No, it doesn't. Its a simplistic term used by people who don't understand why things are happening the way they are. Chris Bosh averaged 10-11 rebounds per game in Toronto, which is fine. He gets moved to Center because they never had a true center and Bargs was more of PF. So yea, often times he was overpowered by bigger stronger centers. Moving to Miami, again he faced the same problem, but added 2 of the top rebounding wings in the league that canabalize rebounding opportunities. Thus his rebounding suffered. Patterson is playing alongside 2 players who are top 3 at thier position at rebounding and another who is top ten. There is natural canabalizing there. We also shoot a ton of three point shots which leads to long rebounds. Not to mention Patterson often gets pulled to the perimeter guarding the likes of the Boozers, Aldridges, Milsaps, Bargnanis, etc whose games have shifted further and further away from the basket. Watch his defense FFS. He is a tough physical defender. So he avoids contact for rebounding but not for defense? Could his rebounding be better? Sure. But tossing around the soft label is idiotic. It appears I am going to have to put some tape together to show people what is actually happening and dispel this stupid myth.
So Patterson drops 27 points on 18 shots while defended by Ibaka and he is soft, but a year older Jeremy Lin who shot over 50% just once this season got Steve Nash potencial. That Steve Nash who is the only player in NBA history to record multiple 50-40-90 seasons. No need to say that Lin will never come close to that... Patterson is better basketball player than Lin will ever be. He is efficient scorer, doesn't turn the ball over, can defend pick&roll and is solid low post defender and y'all hate on him.
I've been defending Pat too, but no need to bring Lin into this. Has nothing to do with anything. Patterson has gotten the short end of the stick though.
I'm not so sure about this. I hear Patterson's post defense and team defense get praised, but it's still awfully poor. It may simply be the best among the Rockets' current power forwards, which is a pretty low bar. The guy hedges so awkwardly and ineffectively, it's hard to watch. I see some efforts on occasion to body his man up in the post, but I interpret this as Patterson trying to compensate for his opponent's physical advantages, like greater length or strength. He still gets toasted on the low block with great frequency. I'm just not seeing it. He is bed sheets straight from the dryer piled onto a La-Z-boy sprinkled with cotton with the Snuggle bear bounces up and down on it degrees of softness. I'm not sure cherry-picking footage of The Time Patterson Forced a Miss and The Time He Got an Offensive Rebound is going to be very effective. You may even find that you are defending Patterson more vigorously than Patterson defends his man.
If you are convinced a player is "soft" I don't think any evidence will change your mind. Confirmation bias. Besides, "soft" is such a nebulous description, that people will use any sort of evidence as confirmation, such as "he fell down too hard when he was fouled by point guard Lowry, he is SO SOFT." So ridiculous.
Maybe. But I think you suffer from the same problem as the other poster who thought the word itself had some overly broad application or silly playground tough guy connotations, when it really sounds like your own understanding of it is too broad, and not the actual term. It's simple. In my estimation, Patterson shies away from the more physical aspects of the power forward position, and often plays with passivity at the slot even though it's aggression that the league rewards instead. He is a nontraditional power forward who brings some things to the table that are usually outside the ambit of things that a 4 does--shooting over 35% from 3 would be one of them. And then he also has deficiencies and fails to bring to the table things that a 4 generally does, he fails to put the "power" in power forward. These aren't very complicated or even controversial sentiments. I guess I just have the unpopular opinion that a 6'9" power forward shouldn't be shooting floaters in the paint, though? But this is the same fan base that (the word might be) tolerated a 7'6" center shooting bankshots at the rim instead of dunking for the better part of a decade, so perhaps you're not open to hearing these types of criticisms of a finesse player playing a power position to begin with?
I don't think it's fair to label Patterson as being "SOFT". I think a more fair assessment is that he plays SMALL. You look at Patterson and see a muscular guy with a good frame and your perception is that he's going to be a guy that's going to be a fierce defender and a great rebounder. At 6'9 235 he can easily bulk up another 10 pounds without sacrificing much speed or quickness. Learning to play bigger and getting your positioning and timing right for rebounds and defense are all things things that can easily be worked on with effort, time and experience. Often times teaching a guy how to shoot can be much more debilitating and difficult see Reggie Evans or Chuck Hayes.
He's trying to play tougher. See that missed slam, for example. And he's drawing fouls now. Got to give him credit. His play has clearly improved in the last week. Just want him to help out more on the defensive rebounds and I'll be pretty happy.
I never remember anyone ever calling Patterson soft before this season. Ever. The guy is not rebounding as much as most PF do, but that does not mean he is necessarily soft. He has Asik, Harden and Parsons all rebounding around him at an above average clip. Plus, and more importantly, the way the team is using him as a perimeter floor spreading jump shooter on offense and as someone who tries to leak out on the break during defense (while Asik and Parsons grab rebounds and push the ball) means he is around the basket less after missed shots. You can't just look at numbers and say someone is soft. Last season people were pining for his post defense while they watched Scola. In his rookie year people were calling him a beast. You can't be a soft beast, and he has not changed as a player -- he is just being used differently and has different personnel around him.
People have labeled Yao, Bosh, Pau Gasol, and Nowitski as soft. In Yao's case it's a total lie and the other three are champions. Labels mean absolutely nothing.
Well as previous posters have said, we see his body and expect him to get physical in the paint. But as we saw last night, when he got the ball and tried to establish position in the paint, he got EASILY pushed out multiple times by Ibaka and Perkins. Absolutely laughable attempts. I think ppl see that and think "soft". That and not boxing out/fighting for rebounds. Also, when your PG has taken more charges than your PF, yea your PF is SOFT.
I was thinking the same thing. Haven't seen as many push shots near the rim. He missed that one slam, and I think Ibaka blocked a 2 hand slam attempt earlier in the game, I like his aggressiveness though. Still needs to crash the boards harder. He's been told to hang around the 3pt line and spread the floor so offensive boards are going to be seldom, but he needs to work on his timing for reb's. I saw him box out Bargnani then forget to jump so Barg's still got the rebound.
Not even gonna comment on the Jeremy Lin thing But Patterson NEEDS to crash the boards and all aspects of his rebounding game he is SOFT. I know Asik get all the rebounds but when he's not on the floor ive noticed Morris and Smith being way more active on the boards
Guess who tossed around the word "soft" more than anybody? Red Auerbach. You think he is idiotic? Because I thought for the most part, he knew what he was talking about.
Patterson is turning into a reliable offensive option at the 4 before our eyes. I don't know what everybody is b****ing about.
He is soft! Why? Because he does soft ****. Going up soft, sets picks soft, shoots the ball soft, has soft touch, pats soft things, boxes out soft. He can score 30 points and still be soft. Ibaka plays soft too. He can defend bigs but scores like a soft little guy.
Pat can score points but so did Kevin Martin. They do stuff defensively that just cancel out. kmart would score 40 points and we will still lose.
I really like this distinction, especially if we all have 1000 different definitions for what "soft" means. This might clear up some confusion. I don't think "small" encompasses every part of it, but it's close enough. It's definitely a more usable word to work with. And absolutely, Chuckwagon was always a great example of a player who played BIG. Much love to Chuck Hayes.
