Good point. Point guards always massacre the Lakers. Remember Mike Bibby and Troy Hudson of all people last year.
Yeah, it'll be great watching all of those SGs abuse SF3 defensively. It's just as well, I was growing weary of watching the league's PGs job SF3 so this would definitely be a refreshing change of pace.
Depends on your definition of what a "better" player is. Which pg would you take a pointguard that can take care of the ball, distribute the ball, shoot the ball and pretty much play a team game or a point guard that can take anyone one on one, has "heart", has super athleticism and is more talented. Lets face it what happens when steve loses all his althletism and we are paying him 15+ million dollars in the last years of his contract. He needs to stop playing with just "heart" and start playing with his brain. Ive said it before and ill say it again steve just doesnt have the insticts and vision to be a good pg. Sure he can create shots off the dribble and find the open man, but he cant get the ball to the right places at the right time.
at a tender age of 21 TP is already steadier and quicker than SF3 who's only getting slower and worse. if you are not too biased you'll see the truth. to judge a pg or sg who dribbles a lot, you can make a good assessment from how he dribbles the ball and finishes fastbreaks/layups. face it, all you SF3 fans out there: the guy does NOT have a smooth dribble of the ball, nor can he finish easy layups in transition. yeah he can break an ankle or two with his crossovers sometimes, but that cannot be translated into superp feelings for the ball and good handling in fast running, let alone the sense of any open lane or open men. a lot of his acrobatic moves are on the verge of losing the ball, remember? when he finishes those, luckily, he makes your day and ESPN highlight reels. when he can't, it's an ugly TO. IMO, Kobe has the best feel for the ball and his dribbling moves are the smoothiest, even more smooth than MJ's. TP is not as smooth, but he has a solid feel for the ball and soooo quick in changing directions that even kobe was left in the dust from time to time (in Game 1 at least). if dribbling is a visual art, i'd say SF3 is more like a Picasso whereas kobe and TP are more like da Vinci and the other masters of curves and shades. this is meaningless but i'll say TP will be a top 2 pg in a couple of years with a couple of rings. where would SF3 be then? it'll be interesting to see.
Can anyone that has watched the Lakers a lot this season tell me how point guards generally do against them? I'm trying to put into perspective the performance Steve had against them? Trying to figure out if all of the credit should go to Steve playing fantastic basketball or if some of the credit should go to the Lakers point guards sucking on defense and the Lakers big men being slow as hell on their help defense. I've never seen Gary Payton play worse defense than the D i have seen him play these playoffs. Here's a sampling of several PGs averages against the Lakers during the regular season. Bibby 19.8 pts, 6.3 ast, 40.3%, 2 TO Cassell 20.0 pts, 7.3 ast, 48.3%, 3.5 TO D. Stoudamire 19 pts, 8.8 ast, 46.4%, 2.5 TO Nash 15.8 pts, 7.5 ast, 42%, 2.5 TO A. Miller 16.8 Pts, 4.5 ast, 47.3%, 2.5 TO Marbury 28.5 pts, 11 ast, 48.9%, 2 TO Arenas 35 pts, 4 ast, 52.2%, 4 TO B. Davis 23pts, 12 ast, 47.4%, 2 TO Billups 26.5 pts, 6.5 ast, 53.1%, 3.5 TO Francis 19 pts, 7.8 ast, 49.1%, 4.3 TO Jaric 15 pts, 3 ast, 46.2%, 1 TO As you can see, almost all of these guys numbers are up against LA.
After reading the variety of posts from the official I hate SF club, I decided it was time to post. I also decided to look statistically at who was better (TP or SF) in 2003. With the exception of FG% (TP > 4.4%), 3PT% (TP > 2%), and TO (TP < 1.3), SF statistically exceeds TP in every category inlcuding 0.7 more assists a game, 1.0 more steals a game, almost 200 more rebounds in 2003/2004 season, as well as leading in blocks (0.3), FT% (7.4) and points per game (1.9), all in his worst statistical season of his career. All of this in a year of changing offensive systems and coaches and related philosiphies, not to mention the fact that TP has Duncan and supporing cast. If you take the statistical analysis one step further, by taking the average rebounds per game, plus average steals per game, less the average turnovers per game for each player and compare, SF gave the rockets approximately 3.06 more offensive opportunities than TP gave the spurs. I would be willing to bet you that if you called SA and offered SF for TP straight up, they would trade him now, in the middle of the playoffs if they could, becasue they know they would be taking us to the cleaners. I think you people need to take off your rose colored glasses and slowly back away from the crack pipe.
Hmmm, exactly WHICH talents and skills are we talking about here? Are mishandling the ball, low shooting ability, poor court vision (I talking really poor here where you cannot see a 7'6" Chinese guy in the post) and turnovers now considered to be legitimate basketball skills? Oh, and if a 7' 6" Chinese guy isn't big to you then what is?
I would rather have TP play with Yao than SF3. SF3 playing with TD would result in TD's scoring average down 10-15% simply due to the fact that TD would not get the ball at all/get the ball at the best position in P&R situations.
BTW, I would take a fundamental sound PG over a great rebounding, but TO prone, clueless at running fast breaks and P&R PG any day, even if the latter averages 12 rpg.
NO! TD wont shoot 10-15% less coz he IS THAT GOOD and steve will pass him the ball! but YAO ISNT!(at least not yet)
LOL!!! I love the way you diminish the extent that FG%, 3PT% and TURNOVERS have on a PG's performance, but embellish the extent that blocks (0.3, pretending like if that's a huge responsibility for PG!) and a 0.7 difference for assist (holy cow! ) About Duncan. Did you even read any of my posts regarding "supporting cast" on the Spurs? Guess not... By the way, you should save the "rose colored glasses" comments for someone that's a Spurs fan. The so called "hate SF club" are Rocket fans acknowledging that TP is better. Maybe it is you that needs to open your eyes. Francis is "hated" for a reason. His inability to use his brain. But you need to watch games in order to recognize that. It's clear you are unable to see this.
anybody who only compares stats indicates he has an bball IQ at par with that of SF3. now you've heard about it: TP is the "little fundamental" to TD's "big fundamental". he doesn't dribble the ball under his legs, or dunk the ball in any way, but he sure gets the job done and the Spurs' ball movement is way better than the ROx due to a great part to TP. who's better? you can ask that question again in 2 months when TP gets his second ring while SF3 heads to his 3rd team. yeah let him get his 20-7-6, good-looking stats. fine. you think TP gives a damn to that? seen GP lately? that's where SF3 is heading to if he doesn't learn to play the way bbal should be played. shame shame. :lol:
I guess he will be there with TD forever, to thrive in the Spurs Dynasty. We'd better hope SF become better.
The key is TP keeps improving in these three years, especially this year. He has a really bright future.
