SAR 29 yrs vs. Swift 26 yrs Bibby 27 yrs vs. Sura 32 yrs Miller 29 yrs vs. Yao 25 yrs Peja 28 yrs vs. T-Mac 26 yrs Bonzi 29 yrs vs. Anderson 31 yrs The Kings definitely have the best balanced lineup in terms of age and experience. I agree with the writer in this respect that their starting five is very well balanced but the Rockets starting five is no shab either. What puts the Rockets over the top is their depth on the bench.
Miller has no help for rebounding and interior defense. He will be in foul trouble all year long, the Kings will get outrebounded practically every game and come midseason they will have to blow up the team because they are lottery bound. Then they will tank the rest of the seaon in hopes of getting a good pick, Peja will probably go on the market as an expiring contract, in return for talent and picks, and the Petrie brothers will be trying to move to Vegas.
Kind of off-topic, but this thread pretty much ruined my day. I'm working on the EXACT same article as this, with the pre-offseason goals, a paragraph or two on what the team actually did, and a closer determining whether or not those goals were met. We were going to hold off on the articles until the 31st, so teams could take in a few more signings. Now it's going to look like I'm ripping one of my favorite writers off, something I've already inadvertantly done in a article about the Hornets from last fall (essentially paraphrased Hollinger in a description of George Shinn, my description came a few weeks after his Pro Basketball Forecast book came out, from a Hornets team preview that I hadn't read yet). FAN-blanking-tastic.
A decent article. I kinda wished he had been able to list all WC teams. For example, the Lakers: "WTF?! Kwame Brown?! He $uck$!" Or Memphis: "Ain't goin' nowhere." Granted, he just listed possible contenders.
per-40/per-48 stats need to be thrown out the window. Most misleading numbers that could be used. Swift is going to be very good for us, but I'm expecting something along the lines of 14 pts, 8 boards, 1.5 blocks per game. Evan
Holding off till the 31st is still a pretty long time from now. I, for sure, wouldn't be thinking that you ripped off Hollinger, rather I would be thinking, "cool, another opinion article on off-season grades, let's see what grade he gave the Rockets, etc." Plus, if you grade the whole Western Conference, that would make it a lot more full, developed, and complete (who cares about the East, lol).
Abdur-Rahim is only a major upgrade over KT if you're focused on career points per game. The real true test of how much he can influence the Kings is not in whether he can score but in how well he can pass out of the mid-low block like Webber did. IMHO, for Abdur-Rahim to be successful in Sacramento his career ppg will need to go down significantly. The same is basically true for Bonzi. When he "goes off for 20", a large portion of that is posting up shorter, less physical SG's. That takes time off of the clock and makes the motion offense far less efficient. I haven't been paying close attention, but I don't believe the Kings have re-signed Songaila. Corliss Williamson is solid but will be 32 in December and only managed 5 ppg in 26 minutes last season as a King. After the Rockets, the Kings are among the teams I enjoy watching but I'm not so sure they are going to be the Kings of old from a ball movement perspective. And that's their strongest suit.
If you're a stats guy you're always very impressed with Shareef Abdur Rahim's career production. If you watch him play though you're not quite as impressed.
Kelly, write your article. Just because it is the same topic..who cares? It is a different perspective. Just include some more teams and by waiting you cna include a few more player moves.
agree with Deuce just write the article KD...if you wanna make it a little different than this one, include all of the West. Could this come into play as far as the much-rumored 2 for 1 deal we are supposed to be pursuing? Would either of these guys be useful to us?
KD, write the article. Anyone else laugh a little inside when we see Scoreless Williamson and Kenny Thomas on the same team after all the who is better KT or Scoreless arguments we had around here a few years ago?
While I understand what you're saying is that Swift hasn't proven himself able to produce these kind of numbers as a 40 mpg guy, it's not as if he was the number 1 or 2 option in memphis. Last year he shot 218/488 in 21 mpg, while Miller shot 387/766 at 30 mpg, JWill shot 266/644 at 27 mpg, and Bonzi shot 272/617 in 22 mpg,....point is, he just has to do his thing at the 4,...we got younger, faster, and better all around, Stromile can play his game with better players, who will make him better. Even if he isn't a a 20/10/3 guy, he's a major upgrade with much more potential than Howard has at 32/33.
