Last 5 games by Chase: FGM/FGA 1/8 5/13 3/7 1/7 2/3 Now, I love the guy, basically a Steve Novak with better handle, more hops, and can rebound, but his defense is questionable to say the least, and he hasn't shown that he could contribute on a consistent level, where he often go on stretches on the court without touching the ball. With Battier/Ariza, you could always count on the defense being there for the most part. I'm sure as C-Bud continues to improve in all facets of his game, his playing time would improve, but I just don't think he's the 24min minimum type of guy, yet.
Cbus is not a creater either. He fits Lowry's style better than Brooks. Once Tmac comes back, we'd have enough scorers.
Totally agree, but we still need a go-to guy while Chase could potentially become one. Sucks we lost tonight, but I like how our team has been playing... been fun to watch. Go Rox! As much as I love McGrady, he's attitude and work ethic blows. I hope we can land a franchise player that's talented and has that "IT" quality (players like Kobe, CP3, DWade... they posses relentless work ethic and a winner's attitude). Yao's been solid, but he just doesn't have IT; he's not a leader.
trevor ariza is shooting worse every freakin' game. he's being much less inefficient than a one-legged mcgrady. you don't have to watch teh games to see he always takes more shots than points scored, with at least 6 3s a game. jesus. and shane, well, is declining FAST.
Ariza is not as talented as Tmac, that's a given. But he plays better defense though. Tmac doesn't always play hard, and play hard is becoming the trademark of this team. If Tmac can play hard, he's help this team a lot. This team needs somebody who can really create for himslef and teammates.
I don't think it's so much of him declining, but simply the fact that he's just not suitable for the pace of our game this season and the type of offense we run in general. I see Shane still being very good defensively and offensively when he can be allowed to find open spots and camp the corners in a half-court offense. The way we're running this season and having to rely on him creating off the dribble more...it just isn't his game. For one thing, he is a very subpar shooter off the dribble. He doesn't have that innate ability to balance himself perfectly on his shots when he does that - be it 3s or mid-range. I'd say the same thing for Ariza too, but at least Ariza is much more athletic than Shane. I'd say our best wing player now is Budinger. But he is a rookie after all and is still raw around the edges. Much as I hate all the drama surrounding T-Mac and the management now, him coming back 100% healthy and playing within the offense would solve alot of our problems.
This is not a daydreaming. We need every player out there who can help. It is not about McGrady it's about the team. And Tracy is still a Rocket.
I have seen enough, Chase needs to start, Battier to the bench, and Ariza keeps starting. The Battriza combo will never, ever work, their skillsets are redundant, and they do not compliment each other. We need Chase, he moves better, shoots better, and can dribble. DD
See now, thats what i'm talking about. I don't know what took you so long to do it though. look, shane is a good dude and he has his moments, but when he and chuck are in the linup, its 3 on 5 with the 3 not even being that special. Its ok, next you'll peek at what rudy is doing and start threads asking for him back.
I would like to blame Ariza but unfortunately, this is what the coaching staff is telling him to do...shoot. He's perfectly fine when someone creates for him and he is set as he shoot, but when he dribbles, twists, and turns awkwardly trying to create shots, it gets ugly and inefficient. He's just not a shot creator. Without McGrady and Yao, he just won't be used the correct and most efficient way. I hope Mac and management can resolve their issues and he can get back on the court because he can help this entire team, but it doesn't look like that will happen. As for Battier, I agree he and Ariza are redundant and he should come off the bench backing up Chase. Ariza is a failure at dribbling and creating shots so I think Adelman should give some of that offensive freedom he's giving Ariza, to Budinger because he has the tools to AT LEAST match Ariza's playmaking results and likely surpass them.
Chase is a good shooter but is not near Novak's level of shooting. He is drastically better than Novak at everything else and somewhat better at defense but he projects to improve in that area of his game. He needs to be given Ariza's freedom on the offensive end because I'm confident he can perform better if given the opportunity.
When T-Mac returns, we won't be seeing Battier and Ariza on the court at the same time, which is why they are NOT redundant. While neither player should be playing more than half a game at this point and at the same time, one of the two should be on the court at all times.
Right now they are both starting together and playing the majority of the game at the wing positions, so as of now they are pretty much redundant. When/If Tmac comes back, that will definitely change but that is a major question mark for now.
Most posters on this forum think our biggest problem is size, and that rebounding and defense are we need to work on. While that is true enough, IMHO the team's biggest problem is on offense in general and specifically Battriza's production, something that the esteemed DD discovered months ago. I think the Hawks game definitely showed that offense is our biggest problem. In that game we outrebounded our opponent for stretches and were still playing catchup the entire time. The reason was obvious: our anemic offense fed their offense. Missed clunkers by Battriza turned into fast breaks for the opponent, which resulted in either foul shots or fastbreak pts. Now what happens when the opposing team gets easy buckets? Players start to gain confidence, play defense better, and generally become more active overall. On the other hand the exact opposite happens to the other team: they become more fatigued, and tend to lose heart when they realize that although they were already going full steam, they're still down by double digits. The result is less focus on D, which when paired with our already anemic offense results in pwnage. IMHO this is why we always to get out to an early lead, then lose out in the 2nd half-the effort required on offense wears our players down. So what does this have to do with Battriza? Well IMHO they are the reason why we need to work so hard on the offensive end. Simply put, they are not producing enough for players at their position (all of these data are taken out of basketball-reference.com): Trevor's FG% for the year: 0.388 Wins when Ariza has FG% higher than ave: 5 out of 8 Losses when Ariza has FG% lower than ave: 5 out of 8 Battier's FG% for the year: 0.414 Wins when Battier has FG% higher than ave:4 out of 8 Losses when Battier has FG% lower than ave:4 out of 8 Now what can we see from the above analysis? First of all Battier's FG% seems to have a very minimal impact on our team's performance. This is because Battier has had 11 9pts or less games out of a possible 16. When you score that few points, it generally doesn't matter if your FG% is high. Now we go to Trevor Ariza. As you can see, we lose more games when he shoots less than his average, and win more games when he shoots better. The problem is that even his average % is subpar. In fact, out of the entire team TA actually has the lowest FG ave despite shooting the most number of attempts with 17 a game. The next lowest player is actually Lowry with 0.398, and he only attempts 6 FGs a game. So what can we see from all of this? Our starting wings are composed of one guy who is practically invisible on offense (Battier) and another who is a low percentage chucker (Ariza). Point is, we need better guys at the SG and SF positions. It can be an off-the-ball shooter like Miller, or a dominating ball handler like Tmac, LBJ, PP or Roy (yes they all dominate the ball, and no, they probably won't change their game if they come here ).
