Wally Szczberbiak is not better than Cuttino Mobley. You can preach stats all you want, but Cuttino is a creator on the floor, something that Wally dreams of being. Wally's stats are similar, but the way he accumulates them are different. His game is entirely dependent on his teammates. He's great for the Twolves offense... a terrific shooter off the double (and triple) teams gathered by KG, with athleticism to slash to the basket and a great PG to find him. But, he's not really a creator on the floor. He's not someone who can take the ball on the wing and make something happen off the dribble on a consistent basis. For all of you that want Mobley to be less "one-dimensional", you completely forget what he does for his teammates on the floor that does not show up in the statsheet. He's a threat. When Mobley has the ball, opposing defenses have to be ready for him to come off the dribble. Sometimes, it can lead to a big man leaving his man and standing in no man's land, waiting for Cat to make the drive. Basically, defenses have to pay more attention to Mobley than Szczberbiak because Mobley is a threat to score off the dribble. Wally Szczberbiak is good, but basically a younger version of Brent Barry. In other words, he's someone that looks great on the stat-sheet for an "all around game", but really isn't as great on the floor. The ability to create separates the middle tier from the upper tier.
I can't even believe there's a debate going on. I don't care if the numbers (prorated for minutes) make Wally look a bit better than Mobley. Wally couldn't keep up those numbers for the amount of minutes Mobley plays. Mobley could blow past Wally off the break any day, and he is definately a better FG shooter and 3pt shooter. Yes, on defense and rebounds, Wally might have the edge, but Mobley is a scoring machine, and far more of a threat to opposing teams than Wally or Houston. Once again, the Rockets get no love. Mobley rules.
You know, when you prorate Cato's numbers over 48 minutes, his stats look fantastic. The only problem is he gets winded after playing 20 minutes. That's why Rudy only plays him 20-25 minutes. Prorating stats is often missleading because coaches often know how much playing time will get the most productivity out of their players. Mobley is like a long distance runner with a basketball, he can go forever without getting winded. I can't say the same for Wally.
A yonger version of Brent Barry shot 43.1% from the floor for his first 5 seasons, ~48% on 2s, which is still not close to Barry's current 2pt% over the last 3yrs. That's because he was on poor teams and couldn't create shots for himself, and was left backing up and shooting from further away than Wally has the luxury of doing. But that's where the similarities end. Barry runs that offense with Payton. He is a smart player and knows how to run plays to perfection. Wally can't run an offense. Do not compare Wally to Brent beyond their shooting ability.
Kidrock, I am with you on this one... If every player we have is so damn good as advertised here, why in the hell are we not competing for the playoffs. I mean come on every player on our roster is not that good like advertised here. And I hate to say "although I love the guy" Rudy included being the coach.
I didn't realize Wally was such a bad defender. Then again, he is slower than 80% of the SG's in the league. Advantage Mobley.
hp, If it makes you feel better I emailed that Deveney guy at TSN because he had a "Top 5" (active) second round steals (with 3 honorable mentions). Mobley was not in any of those 8 spots. He just responded and said I was right - that Mobes should not have been left off. Cat would definitely play his heart out at a World competition.
btw, cat is better than wally. put wally on the rockets iso based offense and tell me if his %s stay the same. better yet, tell me if the number of victories stay the same. we'd be worse, he'd be worse. put cat on the t-wolves. a creator/shooter to go alongside kg. nevermind that it's "cuttino mobley"...just put Player "A" that can create off the dribble, shoot the lights out when left open, and play average defense...put that player next to KG. the t-wolves would be better, mobley would be better...KG would be better, too. the comparison has to be looked at outside of just #s. look at the game, kidrock.
Well, I was more referring to Wally last year, when he had a high shooting percentage (over 50%) and rebounded the ball well for a guard. I should have specified on the passing, though. Barry definitely has better court vision and is great at finding cutters. However, he's not as valuable as Mobley, and Barry's name just came to mind as someone that the stat-sheet group loves to point out.
You people need to stop sucking off cuttino. He has been a good scorer on horrible teams. We'll never know how good he really is until he is on a decent team. Then we can see how much of a team player he is. He's obviously has not been a team player the last few years but he couldn't be since he had no team around him. We'll see if cuttino can gel with a team with more options on it and stop running ball-hogging isolations.
The Rockets were a pretty decent team in 00-01. 45 wins would have been playoff caliber in any other season. The Sonics were the 7th seed with 45 wins last year. My point is that Mobley, and the rest of the Rockets that are "hyped up here" have not just put up great numbers on horrible teams.
Thank you somebody for finely saying that. And to be fair, I don't believe a team who started Kelvin Cato, Kenny Thomas, Terrence Morris, Moochie Norris, and <b>Kobe Bryant</b> for a large part of their season would be in playoff contention either. When you talk about one player carrying a team to the playoffs, usually that's just an exaggaration. That one superstar usually has solid players surrounding him, it's just that none of them are superstars (example: Rockets '94). The Rockets did NOT have solid role players this season! And I honestly don't believe that Kobe Bryant could have led the Rockets into the playoffs, and I consider Kobe the best shooting guard in the league. I do think the Rockets would have done better, but the playoffs would have been out of the question. Also, remember that the Western Conference is a "Big Man's League." A good backcourt player is not going to have the same kind of impact on a team's record, as a good front court player...no matter how good he is. I don't know exactly know how "good" some people are saying Mobley is, but I consider him to be among the 2nd tier of shooting guards behind McGrady, Carter, Bryant, and Pierce, and maybe Allen.
I find it funny how some people can sit here and bad mouth the Cat for what his has done. Wally may be pretty good but I don't hear him asking to stay in Min for anything less than the max. Without Garnett there he's not going to be able to put up the numbers he did. Unlike the way Cat did when Stevie went down. The Cat put up some very good numbers in the second half of the season last year and still gets no respect.. luv this fan support
I've said this a million times. Cat has no career highlight. To many NBA fans and the media, he's just a good player who produces good numbers but hasn't done anything special like, say, NY's Kurt Thomas, or Sacramento's Doug Christie. (I'm not comparing Mobley to those two, ok? Just their similarity in stature in the league.) If you go through the three players named by our thread starter: 1. Wally Szcerbiak - Had a great first half last season, helping lift the Wolves to the top 4 in the West, enough to elevate him to All-Star status. 2. Allan Houston - Has had many playoff moments, eliminating the Heat with that clutch buzzer beater in the first round. Has also been an All-Star. 3. Jay Williams - Has given Duke several championships, drafted no.2 in the recent draft. High profile player even during college. I'm not going to criticize about Cat's defense or ballhog tendencies. Every other Cat thread here in the BBS already does that. I'm just saying that unless Cat does something special, the Rockets will always be known as Stevie's team, and he'll just be a support player, not a tag-team partner like Wally/KG, or Kobe/Shaq, or Webber/Bibby (who, incidentally, also only made a name for himself this past playoffs despite the great numbers all his years in the league.) In short, Cat has to elevate his game TO HELP THE TEAM. To hell with good stats.
if dick vitale's mouth wasn't firmly wrapped around jay's, well, you know... he wouldn't have gotten 1/2 the attention he did. dick vitale must have been his damn agent in disguise.
What are you talking about???? Wally plays 38.2 minutes per game, Mobley 42. When you don't get your facts straight, you look like a fool dude.
