Jackson may not have been directly acquired when Rice was traded; but essentially this move allows Jackson to be signed. Rice was a good spot up shooter, but other than that, he didn't do much more. Jackson on the other hand gives you hard nose defense, good spot up shooting, and rebounds. But Jackson isn't replacing Rice; let's not forget that one. I'm not going to tell you that Jackson is better than Posey. Because Posey was an excellent player and his talent cannot be denied, I was on his bandwagon because he definatley impressed me. But look at our team: it has a dominant center that plays with his back to the basket, two excellent slashers with Mobley and Francis, a developing PF that WILL be a star, but for now will concentrate on rebounds and blocks. Yet it didn't have a pure shooter with Posey. The team did not need Posey's style to suceed. Posey is a good guy on a team that needs scrappers and plays high flying basketball. Posey was a superb running buddy of Francis finishing fantastic dunks. His defense was good. But his play usually causes the defense to collapse on the centers. But Van Gundy said it best. This team needs shooters. Hence who was signed in the off season? Piat, Jackson, and Griffin. Two good shooters and one defensive minded swing man. The overall talent is less at the swing man position; but the fit is better for this style Van Gundy is stressing "Inside out basketball". It's like in baseball, if every player on your team only hits homeruns, you can never win. It's the art of combining the guys who hit singles with the homerun hitters to maximize the output.Jackson
I couldn't agree more. What's more, our improved team depth requires everyone to play better. Before, if Mobley jacked up stupid shots, what would we do? Sub in Hawkins? Bring in the Mooch? Now, Pike and Jackson will get the minutes. Mobley's play will improve as a result of these acquisitions. Ditto Francis. If he is not playing defense, JVG will play Mooch, Mobley or even Mike Wilks at the point. Jackson, Pike, Mobley, Motay and Yao are all good scoring options. We don't "need" francis' scoring like we did before.
i'm not so concerned with depth for the purpose of getting guys to play smart for fear of less PT, i just love it b/c now we can actually put someone good in the game when our pg/sg/sf leave the game. i mean moochie freaking norris was our only real backup guard. yeah, cuttino mobley and steve francis were backed up by moochie norris only. that's pathetic. if they weren't playing 42 minutes per game, that just meant we had to see moochie even more. i think we'd all play steve and cat til they dropped if the alternative was moochie costing us the game. now we can actually bring in a real live back up sg in piat and instead of using mobley at spot backup sf duty, we can bring in AG on top of our even better sf jim jackson (who i think fits us MUCH better, and is better, than posey). i'm not sure why everyone is so concerned with scaring mobley and steve with our backups. i mean i want yao to always play tough and know i can bench him for cato if he's not, but i'm not particularly concerned with scaring yao with that possibility. it's nice to have good backups just to have good backups, not to scare the starters into playing better. i'd say about 90% of the time you use backups it's to give starters rest while not losing much, not to get a starter out b/c he's being stupid. if cuttino really just loves to play stupid all the time, i don't think even piat scares him that much. but that's not cuttino's mindset, he does what the coach tells him and adjusts his role whenever asked. he'll do it again this year.
I agree. We replaced Maddox with Wilks. Moochie should be more focused and more productive this year. We replaced Hawkins with Adrian Griffin...but I like Hawkins much more...Griffin is a better player though. We replaced Posey with Jim Jackson...which is fine with me...even though I will miss Posey's alleyoop dunks and nice hustle plays...Jim Jackson is just as good and cheaper. We also get rid of Rice's contract. And we now got Amaechi...a bit of an improvement over Collier. We also added Malick Badiane. Everyone is gaining experience and developing chemistry. I think we are a better team. Francis 36/Wilks 12/Moochie Mobley 36/Piatkowski 20 Jackson 20/AGriffin 20/Nachbar EGriffin 24/Taylor 24/Badiane Yao 34/Cato 14/Amaechi We also have a new coach with an improved coaching staff.
I think a great addition would be a player named Terence Morris. He has 2 years of NBA playing experience with the Houston Rockets. He was on the championship team at Maryland. He is a pure shooter who is sort of slow but athletic as well. He is a quiet type of guy who can block shots out of nowhere. He is a great 3rd stringer that we should sign.
So this is what it boilds down to: Jackson replaces Posey Piat replaces Rice Griffin replaces Hawkins Amashi replaces Collier Jackson gives us shooting that Posey lacked. Piat is a younger version of Rice of Today! Griffin can give you a taste of offense with his defense. Amashi can at least be another body to put on Shaq. Not a superb summer, but the team did improve.
Terence Morris wasn't on the championship Maryland team and why would he be a good addition now that we've signed Jackson, Griffin, and Pike?
hmm, lets say/hope/wish/pray that boki is a reliable backup which in turn gives JJ more minutes at shooting guard. can cuttino play the one at all? id rather have him backup steve at the one than have the mooch do it. with all our versatility at the 1,2,3 it seems that cat, mooch and boki are the only ones that dont play out of position. (or in bokis case, dont play)
sad to see the Hawk go...that guy hustled his ass off, and look where that got him. goes to show that life is not fair! if only he was given more playing time...
