can anyone explain this facination people have with mike miller?

Two things must be factored into any analysis of Mike Miller's game - 1) he played on an Orlando team which had virtually no inside post presence and an offense that focused upon Tracy McGrady and 2) when Miller joined Memphis, he had some major back problems and consequently his numbers went way down (in spite of shooting 51.0%).

For 2003-04, Hubie and the Grizz have made a subtle but significant change. With the addition of Posey at SF, they have moved Mike Miller to SG. I suggest watching the Rockets second game of the regular season before forming too solid of an opinion.

BTW - Millers career 43.6% FG% is better than any non-Center 2002-03 Rocket except Posey @ 43.9% and Morris @ 46.6%. And for non-Centers, Millers career 4.5 rpg would have placed him behind Francis, Griffin and .3 behind Posey. The 2002-03 Rockets had only two players with more apg than Millers career 2.4 - Francis 6.2 and Mobley 2.8.

The guys #'s hardly wreak.

 

The Grizz mad a bad trade imo. Gooden and Giricek.... for Miller. Are you kidding me? Awful trade for the Grizz. I haven't seen anything yet that shows me that Miller isn't average at best.

 

Who's Mike Miller?

I agree with Bookit...Orlando benefitted from the trade..they got Gooden AND Giricek. Very nice. Gooden and Giricek played very well for the Magic...

Mike Miller...injured.

He's not THAT good. I wouldn't mind having him on the Rockets though.

 

i agree, mike miller is highly overrated.
the problem is that the league is jamming this guy down our throats because they really want a white player to be successful.

ditto, rush!

 

The same facination people have with Nachbar, they're Blue Chips.

 

MM is a good player, underrated by a lot of NBA fans.

But he wasn't worth Gooden + Giri(or even Gooden for that matter).

I would trade Mobes for him.

 

Although GATER made a good point about Mike Miller in general, I still think the trade was pretty lopsided.

 

funny thing is, i think you are dead right jo. They have wanted another larry bird for a long while. Remember the torment we had to endure w/people saying that Queef Van Horn was the great white hope?

Miller does have a good game though. He has a sweet shot, moves well without the ball. Has good size and plays admirable defense. He would fit great on our team. Just don't tell me that the Grizz got the better of the deal. Gooden will be a stud in the east and Giricek will have a similar style game to Miller on a lesser end

 

I think a big part of why Miller is overrated is because he won ROY. People tend to forget, however, that he happened to win ROY in one of the worst rookie draft classes in recent memory.

 

I'm a Grizz fan who reads this board. Only people who didn't see Gooden/Giricek play every night think that the Grizz got robbed in the Miller trade. Bottom line - West traded 2 backups for a starter. Gooden couldn't start at the 3 (hell, he couldn't play the 3) and was worse than Gasol at the 4 and Giricek was not as good as Wes Person at the 2. While Grizz fans will criticize some of West's moves (like the recent draft of Troy Bell and Dahntay Jones), few (if any) Grizz fans think that West made a bad deal in the Miller trade.

Is Miller an all-star? Probably not. Is he a good 2/3 who can shoot and run the floor? Sure. Plus, he's got a good work ethic and is a decent (ie non-criminal) guy.

So, that is to say, many of us who have seen a lot of Gooden/Giricek and Miller in Memphis are very happy that Miller is here now.

Just my 2 cents from the Bluff City.

 

I hated the trade, but looking at it from a rational perspective, like you just did, the trade does make sense. I still think Mike Miller is somewhat overrated, but he fits pretty well into the Grizz scheme of things. Thanks for the hometown point of view.

 

Maybe it's because his name is Mike.

 

I'm in total agreement that Orlando got the better of the trade. Primarily because I think Gordan Giricek is the real deal and I thought so when he was still at Memphis. However....

All of those citing the mismatch in this trade (including myself) and the alleged over-valuation of Mike Miller must keep one thing in mind. The person making the trade decison is regarded as one of the best talent evaluaters to ever GM an NBA team - Jerry West. And IMHO, Millers back problems were much more severe than were reported in the media.

Bottomline, let's see how Miller's numbers look when the current season ends and he has had a chance to play with the Gasols, Swifts, and Wrights of the world instead of the Pat Burke's, aged Ho Grant's, over-the-hill Shawn Kemp's and injured Steven Hunter's of the world.

 

What was the last "genius" move Jerry West made? The last move that was undeniably a good move.

The Outlaw/Tsakalidis thing was decent, but hardly great and that was a pure salary dump by Phoenix.

West has been living off his reputation for a while now and I'm not buying the whole "West did it so it must be good" philosophy.

 

Last last move that was undeniably a good move?

Hiring Hubie Brown to replace Lowe.

West is doing a pretty good job - he took over a team with Jason Williams, Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, Ren Wright, Stro Swift and a bunch of scrubs (almost all of whom are not in the NBA any longer) and turned it into a pretty deep deep with the additions of Wes Person, Mike Miller, James Posey, Jake Tsakalidis, Bo Outlaw and Earl Watson (probably his best signing - Watson will be an NBA starting pg in the future).

Also, he had to do this without the luck of the ping-pong balls. It's amazing how Jim Paxton suddenly became a much better GM when he got LeBron.

 

Hiring Brown was good, but that wasn't a personnel move and that's what I was looking at. He has made a string of questionable maneuvers in terms of personnel. Cezary Trybanski for the salary of a lottery pick? Giving up his self proclaimed rookie of the year and a very good player for Mike Miller ( at exactly the moment he needed to be extended for large money)? His recent draft of guys who were probable second round picks? Signing Posey for large dollars when he already has about 5 guys that do the same thing? And on and on.

Some of those may work out ok, but none will come out as great things. He has not been among the better GM's in the league since his return.

 

You've expanded the topic beyond drafting so I won't hesitate to mention he signed Shaq and was able to be in position (or winning image) to manuever for Kobe. There is no NBA GM who conducts flawless drafts. As a pure evaluater of talent and as one who understands the finer points of the business aspect of the game, Jerry West is easily in the Top 10% of the current NBA executives.

Other than the drafting of Tim Duncan and the possible trade for Jason Kidd, I fail to see any comparable GM moves equating to the talent evalutions of Shaq and Kobe.

If you're going to suggest Jerry West is poor at drafting, at last provide the "yardsticks" of whom you think he falls short of. My guess is it's a short list.

 

He signed Shaq when Shaq wanted to be in LA for his film career and publicity of the major market. It isn't like Shaq was going to sign with Milwaukee and West convinced him the Lakers were a better option. He drafted Kobe when Kobe said he'd only play for the Lakers. That's LA being genius not necessarily Jerry West.

He isn't getting the LA bonus points in Memphis.

 

He is liked because he passes well and is at times a great shooter.