Calderon + Harden, good offense, laughable defense. Everybody will have a good time killing our back court. I believe that Harden's a star but unless he improves his defense, he'll never be a superstar. He can score but if the opposing player can also score with equal ease, it nullifies the point of scoring big time. Bev and Lin becomes so tired compensating for Harden's lack of defense. I don't want to give this as the primary reason why Bev and Lin are sputtering by 4th quarter but fact is, this contributes to their plays as well. Now if only McHale can devise a way to mask Harden's weakness effectively. If McHale stays then you add Calderon, imagine what will happen to our defense. Yes, we might get more offensive flow out of the two and actually enjoy the game but by playoffs time, we're sitting ducks again against west's upper echelon teams. I just can imagine how happy Westbrook, Parker, Curry, etc... will be unless Bev once again cripple somebody (accidentally).
I always like Calderon, he would be a good backup to Lin but no way would I put him in front of Lin. With Calderon you know what your going to get with Lin there is still the potential for a lot of upside, lets see how he improves next year.
Anyone who wants a castaway from a lottery team is truly mind boggling. He only plays for his contract! Contract year, he plays lights out. Once he signs, he regresses. Last contract he signed was July 2008 for a 5-year. Do you not see the pattern???? <PRE> Season Tm Lg G GS FG% 3P% FT% AST PTS 2005-06 TOR NBA 64 11 .423 .163 .848 4.5 5.5 2006-07 TOR NBA 77 11 .521 .333 .818 5.0 8.7 2007-08 TOR NBA 82 56 .519 .429 .908 8.3 11.2 2008-09 TOR NBA 68 68 .497 .406 .981 8.9 12.8 2009-10 TOR NBA 68 39 .482 .398 .798 5.9 10.3 2010-11 TOR NBA 68 55 .440 .365 .854 8.9 9.8 2011-12 TOR NBA 53 53 .457 .371 .882 8.8 10.5 2012-13 TOT NBA 73 58 .491 .461 .900 7.1 11.3 Career NBA 553 351 .483 .399 .877 7.2 10.1 </PRE> <PRE> Season Tm Lg PER TS% eFG% AST% TOV% WS WS/48 2005-06 TOR NBA 11.4 .495 .434 29.1 22.3 0.9 .029 2006-07 TOR NBA 19.1 .588 .546 39.7 16.2 5.4 .162 2007-08 TOR NBA 20.5 .607 .575 42.3 14.2 10.2 .197 2008-09 TOR NBA 18.8 .613 .561 41.0 16.7 7.5 .154 2009-10 TOR NBA 16.5 .569 .542 33.8 13.9 4.2 .111 2010-11 TOR NBA 16.3 .522 .487 43.0 18.8 3.7 .085 2011-12 TOR NBA 16.7 .547 .519 44.2 17.0 5.1 .136 2012-13 TOT NBA 18.8 .616 .594 39.8 15.8 7.4 .165 Career NBA 17.6 .576 .540 39.6 16.6 44.5 .135 </PRE>
As a backup plan, I think Calderon would be fantastic assuming we also get Josh Smith. With Asik, Smith and Parsons in the frontcourt, and Beverley backing up our PG, I would be extremely happy with Calderon as our starting PG. He could really feed off the open shots and efficiently distribute the ball. However, Detroit seem to genuinely like Calderon. Apparently they had been pursuing him for some time and want him to mentor their PG - who is struggling mightily when you consider where he was drafted. Not a bad idea. No matter how bad he is on D, being a 50/40/90 with insane asst/to ration makes his porous defense bearable. Lin may be a better defender, but is that enough to cover for the fact that Lin has never appeared like he will soon average any SINGLE one of the 50, 40, 90 or 4 to 1 asst/to ratio? I would say Calderon's advantage on offense trumps Lin's advantage on Defense. However Lin is younger, hard working and great for marketing. All that taken into consideration, it would take a very specific and unique situation (As described above) for Calderon to be a sensible acquisition.
I love watching Calderon orchestrate the offense. His every pass is perfect and calculated. With Harden here, he would do less playmaking, but he's still deadly as a spot-up shooter.
Calderon is a bad defender, he does not do much scoring of any kind other than jump shots, and he is extremely overrated as a passer and play maker, as he does not do that much play creation really. As a backup? ABSOLUTELY. As a starter? No.
Have you ever seen a team with a porous pg and a sg who rests on the defensive end? We got to watch one this year and even the best defensive player in the league couldn't cover the grand canyon size hole they left.
Calderon is the point guard version of Kevin Love. A fool's gold stat padder. He does not actually do hardly any play making at all. He just crisply passes the ball to the guy that is about to shoot it, as the plays are setup. In terms of actual play making ability, he's quite average, if even that. As far as his shooting percentages go.......he's extremely selective in the shots he takes. If you are so very extremely selective as he is, and you are a good shooter, then your shooting percentages are going to be high and really inflated. If he was actually trying to make baskets on his own a lot, and was actually bringing a good scoring mentality, his shooting percentages would be much lower. It's the same with his assist to turnover ratio. If you almost never attempt a difficult pass as a point guard, and very rarely attack the basket, then of course a point guard is going to have low turnovers. It's because he's not really generating any offense, other than just the very basic and very safe plays. Don't get fooled by these guys that mainly just play for personal stats, and start thinking the stats equate to how good they are. That's not how it works. It's also not how you assess a player. Even if Daryl Morey says it is, it's NOT. By actually watching Calderon play, you can see that he's a big time stat padder, much like Love is. He's not actually as good as his stats.
