That is very true. The one thing severely missing from Courtney Lee's game is creating contact by taking it all the way to the rim. He settles way too much for the mid range jumper instead of taking it all the way in and getting the foul. A couple years back, we had the dynamic trio, Yao, Lowry, and Carl Landry, and subsequently Kevin Martin with the trade of Landry, three guys that drew a foul on average about every 2 times they shot the basketball and all of them high percentage free throw shooters that the opponent did not want to put on the line. Now Martin is out, Yao and Landry are gone, and Lowry has been gone for much of the season on top of the refs calling fewer fouls. Championship offense in this league has been and ALWAY WILL BE from the inside out. You have to have guys that go inside a lot, whether it back-to-the-basket low block post up moves or whether it be slicing cuts and passes to the rim, or whether it be driving the ball with the dribble all the way to the rim, or a combination of the above in the form of pick and roll. A dynasty is able to get to the rim to consistently in multiple ways to set up WIDE OPEN three-point shots that they can hit effectively as a team at a 40+% clip. And the way they do it and knock a defense into next week is to pile up the foul count to: 1. Force the defense to have to play mismatches that they really don't want to play. and 2. Force the defense to have to play more tentative in the paint because they are in the bonus and they don't want to send good FT shooters to the foul line and increase the opponent's offensive efficiency exponentially. I was watching Carl Landry play last night. Still basically the same guy, still in his prime, still undersized, somewhat improved defensively still not great, however much better than Scola defensively. The key to Landry's game is he is still drawing fouls at a very, very high rate. He would be a great guy to have and the benefits to a team go way beyond his boxscore contributions, which are substantial enough. No, he's not the missing piece, but he is a piece that would make us a lot better in this department. Jimmy Butler, in a relatively skimpy sample size, is showing some promise as a guy that draws a lot of fouls for the minutes and shots he gets, and hits his freebies at a very good rate. Rodney Stuckey is another such player that is very aggressive to the rim, draws a lot of fouls and shoots a ton of free throws considering his usage rate. He's making $8.5 million for 2 more seasons after that. Could we swap Martin out for him??? Tyler Hansbrough is a young, aggressive big that draws a lot of fouls and gets to the FT line very well and knocks them down at a good clip too. (He's probably in the Carl Landry class with better D.) Dominique Jones can't get minutes in Dallas but everytime he plays he is very aggressive in drawing foul and getting to the line and his FT% is good. He may be a diamond in the rough. Tony Allen is a very aggressive to the rim and gets to the line a lot. Too bad he can't shoot for .... because if he could, he'd be a $10 million per year player. But he contributes a lot of very positive things for the money he makes. He's a typical Morey value contract. Eric Gordon....very aggressive going to the rim, gets to the FT line a lot, restricted free agent, would be a great solution for us at SG for the right price. Kenneth Faried...may very well be the steal of the 2012 draft even more so than Chandler Parsons. Very, very aggressive, gets to the FT a ton and knocks them down very well for a big man. Would love to have this guy. No way Denver parts with him. Wanted him last year in the draft. Oh well. Gordon Hayward showing a lot of promise as an aggressive to the rim player that draws a lot of fouls and shoots a lot of free throws. Not attainable however. Robin Lopez...quite the opposite of his brother, has shown good aggression at the rim. If dude could stay on the floor and play D without fouling, he could be a real horse and contributor to getting the team in the bonus and making offensive life much easier. Of course, he does play in a PnR system with one of the greatest PnR point guards eva. In his restricted year. Will be interesting to see what kind of money he gets offered. Hakim Warick falls into the same category, which brings me to a point about getting to the FT line. TEAMS THAT RUN PICK AND ROLL EFFECTIVELY GET TO THE FT LINE A LOT AND GET IN THE BONUS EARLIER. Oh, I would be crazy if I didn't mention DaDa's fav player, you know, Corey Maggette. He's still drawing a ton of fouls and has one year left on his contract. Another guy that can't shoot to save his life but he can get to the FT line a ton. Probably attainable.
Hmm, our two biggest weaknesses in the losing streak is FT shooting and 3 pt shooting. If only we had some sort of player who was excellent at both of these!
I don't think Martin is going anywhere after this abysmal season (unless we somehow manage to trade for a star and use his salary), so hopefully next season he comes back with a vengeance and helps us out in this category. And hopefully the shoulder had a lot to do with his poor shooting this year. I'd still prefer to move him but we'd be getting pennies on the dollar for him at this point.
