Admittedly a small sample size but....neither was on the court for the Rockets' comeback vs DAL. So at a minimum three very relevant questions should be posed.... * Were the Mavs one of a long line of teams that never really felt threatened by the Rockets? They took the Lakers to 7 Games...did the Lakers ever look panicked? IMHO, no. Nor did the Mavs this eveining. * Is Daryl Morey's conclusion that Kevin Martin is 4th quarter "gold" because he gets to the FT line in historic proportions that accurate? Or more appropriately, that valuable? * Should Chuck Hayes' +/- be an absolute proof of NBA value?
my fundamental difference in opinion with you comes to the current opinion of morey. imo, he has done an admirable job with the lack of flexibility and tools at hand. however, even i will admit that his ultimate evaluation will be based on the next 1 to 1.5 years as the handcuffs of yao/tracy's contracts come off.
And you might be very surprised to find that I 100% agree with you. I don't want Daryl Morey going anywhere for at least 2 more seasons. The entire sequence of evaluatory events needs to transpire for at least that long...a new CBA and the Summer of Dwight and CP3. I plan on watching VERY closely.
This is about your caricature-level reluctance to give Hayes any credit on the defensive end, not stats. Don't change the subject. Because most 7-footers are not adept at just catching, turning, and shooting without creating space using the dribble, when a guy is draped over them and putting a hand in their face. LOL, yes ... because we have to exclusively rely on "arithmatic" to think Hayes is a good defender. Rick Adelman is over on the bench crunching numbers with his Casio.
Not to turn this to a bash Gater thread, but he's always had a "hater" attitude about anything good Chuck does for the team and for statistics of any kind. So it's not surprising that he's arguing that we couldn't possibly watch the game and think that our opinions are valid. I wonder if we took a poll to see how many times people watch the game if Gater or I would come out ahead on pure basketball viewing (and reviewing) in a week. Heaven forbid someone who likes to examine stats and likes watching basketball live in the same body. As for the original question in this thread. Chuck's most successful times have been as a power forward. He is strong enough to do stints as a center, but he is an undersized power forward. When he first started in college they tried him as a SF, but he wasn't comfortable enough spacing the floor on the outside. Which was evident in the development of that hitch over the next three years that you all see when he gets more than five feet from the basket. Before he was moved inside his sophomore year, that hitch wasn't so bad, in fact he even hit a couple three pointers his freshman year at UK.
