Luis is for sure better than Millsap, Green, Lewis, Brand, and Jamison. U could argue that he better than Aldridge, West, and Smith as well. Duncan and KG are getting really old, I would definately rather have Scola than them. Only Boozer, Bosh, Gasol, and Dirk are clearly better off this list, although your missing Al Jefferson, Stoudamire, and Zach Randolph
just so you know, Brooks is NOT better than Parker. Brooks is top 15. Top 12 at BEST. Yao Ming will tear DHoward up every night the magic and rockets play. it's just how it is. no doubt in my mind that he is #1 when he stays completely healthy. all these homers expect too much from the team, that's why they all get disappointed.
Their are many ways to look at it to decide but comparing him to a player like aaron affalo doesn't really mean much. Most teams play their defensive stoppers so yeah offensively Martin is better than them on offense, but can you clearly say he's better than them overall? It really should be more of a comparison of how many teams SG/SF combination would you take over KMART/BATTIER or KMART/ARIZA and in that sense their would be a lot. But just to list out players I think are better than KMART at the SG position. Kobe, Wade, Johnson, Ginobili, Roy, Stephen Jackson (Proven Winner), Ray Allen (Always Lights Up KMart), Jason Richardson (His playoffs this year won me over), Caron Butler, Vince Carter, These are players which you could make a case are better than Martin simply because they are better all around players. Martin seems to one dimensional. He's just a scorer/shooter. OJ Mayo, Michael Redd (Essentially the same player and just as injury prone), TMAC(If he can even get back to 70% of the player he was), Richard Hamilton( Same player as KMART but plays better defense), Eric Gordon ( He got invited to train with Team USA and KMART did not so that must mean something), Jamal Crawford (Sixth Man of the Year), Ben Gordon (Just like Martin a scoring machine but can't play a lick of defense). Just for fun Allen Iverson. Now if you mean who is the better play individually then if you had any of those guys above play Martin 1 on 1. I honestly think he would lose. His ball handling skills and defense is vastly inferior to all the players listed above. However, I am not saying I would rather have them all over Kevin Martin, but everyone in my top ten I would take for sure.
But I also think to be fair it should be more of which SG/SF combination would I rather have than the Rockets. Then we can go and list out. Lakers (Artest/Kobe), Heat(Wade/Lebron), Portland (Batum, Roy, or Fernandez), Celtics (Allen, Pierce), Thunder (Durant, Sefolosha or Harden), Bobcats (Jackson, Wallace), Pacers (Granger, Jones or Dunleavy), 76ers (Iggy, Turner), Hawks (Johnson, Williams, or Crawford), Mavericks (Terry, Butler), Spurs (Ginobili, Jefferson), Nuggets (Anthony, Affalo or JR Smith) Grizzlies (Mayo, Gay), Suns (Hill, Richardson or Turkoglu) Then these teams I think we actually Tie with. Bulls (Brewer, Deng maybe Mcgrady), Orlando (Pietrus, Carter technically Lewis if they played him at his right position), Bucks (Salmons, Maggette) And that technically puts us somewhere in the 15-18 range.
It's a factor to the Rockets management sure, but it should not factor in when ranking players right now. It's not the point of this thread. Right now, Ariza is not better than Marion or Josh Howard. I would take Marion over Ariza immediately, Howard...no, because of his off-court issues, but his skill level is superior to Trevor. Ariza shot under 40% last year! 33% from 3pt land (attempting almost 6 a game). He's not a good FT shooter either. He is a bad offensive player, that cannot be argued. You can argue that he is a good defender, but I didn't see it last year. He was only decent. Marion and Howard are better. Who knows, maybe Ariza will turn into a great player, he certainly has potential. I like him on the Rockets, but I think it is tough to argue he should be ranked in the top 15 small forwards in the NBA. If you want to make a list of top SF's on good contracts with high potential...start another thread.
You would take Vince Carter over Kevin Martin....seriously... I would take Martin over any of those other guys you listed. Most of them are stat padding inefficient chuckers or over the hill former stars...check that, all of them are. Are most of them better defenders? Sure. But how many of them can boast a .600 TS%? The possessions Martin loses for us on defense he more than makes up for by not wasting on offense. Ray Allen....seriously?
Actually it can. Ariza post All-Star break: 13.6 PPG 5.6 Reb 4.4 Ast 44.1% FG 41% 3P% 33 MP That's solid production and I will take take that all day long. Playing alongside Martin and shifting to his natural position had a huge affect on his game. Defense can also be greatly affected by having a Center. A defensive player can only take away so much. If they don't have a big man in the middle they're basically left on an island. He'll look much better next year.
Yao is a big question mark, but if he can regain his form and play decent minutes than he is top 2 for sure. Martin is their next best player, and the only other Rocket with a shot of realistically making the All-Star game. he can crack top 5 for SGs, and is top 10 for sure. for those knocking his defense, which top 10 SGs besides Kobe play great defense? Scola is a top 10 PF. i don't know why people are comparing him to SFs like Lewis, Green and Smith or Centers like Jefferson. really only Bosh, Dirk and Stat are cleary better. Duncan is better but going down pretty quickly. if the Celtics had Scola instead of Garnett, they beat the Lakers. West and Aldridge are similar players but average rebounders and shot blockers and don't have intangibles . Lee is about Scola's level, maybe a little better, but Scola plays even better with Yao. i can't believe the people saying that Brooks is top 15. only Paul, Williams and Rose are clearly better. Nash, Parker and Billups are still great but getting noticeably worse every year, while Brooks is still getting better. i don't know why people are so high on Westbrook, he's not a good shooter and still quite unpolished. that basically leaves just Rondo and Curry and maybe Collison. if Yao is healthy, Brooks will look better on both sides of the court. Ariza is the weakest link but SF is actually not a very strong position. outside of Lebron, Durant and Carmelo, you then have a big gap before you get to Granger, Pierce, Iguodala, Wallace and Butler. after that you have another big gap before you get to Lewis, Howard, Gay, Marion, Jefferson, Turkoglu. and then Ariza and Artest. so optimum rankings (full health and great chemistry) Yao #1 Martin # 4 Scola # 7 Brooks # 8 Ariza # 13 Bench # 1 Miller # 10 Lowry # 12 Budinger # 15 Battier (defensively top 5) offensively #18 Hayes (defensively top 3) offensively #25 Hill/Patterson combo ? Coach # 1 although you could realistically lower all those rankings 1 or 2 spots except for bench (which i think is still clearly the best), but that would still be a very solid team with mostly top 10 talent outside of Ariza/Battier/Budinger combo.
This thread deserves a pat on the back... Very well written by all posters!!!! Yao # 2 Scola # 10 Ariza #15 Martin # 8 Brooks #9 Bench # solid all around Miller Hill Battier Budinger Lowry Well that seems like a nemesis to the Lakers, Heat, and Celtics if you'd ever script out one for ABC / ESPN / TNT!!!
thing is Parker had a very average to bad year. George Hill took the limelight. Stole his show. Tony came off the bench. You can argue his body is taking a toll because he has to be the No 1 option for them with Manu and Timmy's significant decline. RJ was a major flop. Last year Russell and Aaron outplayed him, not only statswise but with their youth and energy.
Spurs (Ginobili, Jefferson), Roger Mason jr. and RJ? You kidding me? I fixed it for ya While this subjective, tried to evaluate youth, potential for coming season *possible overachievement*and overall strength plus if a good in the system we actually rank 7-12 in the better field
Well, I hope you are right. Ariza playing efficient team basketball will go a long way for the Rockets next year. Those numbers (post all-star break) show how truly horrible he was the first part of last season since he still finished shooting 39%. Maybe if his career statistics were a little better I'd be more inclined to hope for that kind of production over a full season. Anyway, the guy is still young and could turn out to be an efficient offensive and defensive player, but to this point he hasn't proven it. He shows flashes, but the consistency hasn't been there. That is why I would rank him below many other SF's in the league.
If your asking me right now who is better yes. But based on age no. Have you seen Ray Allen matchup against KMART? He lights him up all day. I saw Ray Allen hit an NBA record in threes in the Finals, so yeah I'd take him over KMART.
The poll didn't say potential. It says right now rank the Rockets players. So yes for this year. I'd rather have Ginobili, he maybe on the decline but he's a proven winner. SOmething KMART is not. And I would take Brandon Roy and anybody over Ariza and Kmart. I would also take Granger and anybody over Ariza and Kmart. I really like granger's game plus he is the perfect size to play in the nba. Kmart just gets taken advantage of cuz he's is razor thin.
Sure. Then we would still be somewhere between 10-12 that's not bad...... hmmmm IMHO Ginobili is declining as you figured, he is more of a bench player, so I did not think of him Indiana's record speaks for itself, in the Eastern conference which is worse than the West last year, if they had a very good SF and SG combo they would not be under 50 percent, 0.390 to be exact, thats pretty bad at least Ariza is known to have one or two 30 point games....Ariza is a scoring threat compared to Dahntay, man that means something just my 2 cents Brando Roy yes but the guy next to him is not as good as everybody thinks... I think a lot of guys discredit Ariza because of poor shooting while trying to create for himself and they expect him to handle the rock like a guard I would be glad to have a top 15 SG on our roster
What did Ray Allen do in the very next game? Of course you woudn't bring that up because it hurts your argument. Ray Allen is inconsistent. Martin in a down year was far better than the declining Allen. Only a fool would think otherwise.
http://www.thoughtsfromthejockstrap...009/top-10-nba-shooting-guards-2009-2010.html this one by a random fan DWade BeanBryant Roy JJohnson Ginobili AI 2 Kevin Martin at the 6th VC BenGordon RayAllen
