What do you mean by a system built for him to flourish? What have you seen thus far that is any different than what he was doing in our system? I have yet to see a discernible difference. His impact for Dallas will be minimally better than it was for us. I bet his numbers across the board are nearly identical to his last year in Houston. Only difference is now he makes 15X the money. Again that's not to say that what he was for us was bad, he was a very good player. He has just become so overrated and in my opinion will prove to be way overpaid. And this notion that he's somehow been set free by leaving Houston and has moved to this tailor fit system that is going to see him blossom is just really strange to me.
He improved offensively from year 2 to 3? I see nearly identical counting stats across the board with lower shooting percentages everywhere other than FT%. And while I agree I wish we could have gotten something for him, I just think if you look at how things broke down that was nearly impossible.
There are very few systems in the nba better suited to a secondary wing player than a primary wing player who not only demands primary defenders every single matchup but whose presence alone flexes the defense and is a willing playmaker. Parsons is a terrible iso and pick and roll ball handler because he lacks the requisite skills.
I'm not going to debate over stats... But there were people on clutchfans last year (like myself) saying Parsons was going to get $14-$15 million a year. It was not nearly impossible to trade him before the trade deadline last year. Harden dribbling the air out of the ball at the top of the key and or waiting for Howard to get close enough to the basket is not a system. And if Parsons gives Dallas 18-20 ppg _ that would probably be good enough for them. The spacing will be a lot different with Dirk on the floor so he may not have to be the best P&R ball handler in the world.
Yes, they have Monta and they are paying Monta for his valuable skill. Monta is not a great outside shooter, he can be mistake prone and is still not good defensively. The guy is making good money in the NBA because being able to just beat men off the dribble is a valuable skill. Parsons should do well offensively in Dallas and Dallas should be good offensively this year like they were last year. But it remains that Parsons is not nearly as deadly as he might otherwise be because of his lack of one on one abilities. Remember the playoffs last season? A part of the chess match between the teams saw Portland and Houston going back and forth with big and small lineups to either create mismatches or prevent them. Each team had mix success with these in a very close series. But during a few stretches I noticed that Portland was winning with a big lineup vs Houston's small lineup. During these times, either Aldridge or Lopez would beat up Harden or Parsons on the boards and near the basket-- which you expect to happen. The Rockets would struggle, though when they couldn't take advantage on the other end and this is often because Parsons couldn't really just straight up kill Aldridge one on one off the dribble-- he would have an advantage but did not just flat out embarass the big guy. Parsons was still valuable spacing the floor, drawing a big men out of the paint and giving everyone more room to work in the paint, but it's still not as good as being able to just throw the ball to him and have him contort the opposing D.
That's all I'm saying. I didn't say I believed Parsons was going to be a super star or Dallas was going to win the championship. I just think he will do good there and be worth the money to them.
That the Mavs fans are so pumped up about Parsons make me giddy once they realize who he really is. It is very possible that the Rockets will not experience much postseason success without Parsons. But it is certain that the Mavs will not experience any postseason success with him at max money. Yes, even with Dirk making half his money for being pals with Cuban.
Repeating LOFs ad-nauseum about Harden doesn't make it true, his possession of the ball is really no different to other ball handling non pgs (and somewhat less than all ball handling pgs), including one Ellis, Monta. As for the p&r, well, no, since he can't break down the d, he doesn't really synergize well with Dirk, Monta on the other hand, has his driving ability, which means the defenders either need to sink on him, allowing the kick out to Dirk or leave him single coverage in which case he's good enough to finish at the rim. Will he score a solid number of points? well sure, he's good at scoring in the flow of the offense, that was really his staple, that will continue to be his staple, but it's not a max contract worthy skillset (or even an 80% of max value) unless it comes with good to great D, which it surely doesn't.
It's bizarre, they are acting like Parsons' addition provides as much as if they had gotten Melo. With Melo they would have been a 4th seed, sure that's legit, with Parsons? ummm..wtf?
Well that's fine... And do you know how much Bosh made last year...??? Do you know how much Josh Smith is making...??? That's Mark Cuban's money so no need for us to concern ourselves about Parsons contract.
Well, how do we know what the Dallas ownership and management values...? For all we know Parsons may have value to Cuban off the court as well. Maybe Parsons was the best they could get and they valued him enough to give him that contract...
We know that's not true, because Lance was willing to take $5m a year less and is a better player, or at the very least about even, run an Ellis/Lance back court, couple that with their remaining cap space and they could have bid more than we did on Ariza and then they would have had a roster that actually utilized the money Dirk gave them.
But Dallas wanted Parsons as a super-glue guy/Swiss army knife. They aren't necessarily expecting him to become a 22 ppg superstar with elite defense, but he could potentially be an all-star over the next few years. He's got the talent to do anything they need at any given time, whether it's scoring, off-ball play and floor spacing, and even defensively he's a step up over a 36-year old Marion losing much of his athleticism. Basically they want Parsons to be a guy who can bring what Marion + Carter brought last year combined into one younger entity who can play up to 40 minutes a night if need be (although they're also deep at SF), and complement Dirk and Ellis perfectly as an elite offensive triad.
Meh, I think you guys think Cuban goes to bed with Morey on his mind.... How can we be positively sure that Lance had his bags packed ready to sign with Dallas...??? With the money being the same _ I would have picked Charlotte (and Jordan) too. Texas is considered a football state and it's always going to have a disadvantage when it comes to free agents _ especially Dallas. And if you think Lance is more valuable than Parsons off the court in Dallas, you're trippin.
Because his agent said he had a verbal agreement and Lance never even spoke to Charlotte until afterwards?
That's the Rockets system? Top 5 in both pace and efficiency, yet it was just Harden dribbling down the shot clock? Honestly, if you really think the Rockets/Harden's game consist of just dribbling around a la Steve Francis on a bad day, you obviously haven't ever watched him or even worse, you watched him and that's what you thought you saw. Then the question becomes if your problem is that you are dumb or have some other weird axe to grind based on race or beards or something.