When shane plays well in the offense, I say so. When he dumps and cut, triple threat, and all the essentials of feeding off yao, I say so, but when he takes the easy way out and stays in the corner and allows his man to crowd yao and not guard him, that's un acceptable. When you have a wide open shot and refuse to take it because the shot clock is running down and another guy is open like you is selfish. That's called passing the buck. If read what adelman says also is they have to tell him to stay aggressive. When he's open he needs to shoot and don't worry about it. Instead if you've watched enough rocket games you will see rafer or tracy forced to take buzzer beaters under duress because shane has passed the ball to the with the shot clock under 5 seconds. I've never said shane couldn't be a player on a championship team, I just said he's a bench player/20 minute guy on that team. Rick Fox during his stint with La during the championship year produced at the same level if not higher than shane. Problem is and the rocket found out quickly is tracy is no kobe and yao isn't shaq.
And probably for good reason. The article has it right for the most part. I still think its Brooks who's key. But next to Brooks, Battier's performance has become like previous years Rafer as a barometer for how the team does. Yao, Scola, Artest, sometimes Brooks, those are the constants on offense. Battier was giving this team 2 and ONE point games when other starters were slumping. A combination of both slumping himself AND being reluctant. I like Battier, but just cant have that over a 7 game series.
