Nachbar is still at the beginning of his career. Padgett is at the end of his. Padgett may have 2 years left. I am still convinced Nachbar will be a solid player in this league. And I think the combination of Rudy and JVG ruined him here. Not afraid to say it, I think JVG blew this one.
He's been around for as long as Yao has. It sure is a long "beginning" of a career. Also, just because you are young doesn't mean your career isn't ending. Just ask Skita. Nachbar's career will be finished pretty soon if he doesn't show something this year. I'd say this might be his last shot.
Padgett is 30, Nachbar is 26, 4 years is a difference but not a huge one. Anyway, why are you convinced of this? Nachbar's one good half season is still not even close to Padgett's recent seasons. PER Padgett Season 1 7.6 Padgett Season 2 17.6 Padgett Season 3 15.4 Padgett Season 4 12.4 Padgett Season 5 15.6 Padgett Season 6 12.3 Padgett Season 7 12.5 Nachbar Season 1 5.8 Nachbar Season 2 8.3 Nachbar Season 3 10.1 (10.9 for his time with NO) Nachbar Season 4 7.2 Nachbar last year at age 26, after his "breakout" half season (in which he was an even more one dimensional player than padgett and posted a mediocre 10.9 PER) regressed to the point where he was comparable to Padgett as a 23 year old rookie with Utah -- is that because Lawrence Frank and the Nets "ruined him"?
Sam, With all due respect. It just takes some guys longer. If you look at his skills on the floor in an actual game, you have to be able to see he has it over Padgett. Padgett is an old Kentucky guy, good conservative, decently efficient ballplayer. He was brought up that way. Boki was brought up in the Euro fast break shoot and run style. Padgett is what he is, no upside. You know Boki still has untapped upside. (Of course, like a lot of ballers, Boki may never tap that upside. But I am willing to bet that he does.) Hey, I would have thought Boki would have broken out by now. But I think this is the time. He's in NJ playing with Kidd. VC is on an expiring deal and hasn't really committed to coming back there. NJ has to develop someone else in case VC walks or they are forced to trade him. All the circumstances are right for Boki right now. He's playing in an uptempo offense with a great PG and he's going to actually get consistent minutes this year. And he's been around 4 years, long enough to know the game, but still young enough and athletic enough to improve significantly. I don't think Lawrence and the Nets are "ruining" him. Rather, I think they are building him. We all know Boki can shoot it. It's just a matter of him being comfortable in his role. It's just a matter of game confidence and getting consistent enough minutes to get in a rhythm. I believe he'll get that this year. Besides that, he hasn't exactly been poor from the 3 point line, 35% career, in spotty minutes. Yeah, his overall FG% leaves a lot to be desired. That just tells me it is nerves, confidence, and comfortability. He has obviously missed a lot of bunnies. The other dimension that Boki has that Padgett could only dream about is the ability to put the ball on the floor and slash to the basket. Padgett can't touch him athletically. New Jersey is in a win now mode. They dropped Padgett. Do you think they would trade us Boki for Padgett straight up? Nooooope.
[/quote] Boki played on the NJ Nets with Jason Kidd, Vince Carter & Richard Jefferson and rarely played and wasn't good when he did. In fact he played on the same team as Padgett and managed to be a lot less effecitve in smilar minutes (9mpg for Nachbar vs. 11mpg for Padgett). Byron Scott runs a motion offense too - pretty much the same offense they run in New Jersey, with Chris Paul - and they got rid of him in a salary dump a few months after signing him to a contract. Why? Because even during his best season he was mediocre at best. Don't tell me that because Padgett played with Tubby Smith at Kentucky that means Nachbar gets a free pass for being a lousy two point shooter and a horrible, foul prone defender. That just doesn't logically compute. They were both in the same place last season, and while Padgett was nothing to write home about, Nachbar was straight up abysmal. For a guy who has never shot over 40% from the field in his NBA Career - how do we know this? IIRC at benetton treviso (and you echo this above) he was a "slasher" and not a shooter. The only time he really tore it up shooting was when he conned the rockets into drafting him after acing the fabled Joe Ash "shooting drill" that other NBA nobodies like Mirsad Turkcan, Dan Langhi, and others passed. Thus far his career path has matched theirs. 35% from three point land is not bad - but not when you're an utter liability in every other aspect (a lot more so than Padgett, which is surprising even to me. As a rebounder, Nachbar makes Padgett look like Chuck Hayes) Yet padgett sinks twos better than Nachbar and does pretty much everything else better too; it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if he can beat his man if Nachbar can't score, does it? Uhhh, yeah that's cause Padgett's contract expired while Nachbar has two years remaining on his. And yes, I guarantee you that they would trade us straight up - that way they can cut padgett (or not) and have a guy on the bench making the rookie minimum rather than having to waste a few million on Nachbar. Don't look to NJ, look to New Orleans. Nachbar - after his greatest season by far, was traded for Journeyman Marc Jackson as an NJ salary dump. And the Nets have regarded him as this as well. But hey if you watn to bet he becomes a good player, I'll bet. I bet he doesn't make a 15.0 PER in 50 games. The guy is in his 5th season. He has a lower career PER than Ryan Bowen and woudl not crack the Rockets' two deep at any position. Don't tell me that losing him was a blunder.
Where is the hate? Telling it fairly, reasonably when the history says one-thing is not hating. I, for one, root for the guy. But I don't see much of an NBA future for him. If Boki were an UFA July 1st what would his best offer be? He would be unlikely to do better than the LLE. Make-good minimum contract most likely IMHO.
Let me know when this event is scheduled - I will be there with the video camera. This would definitely be a hit on YouTube - make my career as a documentary journalist. BTW where does this fall in man-law regulations? And regarding Boki, I think in retrospect he would have been better served spending at least 1 and probably 2 more years playing Euro ball. He got nothing out of being brought over too soon and then stuck on the bench and then hoisted on Gundy's spear. Funny thing is he might fit this Rockets team better than the one he was on. Interesting to see if he does anything with this chance.
Sam, You obviously have some legit points. Can't argue with your stats when you compare Padgett with Boki. I just happen to feel that Padgett is at the zenith of his career and Boki hasn't even approached his. I am basing that more from what little we have seen of Boki on the floor a lot more than the limited minute stats he has put up. I feel he has the physical tool to be an acceptable defender and a very good offensive option for a team. And I think we've seen the worst of Boki, not the best of Boki. I think Boki is one of those guys that is going to get better when he is given minutes in actual games. I think he's got a major case of Nervous Nellies and he has to get comfortable on the floor. We can see from his time in New Orleans when he was getting 20 mpg that his shooting percentages went up, especially his 3 point shooting. I played with guys like that. They were either so increcibly atheltic that at the beginning of games their adrenaline was pumping so much that they shot bricks and committed fouls until they got sweated down and out of breath. What I figured out was not to give them the ball except in dunk situations. Let them expend all that energy throwing it down, not shooting it from outside. Then as they calmed down, if they were a good shooter, start feeding them the rock. Boki isn't that type of monster dunker but he is the nervous type. He's got skills. He needs minutes.
Boki has reserved his place in Rocket lore simply from that Malone clip posted above. All hail the Bokinator.
Nachbar is much better than several players on the Rockets in fact he's much better than some. SOME people fail to rate him properly here. Nachbar has failed to produce, he does not lack the tools. Some people here think he lacks the tools apparently. I am sorry but you can say he failed so far to produce and be accurate but to make it seem like he is a talentless scrub is just showing lack of bball knowledge. Nachbar has quite an impressive set of tools for a player that size. The only problem with him seems to be confidence. But it's not a problem like attitude, bball IQ, lack of passion like say with Swift, so it can be easily corrected if he just gets enough playing time in the right situation. I can see that MANY people here would have been screaming for Diaw to be kicked out of the league, much like many Hawks fans were. Did he really get infinitely better in one offseason? No,. Are the stats he put up in Atlanta the absolute end all be all of his ability? No. The truth was he was being ruined mentally in Atlanta and whether some Rockets fans refuse to ever admit the truth with Nachbar is he was ruined in Houston too, although I actually think Rudy T did moreso of a number than JVG did, but JVG did it too.
doesn't it seem a bit odd that these 3 coaches - Rudy, JVG, Frank - that have had success in the league and have been praised for their coaching abilities in one way or another are ALL being accused of 'ruin'ing Boki? that's not exactly a coincidence. Boki = Slovenian Swift as a SG
i remember when i thought nachbar was the future starting small forward on our championship team. yao, mot, nachbar, cat, francis.... well atleast yao worked out.
There's really no point at using stats to predict Nachbar's future in the NBA: you don't need much data mining to understand that his career has been a huge disappointment, so far. I don't even think that Padget is the right player to compare him to, 'cause one is a known commodity, you know what you are and you aren't getting from him, the other has clearly more tools but I hasn't been able to use them consistently. In Treviso Boki was a slasher who added range on his shot, but it wasn't really the core his game. In the NBA he's been asked to earn his minutes hitting 3pointers, so not using the strongest part of his game. Not being mentally strong enough, he lost his confidence in the process. I don't know if he'll get it back in NJ, but I think we can agree as far as skills the guy can be somewhere between a starter and a 7th man, he just needs to bring everytime what he's showing sometimes.
This wasn't a fluff piece by a writer from the local newspaper. Boki has had a damn good pre-season scoring double digits in all the pre-season games, he was always streaky and I rememember him having streaks like this in NO so the jury is still out. He'll get his chances this year with NJ, looks like he'll be in the rotation this year and I expect he may have finally matured into a pretty good player. I hope that VSpan doesn't take that long to develop because he won't be on the Rockets if it does.
Some players take longer to mature, V-span is mentally tougher than Boki, or at least appears that way. DD
