Chronic: Battier's biggest play is dunking doubters

No one can stop Dirk. No one can stop elite NBA offensive players. You just do the best you can and hope they miss.

For the past 2 seasons we haven't had anyone that could make a taller swingman (6'4 and above) really work to get their shot off. I'm tired of watching Kobe and J-Rich shoot over 6-2 guards. If Battier can help in that department and hit his open shots I'll be happy with him as a player.

 

who gives a crap about bruce bowen. remember when people used to call bruce bowen the kobe stopper, and then kobe embarrassed him. so yes bowen's defense overrated. as a matter of fact, I was say most "defensive stoppers" are overrated including shan battier.

let me asked you this since we are just going to pull names out the freakin air that have nothing to do with nothing. is tracy mcgrady know as defensive stopper? no. did dirk have a good series against the rockets? no. was it because of mcgrady? yes.

so dirk is stoppable
he was stopped by mcgrady
he was stopped by the miami heat
he wasn't stopped by memphis

you make the conclusion.

 

i conclude that good defense + better offense can stop dirk

 

How exactly do you dunk doubters anyway?

 

I'm not questioning Shane Battier is a solid/good fit for the Rockets. I'm saying it's almost comical that people crack up the intangibles of Battier to spin the trade into a fair valued one.

One way to look at it, Shane Battier puts up similar career stats to Stro. So "tangibly" speaking, production wise it's almost equal between the two. What else do we give up for Battier's myopic intangibles? It means the Houston Rockets traded their hard earned No.8 pick for the INTANGIBLES of Shane freaking Battier! The only way for this trade to look decent is we win a ring in the next two years, or someone run over Rudy Gay 'cause that kid isn't going to be a total bust, he is going to be at least a rotation player and you don't trade a rotation player for the intangibles of Shane Battier.

Great, the Rockets let James go because they don't want to set a precedent of trade kickers, but they surely forgot they already set a worse precedent of inflating the value of intangibles to the point of delusion. If I were a Ryan Bowen, I'd prepare a tape recording my intangibles on the court, including clips of nose bleeding, nail breaking, and hair falling to dupe the Rockets into a contract. Oops, he already did.

 

Dirk wasn't exactly stopped by HOU or McGrady... he was fighting a pretty serious flu all of playoffs that year, and shot poorly vs both HOU and PHX, but he was contributing on the boards and elsewhere.

MIA employed some serious team D on him and the usually reliable Terry and the rest of his team couldn't make enough open shots down the stretch in the series. They didn't exactly just leave Haslem out there on an island against Dirk.

It takes a collective effort to stop any kind of great offensive player, that's why smart, tough team players like Battier is valuable. Stromile actually plays decent 1 on 1 D when he isn't being overpowered by stronger guys, he just didn't stay active with rotating, rebounding and doing all these important team things...

As for why the Grizz went 0 for 12 with Battier... well, it's the same reason McGrady, Yao, Steve Francis never made it out of the first round, and Garnett has only done it once in his career.. insufficient talent on the team to match up with superior squads. That team for years has lived off hustle, discipline and making open jumpers with very little star power (Gasol is the only real star they've had, and he's still developing).

Rockets, most would agree, have more offensive firepower in Yao and McGrady than Memphis does in all of their team.

 

Shane Batter picking up a 9 year old Gay fan and dunk him through the hoop?

 

dirk shot 35/28 fg/three point percentages against houston 21 points

45/38 fg/three point percentages agains phoenix for 26 points.

furthermore, if great defensive teams stop dirk, why didn't san antonio?

 

has bruce bowen or shane battier ever "stopped" anyone of note.