I agree with the other posters who have well stated Wesley as a character and hustle guy. I think some are forgetting that last year he wasn't expected to pull the minutes he did, after all he was coming off of an injury. He took a while to get his shot going, and everyone piled on after that saying he looked slow and old, etc. I liked the guy, the way he played hard every night, he was nice and funny with the kids before games, he was underated as a defender but had problems on the perimeter with slashing guards, he just didn't have the lateral quickness to stop penetrators. I don't know if that was the leg or just age, but last year he got toasted a bunch. Good for him that he gets to play in Cleveland with Lebron, they were a playoff team and need his kind of calm and effort. I wish him all the best except against us.
this is eery: take a look at wesley's stats last year compared to Head's: Head: Min: 28.9 fg% 40.3 3P% 36.3 reb 3.3 ast 2.7 TO 1.5 STL 1.1 pts 8.8 Wesley: Min: 33.4 fg% 40.3 3P% 36.5 reb 2.5 ast. 2.9 TO 1.7 STL .8 pts 9.9 The difference in each category is miniscule, with the only exception being minutes, with Wesley playing 4 more minutes than Head. It remains to be seen if Head will get the same minutes this year as last year, but at the very least we know that wesley won't be too sorely missed.
There's a couple stats that are not in those statistics and that is defense and FT shooting, a couple of veteran efficiency statistics. While Wesley was much maligned for being too short and being posted up, the truth is that there were few opponents that could take advantage of him on the post ups because of his strength. Stackhouse is one of the more notable exceptions. Luther was the raw rookie who got ate alive by most SGs defensively. Don't you remember guys like Cat torturing him play after play after play? There is no question in my mind that Wesley was a better player than Luther last year when he was healthy. Offensive statistics may show they were equal, but Wesley was the seasoned vet. Wesley had what was considered an off year shooting for him and he still shot better than Luther. Luther started the first couple months of the season just blowing the lights out of the gym with his shooting. And he tailed way off after that. If not for that hot start, he wouldn't have hit even 30% from 3 point land. Hopefully, if Luther is not traded, he comes in here this season with an extra 10 pounds or so of muscle. I think he will be better defensively because of his year of experience. But Wesley was the bull dog closer for this team and he will be missed. Hopefully we won't have too many close games where we are handing the ball to Rafer or somebody with less than great FT shooting.
