aaron brooks is the classiest gentleman in the nba...hes not a stupid greedy goof like david lee whos just wanting the big bucks once aaron brooks gets his bargain 3 million a year contract he'll go out there and perform... its not often you'll see a player really wanting to outplay his value in his contract
Aaron will for sure be gone by next season. He's definately unhappy about the situation and Morey will probably lowball him.
Morey is irrelevent, if someone comes in with a good offer all Morey can do is decide to match. Or, Morey can blink like he did with Scola and sign him for a lot of $$$$. DD
I like AB, I think he's a good player, especially when he's really into the game. The problem I see and have with AB isn't that he is no good, or sucks, or anything like that. It's the fact that AB does not fit the RA style of play. IF AB had that mid range game, and could at least see the floor close to what Lowry does, then he'd be a damn good fit. Problem is, AB doesn't seem to want to expand his game or knowledge of the game. Seems kind of stuck in the same rut over and over. I don't think AB needs to be traded, he could possibly, but I don't think it is a must. What is a must is AB adapting his game, and RA "helping" AB adapt to his gameplan. I'm not seeing nearly enough of this to really ever think it is going to happen.
I feel like nearly everyone has lost sight of team need over individual talent in the debate over Lowry and Brooks. If the debate is who can put up the most eye appealing line in the box score than I would agree Brooks has a slight advantage over Lowry. But if you realize the team has changed and look past the box score you will realize our need at PG has changed. Last year Brooks won a lot of people over(including myself) with his ability to put points up. But I never let that blind myself to the simple fact that as a true PG his skills were very limited. His AST/TO of 1.87 was pretty bad to say the least and his AST% of 20.4 put him right behind the likes of allen iverson and tyreke evans, hardly people who are known to get their teammates involved. Lowry on the other hand in his limited role last year had a respectable AST/TO of 2.63 and AST% of 30.5. Both ranking in the top 20 of the league. This year although both have improved the disparity between the two is pretty much the same. Lowry's AST/TO of 2.99 and AST% of 33.4 are superior to Brooks AST/TO of 2.33 and AST% of 22.6. The reason I point out these two specific stats is because I feel they are pretty good indicator of taking care of the ball and finding your teammates in positions where they can score effectively. We all know AST/TO, but AST% is a Hollinger stat that basically shows the percentage of possessions you have that end in an assist. In the Adelman system AST% will tell you much more about a player than simply there APG. This year with Martin and Scola handling the scoring load pretty effectively in the starting lineup the necessity of Brooks' greatest talent(scoring) is pretty much negated. This team is loaded with offense as evidenced by our continued ability to put up tons of points without Brooks for that extended stretch. Lowry's ability to not turn the ball over and get the ball in our high percentage shooters hands is more of a need this year. It's as simple as that. If Brooks was even close to Lowry in his ability to create and find his teammates then I would be all for him starting, because it doesn't take a genius to know Aaron can shoot a hell of alot better than Kyle. But until we see that, which we sure as hell haven't so far, there is no reason to change things. And before all the talk about losing this year continues can we all just come back to earth and accept the fact we can't win without Yao or someone of his talent filling his salary space. Doesn't matter who is out there at the starting PG spot when your highest dollar most effective guy is out. We weren't supposed to win much last year without him and we didn't, what were you all expecting this year when he went down? Patience people, all can't be fixed in an instant.
I didn't think this was worthy of another AB bashing thread, but..I was just listening to the rockets power hour on SR 610 and they are talking about Blake Griffin (naturally). At one point they did a 10 second interview with Aaron where they asked him about Griffin, to which he responds, "i really enjoy watching him, from the bench.." and so on. I just don't think AB is going except his role coming in behind kyle.
Yeah, he is clearly mad about it, he got Wally Pipped....but lots of stuff can happen, Lowry can keep struggling, AB can get hot, or Lowry can sprain his ankle.... You just never know what might happen. Again, Lowry is not playing great, his rates are down across the board this year, while his minutes are up: DD
Remember last year when most was screaming to start Lowry over Brooks? They wanted to see what he can do instead with his better court vision etc etc. Well, I've seen enough. I like what Brooks can bring to this team MORE despite his limited court vision, too small to defend yadda yadda yadda. I think he can make this team better than it currently is. With Brooks, our defense suck. With Lowry, guess what? Our defense suck. Lets add more scoring to an already high scoring no defending team. We might change our luck for the second half of this year.
I was definitely worried about how Brooks would respond and play this year, with it being a contract year and all. He actually came out playing pretty well before the ankle injury (f'n Ginobili - can't stand that guy almost as much as I hate Utah, the Lakers and Dallas). At the time he went down he was averaging 18 ppg and 6 assists while shooting 39% from three point range. (through 4 1/2 games). He was also right at one steal a game (0.9). He seemed to be "ok" after the meeting with Morey regarding his contract and future. He's definitely struggling right now though.
Yeah, his injury had a lot to do with his current form recently. But what really bothers me is the shot-selecting. I think that has nothing to do with injuries, etc. However I guess those "bad" shots hes missing right now often went in for him more often than not before his injury. I just smell a bit of ego. Aaron wants to be "The Man". Jason Terry is more than happy coming off the bench, so is Lamar Odom, Shawn Marion, and they are worlds above Aaron Brooks.
Yeah, while I agree with you his shot selection hasn't been great (to say the least), I still believe it's due to him pressing. He's been a lot more patient in the past. I know during the first quarter against Minnesota Martin, Scola and Shane were shooting very early in the shot clock - some good shots and some not. But, they were going in...lol. Brooks comes in and it was almost like he wanted to do it too -but, they weren't falling. lol. I don't think it's as much of wanting to be the man as it is that he's probably frustrated at the timing of the injury. If, for example, he hadn't been hurt, played out the year, played well and got an extension... then, this happened next year and he lost his starting job due to injury, I'm sure we'd see a lot different reaction. Not making excuses for the guy - he definitely needs to handle it better - but, just feel that's likely having a lot to do with it. If he's under contract for another two, three or more years, there's not a sense of urgency to get back, win the job, put up some numbers, etc. Just hope he can let things come to him a little better - even if it's only for the next four weeks! LOL....
isn't it surprising that when he plays teams like Utah, that he ends up with lower %'s having to spent his minutes on Williams and not Watson, shocking really.
Brooks is still recovering from injury. Lots of players just can't play well like that. Kmart's known for his efficiency, but his shooting percentages went down dramatically last year after his wrist injury. Shane plays like crap after every sprained ankle, even on defense. Brooks' sprain looked pretty severe. I can't condone the poor attitude, body language, and shot selection. But Brooks is playing worse than ever for a reason.
The combination of Lowry and Battier on the perimeter alongside Martin gives us a much improved perimeter defense than Lowry and Martin playing alongside Battier. Lowry and Battier allow Martin to switch out to the weakest perimeter offensive player of the opponent since Lowry can defend both PGs and SGs, and Battier can defend all three perimeter positions effectively. When we are running Brooks and Martin along with Battier, we usually wind up with at least one terrible mismatch defensively that the opponent uses to exploit us with. You can keep talking mess about Lowry not being a good defender. But it's mess. He is a good defender, a very good, disruptive defender. There's a reason why he's starting and playing major minutes for us while the much better shooting/scoring Brooks is still looking for minutes even after coming back. Sure, this team as currently constructed needs Brooks to be effective and win more than 50% of their games. But we have to have Lowry on the floor to even have a chance in almost all of our games. When we get a defensive big man, a 6'11" or taller big man that can defend in the paint, our defense is going to go up tremendously and you are going to see Lowry's effectiveness go up even higher as he can take more chances and be even more disruptive on the perimeter. For Brooks' effectiveness to go up, he has to hit shots at an alarming rate and get to the FT a ton more, something he hasn't been able to do this season.
AB: Coach, I need my starting job back. RA: You are shooting 37% this season, even Lowry's better than that.... AB: What can Lowry do better than me!?! RA: Not much, Lowry only defends better, rebounds better, and make other players better... AB: Coach, that's just cold.....tell me what I need to do to get my job back. RA: Try making peace with rest of your teammates first... AB: Huh? RA: There's been alot of complains about you lately, your teammates' kinda mad about their recent bad FG%. AB: WTF? what does that have anything to do with me? RA: Try stop dribbling the shotclock down to 3secs every position, then dish the ball to someone else for a bail out. AB: &^%$!@!!! there goes my big contract.
so should i start a countdown for when brooks demand to be traded? if not, he is NOT going to sign with us in the offseason that's for sure. i'm sure brooks feel slighted for losing his starting position b/c he went down with an injury.
He also said that Artest and Ariza weren't good defenders, as I recall, but being disruptive and getting deflections and steals makes a difference. I think Lowry is way above average in that area. Lowry doesn't lock up players 1-on-1, true, and I imagine he is average or close to it in terms of 1-on-1 defense on isolations. BetterThanEver has access to mysynergy stats, I think -- maybe he could share a few of those numbers for reference.
