[Chron] The Versatility of Ron Artest

I wonder if Morey knows Sun Yue (Rookie of Lakers), a 6-9 point guard who can dribble and dish/steal/block/defend 1 to 4 on court.

 

ya, that's true. No doubt Yue is talented but no way he could get minutes in a WIN NOW team like LA in his rookie year .

 

“I think the team with Shane out there will be the hardest for teams to guard. When we put Shane out there, we have good size all the way across, and we have shooters on the floor and guys they have to double.”

When I read that this morning I was assuming that was with Yao in that lineup, but I'm still not sure of what to make of it in the context of the paragraph.

It's still overlooked by many here now.

 

I like to see the lineup of Barry, Tmac, Battier, Artest and Yao on the court more than the starting lineups.

 

scary on offense and a huge liability defensively. Who would guard the bevy of class a ones in the west? T-Mac is just too big to guard that position on a regular basis.

 

MrButtocks is right, I also remember game one of the 06-07 season with Battier starting at PF and having trouble against Boozer.

http://www.hoopsstats.com/basketball/fantasy/nba/boxscores/houston-rockets-at-utah-jazz/2006-11-01/07/10

 

It is always a defensive dilemma with Yao when playing against teams with the front line tandem of a long ball shooter (Okur) and a quick low post score (Boozer). You either have to let Yao get drawn out to the 3pt line, or be abused by the speed of the low post guy. (The Marion-Amare tandem used to have the same effect on us.) JVG always chose to keep Yao down low, which is probably the right choice.

Back to Shane's case. It was JVG's idea of starting Shane at the 4 at the beginning of 06-07. And he quickly scratched that idea. Shane is not strong enough to guard 4s consistently. Artest, on the other hand, has the strength.

But I don't think Adelman will start Artest at the 4. We have too many good players at the 4 to sit on the bench. Artest at the 4 will only be a matchup scheme rather than a full-time role.

Also, I know this is a minority view. But I still think playing McGrady more at the 1 is worth experimenting. He is still the best playmaker on the team. Now we have so many capable scorers/shooters in Yao, Artest, Scola, Battier, Barry, and Landry, we can have a very versatile offensive team.

 

I agree...That lineup would absolutely kill. Yao would could have so much spacing it's ridiculous.

 

The guy who couldn't dribble the ball past half court during the olympics?

 

aren't you the same person that fought with half of the forum and tried to tell us that Ron was bnot teh answer and that we were all stupid to think Ron was going to make a difference?

 

Yea but Durant is really a good shooting 3/4 that is forced to play SG because he is so weak, he's not too quick either (for a SG). Chuck can definitely guard his type. He can do fairly well with anyone but Artest is on another level to me. He has the quickness to guard PG's and has done it before. He's the most versatile defender we've had since we had a big who could block a guard on the perimeter.

 

Dont poke the sleeping dragon...

 

i was just checking. i haven't posted in close to 2 months.

it's taken that long to get over the first round exit. i'm ready for October 29th.

 

With all due respect durvasa, Boozer may have not been his assignment but he got stuck rebounding on Boozer couple of times and got pushed around. If I'm understanding right, you only charted defensive. Battier still had to contend boxing out Boozer on offense cause I'm pretty sure Okur guarded Yao. I just don't think its coincidence that JVG let go of that experiment soon after that game.

 

I hate to let either artest or battier eat PF minutes (<10 would be OK), that would waste scola/landry/hayes talents. If they do not have enough minutes for tmac/artest/battier/barry/head playing at 2 and 3 positions, I would rather they give PG's minutes to some of that group, in some matchups, tmac/barry can play PG at the offense end, with artest/battier guarding pGs at the defense end.

 

Players don’t stop boxing out just because it’s not a priority. They’re still told to try. I just don’t think those stats tell the whole story because I believe JVG saw something in that game that made him question starting Battier at PF again even though Boozer wasn’t his primary assignment. The few times he was matched up against him, Battier had trouble.

 

270 pounds? That has to be a typo...that's HUGE. I thought he was closer to 240 does anyone know?