I've seen a lot of people complain about how Ron and Tracy are the biggest ball stoppers on the team. But in my opinion you have to add one more player to that duo to make our trio and that person is.... Mr. Perfect! Ya see it makes sense when you look at this team that it appears we have not improved on the offense Slick Rick is tryna implement. The main reason is that we have 3 major ball stoppers when it comes to our offense. Shane falls in this category cause all he does is plant himself at the 3 point line and wait and wait and wait some more, you get it. I know everyone says that we don't need scorers but wouldn't it be nice to get more than 2-3 points a game from your veteran starter? I'd think so. This isn't a thread to hate on any player on this team, I'm just tryin to point out that we obviously do not have the right mix of players to run the motion offense. It was actually kinda amusing when even Bull called Shane out durin broadcast sayin that he'd like to see him take more shots and take it to the hole a lot more than he does. With Tracy and Ron the proof is in the puddin, usually when they're both on the court it's one of those 2 shooting up an ugly contest jumper. I honestly think they're tryna show each other up when that starts. *shrug* Yes our offense does look better at times, but does anyone ever notice when it is happening? Seriously. From what I see it's when our bench starts comin in and is mixed up with some starters and Yao. When our startin lineup is on the floor we are more stagnant than ever. I can't imagine Rick throwing out a starting 5 like: Rafer, Tracy, Shane, Ron, and Yao. That would be horrible... My startin 5 would look a little bit more like: Aaron, Tracy, Ron, Luis, and Yao. I know we are going to have to get new players on this team and fortunately we will begin to have more and more resources in the upcoming years to do so. I'm still hopeful that this team here will contend for a Championship, with or without Ron/Tracy, but we'll see what happens from here.
Hmmmmm. Interesting. I love Shane but I have to agree with you here. I don't see him cutting enough, don't see him moving the basketball off the dribble, passing and moving, etc. Probably not enough focus on what Shane is doing offensively. Personally, I still feel we need a major lineup shakeup. In my opinion, if you want guys moving without the basketball, then you need to sub Brooks for Rafer and let McGrady handle at the top. McGrady just ain't gonna run around cutting a whole lot. So, that's the first adjustment that needs to be made. Let McGrady man the point and then let mighty mite run around creating havoc on the defense. Bring Rafer off the bench to man the point for the 2nd unit. The next thing I would do is replace Scola with Artest. That would give you a starting five of Brooks, McGrady, Shane, Yao, Artest. Then you use that lineup in a spread 'em out style, give Yao the post, and let Ron and Shane hang out in the corners. McGrady can slash, or simply throw the ball into Yao and let him operate and either get off the shot or force the defense to react and throw it out to run PnR with Yao, or find Brooks jitterbugging all over the place. This also give us much better perimeter shooters with Brooks over Rafer and Artest helping to spread the floor with more space than Luis gives Yao. Then you come off the bench with Rafer, Scola, Landry, Wafer, and Barry. That is a faster more slashing lineup with Rafer running the point, getting the ball to the right people and Scola operating in the low block. The last adjustment I would consider is replacing Shane in the starting lineup with possibly and moving Wafer in there to play the 2 with McGrady at the 3. That would give us Brooks, Wafer, McGrady, Yao, Artest as our starters. I don't know about this lineup as it seems our perimeter D would be extremely shaky though. Shane is an enigma. He is so fundamentally sound defensively. But dude just will not exploit his offensive skill set. I don't understand that at all.
I actually kinda disagree. With Yao, its fairly simple. If he's close enough inside, he will score. If he isn't he will pass back out in which the ball can be swung around to the open man. He's not going to actually put the ball on the floor all that much, unless you actually expect Yao to make cuts.
all good scorers are ball stoppers, outside of rip and ray allen and guys like that. when people understand that, they'll stop complaining. with these scorers, it's up to other guys to cut and move so they'll find them as they get double teamed. look at how lebron played yesterday.
I agree. And you have two kinds of ball stoppers, 1)They are willing to pass the ball - Tracy 2)They are NOT willing to pass the ball - Ron That is the problem.
T-Mac is the only player that ball stops, in a negative way. Yao Ming is the only player that you want to stop the ball and is the only player that has the ball moving when he plays. There is nothing wrong with having a ball-stopper in my opinion like that one guy said. But that is the main reason why Ron Artest is playing the 6th man role, just like the same reason why Manu is playing like the 6th man role. They are starters for every other team, they just fit their team on the bench better.
