Wow, since when are our PF the benchmark of being a solid PF? It's pretty much common knowledge here in Houston that they're all crap. I would consider them "mediocre backup players" too. I do agree that Griffin has been a very good rebounder. If he were to play about 40 minutes, he'd be a 10+ rebounds guy. But Griffin's rebounding can't make up for the fact that the guy is a 38% shooter. And even that's deceptive because the numbers have been dropping since the start of the season. In Jan, Grffin's been shooting 33% and 27% from 3pt line. I guess that's true. I was looking at it from the perspective that he's in his fourth year already. I know there are many late bloomers in the NBA. But if you still haven't done anything in your 4th year, chances are you're not going to amount to much.
EG avg 8.9 pts, 39% FG, 6.6 Rebs in 22 minutes. JW avg 8.8 pts, 46% FG, 4.9 Rebs in 24 mins. MoT avg 7.8 pts, 44% FG, 4.3 Rebs in 24 mins.
Eddie does 3 things well. He blocks shots, he rebounds fairly well, and he shoots the trey OK. Is that enough to make him a quality role player? Not really, he's not strong enough to be a good 1-on-1 defender at PF and he's got zero as far as post moves or any sort of consistant game inside the arc. It's enough to make him an alright 8th or 9th man on a good team, a situational piece. But I have to worry that the character stuff will come back to bite him at some point. He's too immature not to get into trouble again, and at some point I don't think teams will put up with that kind of distraction out of its journeyman role players. If he develops into a good defender and learns to operate in the post, the sky's the limit. I just don't see him having the maturity to do the necessary work on his game.
O'Neal couldn't get off the bench, Griffin was handed the starting role on a silver platter since day 1 and is basically the same player that he always was; a lazy PF who jacks up threes on offense at a modest clip and is a good help defender on defense. Nothing more, nothing less. He's scott padgett who can block shots with emotional problems. Not a star, not even a starter, certainly not what we thought we were getting way back been, and not worth the trouble of keeping his criminal, distracting, quitting self around for.
Have to agree with Sam there .... Eddie saw more than 1-1/2 times as many minutes in his two seasons with the Rockets than Jermaine did in Portland in his first four seasons. Once O'Neal got the playing time opportunity, he did very well ... though in all fairness, he's improved quite a bit from his first season in Indiana to now. meh also said "chances are" ... there are exceptions to every rule, but you rarely see young players struggle for four seasons, then take off in Year 5. But we're in an era now where more and more of the players are 18 years old coming in. Eddie "may" get it together where he becomes a dependable power forward night in and night out, but it's a stretch. He has shown flashes of being a great player at times though, but far too often settles for being an outside player with an inside player's body. We'll see. If I had cap room though, I wouldn't give big money to the guy planning on him being the starter. Too big of a risk I think.
Read JuanValdez' post again, I'm pretty sure he was talking about stats over the previous 8 games. Not to be nitpicky, but he didn't play last year, remember?
I did before you mentioned it and u know what? His math was still bad, if he talked about the last 8 games then EG avg 25 mins/ game, not 22 and his pts avg was worse than JW and MoT. No matter how he slices it, EG is simply not superior to JH or MoT. That was his point, wasn't it?
i'll say this, one of the most natural shotblockers i've ever seen. not insanely athletic or even that fast but when he was in position he just seemed to know how to block a shot. two blocks always stood out to me, because i thought i knew what he was doing to set up the block and then he did exactly that and blocked it. 1. vladimir stepania is posting him up and when he gets the pass he lets vlad almost get under the basket and my first thought was he got him down there close where he'd just try to flip it in instead of take a hook shot and as soon as vlad pump faked, i could tell eddie wasn't going to buy it and just wait until he went up on the next move. sure enough, vlad tries to flip it in, eddie didn't bite on the fake, and then vlad shot it and eddie blocked it. 2. eddie's man catches it about 17 feet from the basket with eddie sort of close to the basket. eddie starts out after him and and as he slowed down, i thought he's just trying to make it look like he's going out so the guy will fake and drive in and then he'll block it. sure enough, guy fakes, thinks eddie's coming out, eddie stops still close enough to the basket to recover, and guy drives in, eddie swats it off the backboard. and then a third that was just awesome. eddie jones coming full blast on a fastbreak right at eddie who is also still kinda running to get back. jones, going full speed, tries to jump into eddie to draw the contact, but eddie perfectly jumped back just enough to avoid all contact yet be right there to get a hand on the ball and block it. you never see someone at that much of a disadvantage avoid the foul, much less get the block. dude was lazy, couldn't post up, didn't seem to work on his game, was crazy, and tried to shoot people, but he knew the art of blocking a shot like few i've ever seen. it's the one thing he's always done well, in college, with us, with minny. even guys like mutombo and hakeem just seemed really really good at blocking shots because they had amazing physical tools (hakeem insane athleticism and a quick second jump, mutombo super long arms) and a good understanding of what to do but eddie just seemed like he knew exactly how he was going to block a shot all the time. the next best guy i can think of was shane battier in college.
You're right. I thought he played a bit with the Nets. But I guess he never made it into a regular season game. Even so, the point still stands. He was given a chance last year and simply didn't take advantage of it.
Bobby Horry wouldn't have hung around this long without his ability to make great entry passes (very underrated ability) and his ability to inexorably hit big shot after big shot in the playoffs. A shotblocking SF just isn't that important in the grand scheme of things.
