We have about 8 other guys (Yao, Artest, Scola, Landry, Brooks, Lowry, Wafer, Barry, by my count) who can give us 10 points in a game with little problem (Barry is debatable, heh), which means having one out of 9 who DOESNT score 10 isn't the end of the world. Battier knows that if he puts the ball and the floor or tries to create a shot, the result isn't going to be pretty, so he is relegated to being a 3-point shooter to spread the floor and take open shots (which he has been slumping in as of late). He is an adept passer, so he knows who to get the ball to and how to do it safely. He is able to get the ball to Yao from the wing fairly easily, and is able to swing the ball fairly effectively, meaning that even if he's not shooting, he's not hindering the offense. If anything, passing up a shot for a more efficient shooter and instead finding the man in better position with your passing is improving the offense. It is a little disappointing when you have so many scorers to see one guy who isn't averaging as many points or shots as the others, and it is a natural inclination as a fan to assume that "lower volume shooter and scorer means hurting the offense", but it doesn't always work that way. People want Yao to get 20 shots a game - well OK, those shots have to come from somewhere. Artest and Brooks are going to get theirs, so you need a few guys willing to shoot less like Lowry, Battier, and Barry who are willing to shoot less, and voila, the offense flows. Finally, he is able to exert more energy on the defensive end of the floor if he doesn't have to worry about posting/cutting/finishing at the other end. How many times have we heard that intense defense takes away from a player's offensive game? Might as well let him focus his energy on the one he is effective at. Shane is a very effective role player who does his job to the point of satisfaction. Any points inside the arc are just gravy. Admittedly I haven't read much of the thread (just got in a mini-argument earlier about rookification), and that's just my 2 cents.
He does things that lead to high percentage shots for the team. He will often, for example, at an early stage in the shot clock, be one of the first players down the court and immediately try to set an opportunistic screen for the point guard bringing up the ball. He understands how to feed Yao the ball at a good spot, and then how to draw the defender away so that Yao has space to operate. He is almost always aware whenever there is another player with a better chance of scoring the ball and will try to deliver the ball to that person. He moves -- a LOT -- on offense. He will cut straight to the basket whenever he notices his defender not looking. He does things that help the team secure offensive rebounds. He boxes out extremely well on defense, leading to good defensive rebounding which in turn helps spur fast break offense. You really need to actually pay attention to Battier sometime. It's not by accident that he plays tons of minutes on every team and for every coach he has played for. He is known for being cerebral on defense, but most don't realize how cerebral he is on offense as well. He is not without fault, though. He does need to be more assertive, and there are times when deference is not really the best way to go. But that said, the numbers don't lie. As long as the team is scoring as efficiently as it does when he is on the court, he needs to be playing as much as possible.
shane can score when he is asked to. he's been the leading scorer of the team in some games, believe it or not. i still remember when yao went down a couple of years ago in the 1st quarter of the clippers game, shane scored 28 in a losing effort. but that's besides the point. shane's value to the team is measured by mainly by defensive contribution. he usually is assigned to the best perimeter player of the opposing team. so if we want to use stats, it's more appropriate to look at things like what those perimeter players' stats are as compared to their average. it's also unfair to say he contributes nothing or little to the offense, though many of us would like see him score in double digits.
it's sad. anybody who thinks battier is good only thinks this because morey has convinced you of it. he's a good enough defensive player. he's an awful, inept offensive player. no nba franchise who has shane battier playing 35 minutes/game will ever win an nba championship. period. you've all been brainwashed by the front office and, now, additionally, michael lewis.
Although it took a little coaxing, I appreciate your attempt to at least explain your position on Battier, which is more than I can say for many others in this thread. I do pay attention to pay Battier despite what you may think. Most of the time he hovers around the 3 pt line. He is usually running around aimlessly above the 3 pt arc. He doesn't cut when his man double teams Yao for example and instead, yeah you guessed it, camps out in the corner or somewhere else above the 3 pt line. All those other things you said he does, he might do them, but what he mostly does is, as I said, just hang out at the 3 pt line. His defender has one of the easiest jobs in basketball. I said some of this earlier, but I'll repeat it for you since you mention some intangibles. His lack of athleticism, physical decline, inability to create, poor ball handling skills, horrible transition offense, and his penchant for standing in the corner on offense are intangibles as well. Factoring all these things in including his 6 ppg avg, I think his weaknesses outweigh his supposed strengths. Also, don't you think it's important that Battier is the lowest scoring player in the NBA among those who regularly start and play over 30 mpg? Do you think that's good enough to get the job done in the playoffs? What if somebody has an off game? Is the guy who likes to stand in the corner on offense going to pick up the slack? His history in the playoffs indicates that he will not. Basically, everybody has to play flawlessly on offense if Battier continues his current production. There is no room for error. That's unfortunate for the Rockets because the team can't play perfectly all the time. If Shane the "proven vet" is such an asset then why haven't the Rockets "won now" since that was the mode that they were in and why they got him? Why didn't he help the Grizzlies win a playoff game? For a supposed glue guy, why was Dirk so easily able to torch him in the playoffs when Battier was with Memphis? Why have 2nd tier wings like Salmons torched Battier this season? Why is his record in the playoffs 5-20? Of course he can't take the blame for all this, but there is a disturbing trend at play here. Short term solution is to reduce his mins and long term he needs to go to the bench or somewhere else when a better overall wing is brought in. As it stands now, with the departure of Rafer, Battier is the starting lineup's weakest link.
With the exception of Yao and Artest, none of those other guys play 30 mpg or more. This is part of the problem with Battier. He is THE LOWEST scoring player in the NBA among those who regularly start and play over 30 mpg.
that's you opinion, don't talk like it's a fact. and even it was a fact, it says nothing to the debate. see below - no nba franchise who has tracy mcgrady playing 35 minutes/game will ever win an nba championship. period. see? 2 equally bad and meaningless statements.
You seem to be concerned that he is playing so many minutes. Would you be more satisfied if they played him 20 off the bench? Just an honest question.
who cares? shane battier is the most impactful role player of all time! his intangibles are beyond words.
sure it's my opinion. and it's your opinion that battier doesn't suck. but in your failed smartass attempt, why dont you put your money where your mouth is? i say my statement about battier will prove to be fact. you name the price. you pay me now, and if he ends up on a championship team playing 35 minutes/game, i'll pay you double. thought so. back into your hole, please.
Nothing wrong with an honest question. I as well as a few others have proposed that his mins be reduced as a short term solution until he can either move to the bench or to another team once a better all-around wing is brought in. I know you said you didn't read most of the thread, but I and others have mentioned this a few times including on this very page. I'm with you t_mac1.
Who would take that bet? 29 teams DONT win EVERY season... you could say that about Dirk Nowitski, Joe Johnson, and Chris Bosh... does that mean they're terrible players? Does it mean that about Barkley and Malone? Anyone can say something like "I bet Yao will never be on a team that wins 70+ regular season games PUT MONEY ON IT". Cmon now....
So you think reducing minutes is just a short term solution to Battier, who is a problem that must be solved. *shrug* Just seems a little extreme is all. Do you really think he doesn't add something to the team that's valuable to keep around, regardless of his lack of offense?
have i said shane will play 35+ minutes on a championship team, yet? so anyone has to be able to play 35 minutes on a championship team just to be "not suck"? now who is an ass?
Man, whenver you reply it's like you only read half of what i wrote.... Why would i agree with you when you're claiming he was washed up then AND now? I'd agree with you if you said he shouldnt have played so many minutes early in the season, but now its ok, but that's not what you're saying. This was Adelman's decision. Battier is getting all the hate for going out there when he was asked to and doing what he's asked to do. And frankly i dont think playing him big minutes was that detrimental to the team because Shane was staying within his capabilities. He wasn't shooting much. I know you think Wafer or someone else could have taken his minutes and scored 15 pts per or whatver. Maybe you're right, but would they have WON games?? In the end, that's the only thing that matters. We''re arguing about shane taking a backseat to everyone else in scoring, which has allowed the offense to finally flow steadily. Why complain about him? Complain because a player messes up, notbecause he's not scoring enough on a team that has more than enough scoring now. Look at the record this team has accomplished with ron and tmac out most of the first half of the season, as well as battier. With all the tmac drama, with a midseason trade, with tmac out the rest of the way, the team is CLIMBING, what are they, like 10 and 3 since the trade?? Where most of the media thought they were giving up on the season and were going to whirl out of the playoff race...they have done the opposite. If you take shane's play and put it in a bubble, away from anything else, then it looks bad, but put it in next to the other rockets and it fits really well. that's all that matters. Its like von wafer. We could complain he's shooting too much and he's overly aggressive to quick to shoot, bad shots sometimes....put him in a bubble and he looks like a ballhogging trigger happy shooter, but put him within the team context, and he fits, because his aggressiveness is needed, because although he may miss a lot sometimes, we've got guys to get the boards and that in a way creates some offense through putbacks. He fits and he adds to what the team has going on right now, same as shane, just enjoy it and don't get too greedy. We've added some major and minor scoring pieces within the last year, maybe in a league without time limits everyone could continue to get their usualy number of shots and the new guys could also get their share, but there are time constraints and some guys are going to take shots away from others, just be glad that Shane realizes its better to shoot 1 or 2 threes and let the others take some shots and convert them to layups and dunks. It's just crazy to me, we're practically scoring 100pts a game and fans are complaining about scoring! 100 pts, not too long ago we struggled to get 90, just enjoy the ride
Just for fun, here are the players with the most career games where they started, played at least 30 minutes, but didn't reach double figures in the points since the 86/87 season: Code: Rk Player Pos Games 1 Ben Wallace F 377 2 Dennis Rodman F 309 3 Charles Oakley F 280 4 Bruce Bowen F 266 5 P.J. Brown F 265 6 Mark Jackson G 250 7 Jason Kidd G 239 8 Mark Eaton C 225 9 Horace Grant F 220 10 Dikembe Mutombo C 208 11 Eric Snow G 206 12 Dale Davis F 189 13 Michael Cage F 179 14 Muggsy Bogues G 178 [B]15 Shane Battier F 159[/B] 16 Anthony Mason F 158 17 A.C. Green F 153 18 Doug Christie G 149 19 Marcus Camby F 147 20 Nate McMillan G 140 What do all those players have in common? Great defenders (humor me, and ignore Mark Jackson and Mugsy Bogues). Who says there aren't any good stats for identifying great defense?
but i agree that yao will never be on a team that wins 70+ regular season games, so i would never make that bet. so, i guess you agree that no team playing battier 35 mins/game would ever win a championship, right? cool. so you're just arguing just to get your post count up i guess?
I'm with you too. This team hasn't even been able to get out of the 1st round with Battier logging heavy mins and no Memphis Grizzlies playoff team has even won a game with Battier playing a lot of mpg. Post-season teams that Battier has been a part of are 5-20 in the playoffs. Not all his fault, but again this is a very disturbing trend and doesn't bode well for Rockets' fans until his mins are reduced. None of the other guys in my original post in this thread play even 25 mpg.
and why isn't anyone complaining about Yao's drop in ppg??? Why is so horrible that shane gave up 3 of his points when Yao also gave up 3 of his? The last 3 years he's actually dropped FIVE points. coincidence? i think not. # years ago was JVG last year, when we had all kinds of scoring droughts. Yao had to score more since we had no wafer, brooks and landry weren't here or too raw, scola hadn't adjusted completely, etc. The only thing that happened is that the shot attemps shifted around between the players, some were taken away and added to others, as a result, better shooters were getting more looks or easier looks, resulting in higher shooting % anf therefore more points.
