Since he did not play in the first two games, these stats are just from the game against the Heat and against the Thunder. Marcus Thornton is shooting .467 from behind the arc (7-15) and scoring 16.5 points per game in 34 minutes per game. While it may be from a small sample size, I think it's safe to say we found a reliable player to play off the ball, complimenting Harden or Lawson's drive and kick, and hit the threes at an above-average rate, which really works well with our Moreyball system. Did I mention we got him for the veteran minimum? Data per basketball-reference.com
He's looked really, really good when he's been on the court and it doesn't seem to matter what the line-up is. He was an absolute steal at the vet minimum.
I feel the same way. Brewer doesn't bring enough to the table consistently to warrant the minutes he has been seeing lately. Hopefully when DMo comes back Thornton stays in the rotation and sucks up some minutes from Brewer and Bev. I LOVE Bev but he doesn't need to be on the court with Lawson. Ever.
I didn't like him early on .... but he's a good shooter and the rest of his game isn't so terrible either. Solid addition to the bench.
He's good. Classic example of Good player on bad teams for years. He will be this year's Delfino if not better.
People were sleeping on him, thinking he was another Daniels...McHale though..what was his excuse? Do we know yet?
I always believed in Thornton. Over the summer when people were posting line ups I couldn't fathom why so many were giving no minutes to Thornton.
I wondered, at the time, if McHale forgot Thornton was sitting there. Or maybe there was some injury we didn't know about?
Because they are still trying to figure out rotations and combinations. He was trying to use Harrell, Capela, and Jones for rebounding and defense. But playing Harrell with either Dwight or Capela creates poor spacing. McHale said it's going to take some time to figure out when and how to play some of the new guys because we had so many injury problems in the preseason. I think during the third game ClutchFans were going crazy because Harrell wasn't in the game. But I think we can see now that using Thornton was the right move. Of course anything McHale does or doesn't do will get criticized around here.
I always considered Thornton to be a guy who got buckets at the expense chemistry and efficiency. Instead, he's a heady, crafty player who doesn't hurt us on D and actually has some nice court vision too. Awesome pick up.
He's been a journeyman and hasn't been on a team this good. I would be thrilled if by the end of the season if he was a 6th man candidate.
An unfortunate (?) injury have Thronton time or else he would gave been glued to the end f the bench by the moron McFail for god knows how long