Last year, for the most part, our FGAs were very balanced among our top 5 scorers: Yao - 12.5 Steve - 14.2 Cat - 13.5 JJ - 11.3 Mo - 10.2 Total - 61.7 Given the new configuration of the team, what should these numbers look like next year? Here's my best guess: With less turnovers and more fastbreak oppurtunities, the five top scorers should get maybe 3 more FGAs to work with, so let's say we have 65 shots to go around. T-Mac: Said himself that he expected to score about 22 a night. 16 shots per game should be enough to accomplish that; let's say he makes an average of 7 shots per game, and two of them are three pointers, that's 16 points. Add about five points from the FTs he'll be getting (let's say he hits about 5.5 of 7, a .786 clip), and it comes out to about 21-22 points. Yao: I'm convinced that with more minutes and a more aggressive attitude, Yao will average around an even 20ppg. Let's say he gets 14.5 shots and hits his shots at a 55% clip, that's 8 FGs made a game. Add 5 FTs from 6.5 attempts, and Yao scores maybe 20, 21 points a night. So with the two main stars, they're taking up a little less than half of the total shots to go around. Let's continue to the role players. Howard - Should be the third option. He averaged 14.5 shots last season, knock that down to 11. Let's say his FG% takes a boost with Yao giving him more open looks, and he makes a little over 5 of his attempts. Factor in maybe 3 of 4 FTAs, and he's averaging about 13-14ppg; the same as when he was the fourth option in Dallas a few years ago. Jimmy - 10 FGAs per game sounds about right, give or take one. It really depends on how many minutes he's able to play, as he's going on 34 next season. I see his production maybe slipping a few points, but more or less I expect the same that we saw last year. So that leaves us with about 12-13 shots. This is where questions start to arise; do they go to Mo, or should our 3-headed "monster" at PG fight over them? Does Boki finally become a contributor? What do you guys think? Does the rest look about right? Who gets to fight over the rest of the shots? Last year, after Mo, the guy with the next most FGAs/game was Cato with just 5.2. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.
Jimmy is in such great shape though. Didn't miss one game last season at all right? Plus he got huge minutes in the playoffs and I'm sure he liked that a lot. He missed that 3 out of the wing in Game 1. I'm sure he's dying for this season to begin to redeem himself. He's my new mario elie . Does all the little things note: That had nothing to do with the topic. Sorry just wanted to show my support for JJ.
we averaged 76 (75.5 rounded up) last year so everything should add up to around 76. lets say we have a couple of more fast break opportunities, and make it 78. Yao - should take around 15 shots but i'll bet he'll take less. McGrady - took 23 shots last year, should be taking around 17 shots this year. Juan Howard - i'd rather him take at most 10 shots a game so we'll leave it at that. Jackson - 8 shots. Boki - 6 shots a game will do MoT - 8 shots a game. Sura - 6 shots Lue - 3 shots a game. Ward- average about 3 thats 76. +2 for the rest of the bench (however much minutes that can squeeze out of JVG's tight rotation. JVG likes his 8 man rotation and i listed 9 guys, so one of them aint playing. ++3 for rest of team.
I think we're going to score more points. Yao - 20 Tmac - 24 Howard - 14 JJ - 10 pg - 6 -------------------- bench - Taylor - 6 Boki - 6 pg - 4 other - 4 ------------------ That's 94. If we cut Yao down to 18, (7 makes + 4 ft?), Tmac to 22, Howard to 12, Taylor and Boki to 4 ea, that's still 84. We have a better attack this year than last year. It's easier to move the ball and score. Howard is better than Cato, Yao will be better and get the ball, Tmac is the scoring leader. We should be able to score. We shouldn't have those scoring draughts where nothing goes in, like we did when Steve and Cuttino went cold.
I think we'll score more points as well. Where Francis was so hesitant to take his shots, I dont' think you'll see that same problem with mcgrady. He will pull the trigger the minute he sees daylight. Plus with mcgrady he will stretch the defenses out further than francis could. Include the fastbreak plays I think we will get more of with our increased defensive prescence I think we should be averaging an additional 10 shots per game. That's just me though. I'm no expert
oh yah yours is better pasox. I forgot about the FTs and other stuff like that. YOur one looks better on paper anyway.
Yao – 14 Backup center - 3 Howard – 9 Taylor - 7 JJ – 8 Boki - 5 Mcgrady – 16 Lue – 6 Sura – 7 Ward – 3 Total: 78
Uhh...how about giving it to whoever's hot, or open, or in Yao's case, being guarded by Andrew Declerque. I think it's a little early predict shot distribution.
Yao and TMac should take about 32 shots between them. Add 10 for Howard, 8 for Mo, 8 for JJ. The rest of the role players will take the rest 20 shots.
oh my gosh..........i'm getting so pumped, just thinking about this season....what a line up. interesting comparison between mario elie and JJ.... both are good three point shooters..... both play good D, altho elie was better at it. i think elie was a better driver than JJ, but JJ has a better post game. both do the dirty well for 3s.