbers this early, which can't be overlooked. Still, I still question his feel for the game and I agree that his free three shooting is a big concern going forward as well.
Yeah, don't see PPat as fools gold. He's a solid player with good fundamentals, good bball iq, good attitude and work ethic. He's actually a good player with very few highlight reel videos and very few crazy box scores. He'd be a great rotation player on a championship team for about $4 mil per season max.
