Golden State wants to make him look good so someone will take him in a trade. Maybe rockets.com should have some bs pictures of cato working out and playing ball in the gym.
<A HREF="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/09/SP115391.DTL">A week old story on Damp</A> <A HREF="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/08/15/SP151356.DTL"> Should Hughes get a Max Contract?</A> Mango
Hey, I didn't start this so it could be an all-purpose Warrior-bashing thread. (That's what ESPN.com is for.) About Hughes, though ... someone on a GS board totaled up some team stats for the games Hughes played versus those he missed due to injury last year. The notable findings: In the 50 games with Hughes, the Ws scored 4819 pts, averaging 96.4. In the 32 games without Hughes, the Ws scored 2765 pts, averaging 86.4. The Ws shot 41.5% with Hughes in the lineup, making 1836 of their 4425 shots. The Ws shot 40.0% without Hughes in the lineup, making 1101 of their 2750 attempts. Antawn Jamison shot 46.3%, making 450 of his 971 shots, with Hughes in the lineup. Jamison shot 41.6%, making 350 of his 841 shots, while Hughes was absent from the lineup. So despite his own crappy shooting, Hughes still had a sizable positive influence on the Warriors' offense, and particularly Jamison's offense. Which is probably why when a reporter asked Jamison at the end of the season about the possibility of GS blowing up its roster, unloading everyone except him and their upcoming lottery pick, Antawn said that would be fine with him -- as long as the Warriors kept Larry Hughes, too.
Hey, Swopa, I've always liked Hughes and felt that he got an undeserved bad rap around these parts. Would you say that his biggest weakness (i.e. primary source for low shooting %) is shot selection? Personally, I think he certainly has the potential to be a big-time scorer and shooter, but like most young players, has yet to master the subtlties (sp?) of offensive play. I'm also very interested to see Hughes and Richardson in the backcourt together this year. If Hughes can make the transition to being a combo G (I think he can EASILY), the GS backcourt could give our own Steve & Cat a run for their money in a year or 2.
Swopa, That brings up an interesting question: If Hughes had a problem with his own shot selection when he was playing the 2, how will he know who has the best shot opportunity when he is playing the point and needs/supposed to pass? Mango
Mango, if Hughes is passing the ball, whoever he passes it to is going to have a better chance of making the shot than he will. The math is in his favor!
When I hear "poor shot selection," I think of someone like Jerry Stackhouse, who jacks them up anytime from anywhere. That's not Hughes at all, IMO. When you watch a team play a lot, you get a sense of the flow of their offense, and Hughes' shots come within that flow -- he almost never forces up an outside jumper. The shots that he does force -- and which wind up killing his FG% -- are usually put up within 10 feet of the rim, on attempted drives. He gets by his man OK, but when the rest of the defense collapses, he winds up with an acrobatic twisting/leaning layup or one-handed jumper that he can't finish amid the traffic/contact. You might say, "Well, why doesn't he pass in those situations," but when Bob Sura was in they'd consistently run the same plays and encounter the same problem, with no better results -- Sura would more frequently try to pass, but rarely succeed in getting it to a teammate ("Sura passing to his psychic friend" became a running joke on a Warriors BBS). So a large part of the problem, to me, seemed like structural flaws in the W's offensive scheme, to whatever limited extent there was one. What I find laughable is the notion of Hughes as a selfish, undisciplined outside gunner ... which appears to have become the conventional wisdom among people who have rarely, if ever, seen him play. Even more amazing is that this reputation seemed to grow during a year in which his shots-per-game dropped 25% and his assists rose. Even as second options, guys like Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Cuttino Mobley, and David Wesley all took a greater percentage of their team's field-goal attempts than did Hughes in the games he played last year. I think you're on the right track here. He needs to gauge how far he can get before getting swarmed, and get used to taking a pull-up jumper instead of straining to get all the way to the rim. He also needs to get stronger so that when he does draw contact, he can finish the shot. I see the potential, too, but the process of getting there could be bumpy. Hughes is a comparatively good ballhandler at SG but not at PG, at least not yet. And Richardson is somewhat below average for a starting SG in my book -- meaning that if he and Hughes are on the floor at the same time, GS would likely have questionable ballhandling at every position (assuming a frontcourt of Dampier, Fortson, and Jamison). A pressure defense could cause nightmares for that lineup.
Swopa, How would that lineup you mentioned fare defensively? Could Hughes approach Mookie's ability as a defender? <IMG SRC="http://www.akadel.com/chat/images/tasty.gif"> Mango
Didn't another team already try the Hughes-as-a-point-guard routine, and it didn't work out? IMO that its much easier for a guy to go from PG to SG (Penny, Steve Smith) than the other way around (remember Maxwell at the point?). So that I don't sound like a complete GS basher I would like to say that I like Dampier's game. I think he works hard at the defensive end and uses his considerable size well. Going to the big-man camp shows that he's willing to work on his offensive game, too. If he could ever stay healthy, I think he could be a good 2nd-tier center - not a superstar, but definitely better than most of the stiffs who play the position.
An article in the Oakland Tribune last December documented Hughes' willingness to play the point for GS, even though he didn't feel ready to play PG when he was in Philadelphia. (I can't get a link to work, but the URL is search.newschoice.com/Display.asp?story=d:\index\newsarchives \angtr\spt\20001227\598948_jt1ws27.txt&puid=557 ... sorry, but you'll have to cut & paste both lines into the same URL, then delete any spaces ) As I've said before, I'm not brimming with optimism that Hughes will become a dominant NBA point guard. But in an attempt to educate myself on the subject, I did a quick Google search and found that although Hughes played SG in his one year of college ball, all of the references to his high-school career (which culminated in a state championship and an AAU national championship) describe him as a PG. For example, CNNSI said, "Anyone who saw him in high school knows he is an outstanding point guard with great vision who truly makes his teammates better. If handed the reins to a club, he has a chance to be a special player.[...] If he develops his jumper, think Ray Allen as a point guard." And this came from an article on his first couple of weeks in college hoops: Some HS recruiting gurus writing for ESPN gloated as follows after this June's draft: So who knows, maybe he can do it. As far as other converted college SGs making it at PG, one is starting for the Rockets now. And I'm sure you've heard of at least one other one, Sam. Mango, I'd say that Hughes is likely to be a much better defender at PG than at SG, albeit not necessarily of Mookie's caliber (heck, even Mookie isn't quite a Mookie-caliber defender anymore). He was improving noticeably as last year went on, and his best feature was his ability to deny entry passes. Richardson looks promising on D, too -- in fact, my guess is that he'll be a good NBA defender before he becomes a good outside shooter. (P.S. Thanks for introducing me to the concept of "smiley stalking." )
