I'll put it this way, if I had to choose one person to go down in the starting lineup it would be Howard. I like him but I'm sure we can weather the storm in the regular season but we will need him in the playoffs. Spoon can hit the glass almost as well as him and also has a decent 15 ft jumper, his defense is also underrated.
Great analysis by saintja2 of our matchups for the rest of the season. At this point of the season I believe Gundy will need to think about our playoff matchups and preparing Padgett, Spoon, and Bowen for their changing roles should Juwan not return. It is very fortunate that Moochie went on IR instead of Vin. Baker has an opportunity to prove himself over the next 4 weeks. Can Van Gundy work some Sprewell magic on Vin Baker? This could turn into an interesting end to a great season.
It sucks, obviously. Is there a way we can kind of "call up" that guy we picked like two years ago? The one who's playing like in Germany or somewhere in Europe. He probably won't do much worse than Spoon or Vin. The thing is, can we "call him up" kind of like in baseball.
Malik is under contract in Europe. If we bought out his contract and signed him for the rest of the year he still could not play in the playoffs. The real focus should not be who will start tomorrow but developing those who will play in the postseason: Padgett, Spoon, and Bowen.
Thanks for the info. I hope Vin Baker can step up, he has the most experience out of the PFs we have now.
I wish we still had Mo. That trade just dumped a couple mil over a couple of years. We traded away a contributor for 2 IL scrubs and a little extra padding in Les's pocketbook. I KNEW that trade would bite us in the @$$.
win by 29... I guess it did bite us in the a$$ ... come on, we can stick anyone at PF and get NO Defense and have them outrebounded by Sura every night
Willis, Tonight's game proved that we dont miss Juwan. and that BOB SURA IS BY FAR the most important player on our team not named Ming or Tmac. Also, man what happened to Vin Baker! Somebody buy him a drink next time.
The Portland game did not show our weakness at the 4. When we go against a NBA team we may look deficient, but hopefull we can make up for it with scoring. We have defensive exposure at the 4....
but I think some of us are saying that Howard was not that much better defensively (or even worse) than what we have now - so KG is going to do the same things to us that he has done in the past... save for Vinny who looks to be washed up ... I mean, anyone else remember the LA game when Odem went off ... that was HOWARD'S man
Howard has stepped up on the boards and hit his open shots and passed well. that saying, he still is slow. you cant change slow.
I think the injury will be a blessing in disguise. You never *want* a player to go down, but this will give Padgett and 'spoon a lot of minutes going into the playoffs. It'll be nice to have those guys ready off the bench in case of foul trouble. I don't think losing Howard keeps us from catching the Kings and possibly the Mavs. I'm looking on the bright side.
