Interesting that you mention the ineptitude of McInnis. This is the same McInnis that averaged 6.2 assists/game last year, which is higher than Odom's best year. This is also the same McInnis who's assist to turnover ratio for his career (3.42) is over twice that of Odom's (1.44). Point guards should always have higher assist numbers than SF. Two years ago, Odom was their best scorer to go along with it. McInnis could get assists just giving it to Brand-Odom had 5.9 assists a game, a whopping .3 assists behind McInnis; pure conjecture tells me that if Odom was in the game as opposed to Tremaine "NBDL" Foulkes, McInnis wouldn't have gotten all those assists. If we were to bring in another ballhandler to help out Francis, wouldn't you want a guy that had a better assist to turnover ratio than Francis? Why would you bring in a guy that has been even worse? Odom is 22. Notice, the AST/TO ratio is on an upward trend for him, and his assists have gone up every year. No, not at all. Collier is a career .410 shooter and shot .438 last year. Collier will not open the middle up for Francis and Mobley. Nobody will alter their defense because of Jason Collier. Read what I was replying to. GATER mentioned Cato, Willis, Hilario, and Ming shooting 15 footers. If you replace Ming with Collier, Collier has the best shot amongst the group. FG% doesn't indicate shot range-Kelvin Cato is a career 52.3% shooter-doesn't give him the ability to shoot outside 3 feet. We have two guys in the backcourt that have each shot near 40% for a single year in their careers. Francis shot .396 in '01, but his next best year was .345 in '00. Last year he shot .324. Mobley shot .395 last year, but he was under .360 every other year. Of course, we should be talking about all shooting not just 3pt shooting. Let's factor in that Francis shot .411 overall last year and Mobley shot .438 overall. Let's factor in that Francis had migraines, plantar fascitis and a shoulder injury, and had plenty of rust. Mobley averaged 23 ppg on 45% shooting in 2002, roughly the time Francis was healthy. Mobley worked on his jumpshot a lot-we had lots of people notice a more repeatable stroke. His scoring average and FG% have gone up every single year in the league, and other than a dip from .358 to .356 in his 3P%, that has been going up as well. Since when does the best shooting PFs include a guy shooting .366 overall from the floor? When he's a 19 years old rookie, and was inconsistent. It may be premature to call Griffin among the best shooters, but I think it's quite possible he'll reach that level. Kenny Thomas had 4 years of college and shot under 40% his rookie. Yes, he shot .360 his rookie year. He also shot .316 his 2nd year and he shot a horrid .190 last year. Name the player who shoots .148 his rookie year, .192 his sophomore year, and .303 his 3rd year. Rookie of the Year, perennial all-star when healthy, 4 year college product from Duke, Grant Hill. The .190 can be considered an aberration because of the small sample size, and injury, as well as sporadic playing. Philly won with defense. McKie shot .473% from the floor, Hill shot .474% from the floor and averaged 9 reb. and Mutoumbo was near the top of the league in rebounding and shot blocking. Odom shoots nearly 44.5% for his career including a 46% season, and is only 22-the guy should be about 6 years away from peaking. Adding a guy who creates shots for others boosts others' field goal percentage. Maurice Taylor shot 48.9% this past year, and Kenny Thomas shot 47.8%. A lineup of Collier, Francis, Mobley, Odom and Griffin would be a terrible shooting team that also played no defense, not a good combination. Of course, adding a 7'6 1/4 center into the middle of our defense would help alot. When did I say anything about starting Collier? Collier was mentioned as a shooter. Collier would probably be 5th or 6th on a list of people that would play with those 4-behind Cato, Taylor, Thomas, your #8 pick, and depending how you picked at 15 and/or 12-and that's assuming you let Willis go, and don't pick up anyone in free agency. Dallas got beat because they didn't play any defense. What interior toughness are you describing? Who was posting up for Sacramento? They beat Dallas in transition and with penetration. Having to shoot over a 7'6" center with good lateral quickness, would seriously limit that penetration. They said the same thing when Shawn Bradley came out. Lafrentz was supposed to limit penetration for Dallas, too. It doesn't concern you when he's apparently getting into foul trouble against the New Zealand Tall Blacks, never mind the Olympic foul trouble vs. USA? They beat Dallas because they could match them as far as transition scoring, and just eat them for lunch when the game slowed down. Chris Webber ring a bell? Webber and Divac were getting off on Lafrentz and Dirk pretty bad. Notice this trend- First round, vs. Utah and Karl Malone, not a shotblocker, but plenty tough- CWebb shoots under 42%, averages "just" 20.5 points, 18 FGA per game. Second Round vs. Dirk? 54.6% FG%, 25.2 PPG on 19.2 FGA per game. 3rd Round vs. Robert Horry-somewhere between Dirk and Malone, but he had Shaq who spent some time on Webber: 51.3% FG%, 24.3 PPG, 21.4 FGA per game. See the same trend for Vlade- Round 1- 9.3 PPG, 42.9% FG% Round 2- 15.6 PPG, 51.1% FG% Round 3- 14.4 PPG, 44.9% FG%
<i> Point guards should always have higher assist numbers than SF. Two years ago, Odom was their best scorer to go along with it. McInnis could get assists just giving it to Brand-Odom had 5.9 assists a game, a whopping .3 assists behind McInnis; pure conjecture tells me that if Odom was in the game as opposed to Tremaine "NBDL" Foulkes, McInnis wouldn't have gotten all those assists. </i> What does Odom's performance two years ago have to do with McInnis' assist totals from last year? Fact of the matter, most of the time Odom wasn't in the game last year. Do you really think that Odom playing in 29 games, averaging 13.1 pts on .419% shooting and shooting .190% from the 3pt line inflated McInnis' assist stats? Odom was the 4th leading scorer on the Clips last year and he didn't play very many games. If anything Odom being in the lineup actually hurt McInnis' assist numbers since Maggette, as a starting SF, averaged the same number of points as Odom, but shot alot better percentage (.473). <i> Odom is 22. Notice, the AST/TO ratio is on an upward trend for him, and his assists have gone up every year. </i> If you're going to downgrade McInnis because he had Brand on the team, then you have to do the same for Odom. Odom's assists went up when they got Brand. How many of his assists just giving the ball to Brand/Richardson/McInnis/Magette? <i> Let's factor in that Francis had migraines, plantar fascitis and a shoulder injury, and had plenty of rust. Mobley averaged 23 ppg on 45% shooting in 2002, roughly the time Francis was healthy. Mobley worked on his jumpshot a lot-we had lots of people notice a more repeatable stroke. His scoring average and FG% have gone up every single year in the league, and other than a dip from .358 to .356 in his 3P%, that has been going up as well. </i> Ok, let's give Steve the benefit of the doubt. Then why not let him run the offense? Why bring in another guy? He cut his turnovers down by .7/game after his rookie year. If his shooting will be back to normal, then isn't it logical to assume that his assist/turnovers will be back to where they were in '00 or improved? If that's the case, then there's even less of a need for Odom. <i> When he's a 19 years old rookie, and was inconsistent. It may be premature to call Griffin among the best shooters, but I think it's quite possible he'll reach that level. Kenny Thomas had 4 years of college and shot under 40% his rookie. </i> Being a rookie has nothing whatsover to do with stating the guy is one of the best shooting PF in the league. He shot 37% from the floor. That is awful. If he improves, great. But until he does, it's ridiculous to call him one of the best shooting PF in the league.I'm not really sure what Kenny Thomas has to do with this. Did anybody every call him one of the best shooting PF in the league? How is he relevant to this? <i> Name the player who shoots .148 his rookie year, .192 his sophomore year, and .303 his 3rd year. Rookie of the Year, perennial all-star when healthy, 4 year college product from Duke, Grant Hill. The .190 can be considered an aberration because of the small sample size, and injury, as well as sporadic playing. </i> Are you implying that Grant Hill is a great 3 point shooter? He's a career 26% 3pt shooter. His 3 point shooting had nothing to do with him being an all-star. Other than the fact that he, like Odom has never been a good 3 pt shooter, I don't see how Hill is relevant to Odom's 3pt shooting. Just as you said with assists, notice a trend? Odom's 3 pt shooting has gone down drastically each year he's been in the league 36% to 31% to 19%. <i> Odom shoots nearly 44.5% for his career including a 46% season, and is only 22-the guy should be about 6 years away from peaking. Adding a guy who creates shots for others boosts others' field goal percentage. Maurice Taylor shot 48.9% this past year, and Kenny Thomas shot 47.8%. </i> Add Odom to our team with any of the centers you think we could acquire and we're still a poor defensive team and we have no player that can get us a high percentage shot when we need it. <i> When did I say anything about starting Collier? Collier was mentioned as a shooter. Collier would probably be 5th or 6th on a list of people that would play with those 4-behind Cato, Taylor, Thomas, your #8 pick, and depending how you picked at 15 and/or 12-and that's assuming you let Willis go, and don't pick up anyone in free agency. </i> Ok, sorry my mistake. Let me rephrase: A lineup of (Cato/Taylor/Thomas/#8pick), Francis, Mobley, Odom and Griffin would be a terrible shooting team that also played no defense, not a good combination. Of course, adding a 7'6 1/4 center into the middle of our defense would help alot. <i>They said the same thing when Shawn Bradley came out. </i> Say what you want about Shawn Bradley, but he does shut down the middle. The problem with him is that he kills your offense. Now if Bradley had Yao's athleticism and latteral movement, then he'd be even more dangerous. <i>Lafrentz was supposed to limit penetration for Dallas, too.</i> So, you don't think that 7'6 1/4" guy with good lateral movement would clog the middle more than LaFrenz does? I've got to disagree with you on that one. <i> It doesn't concern you when he's apparently getting into foul trouble against the New Zealand Tall Blacks, never mind the Olympic foul trouble vs. USA? It doesn't concern you when he's apparently getting into foul trouble against the New Zealand Tall Blacks, never mind the Olympic foul trouble vs. USA? </i> How come when you talk about Odom or Griffin, you talk about their age and the fact that they should get better, but when you talk about Yao, you refer to him as if he'll never get any better. Since the guy hasn't consistently played against physical competion, why is it so hard to imagine him getting stronger and more accustomed to that style of play? Eddie Griffin shoots 37% from the floor, yet you're willing to believe that he'll be one of the top shooting PF in the league, but Yao has foul trouble as a 22 year old international player and you're "concerned". Isn't it more likely that a guy that has had limited coaching and training would be more likely to improve? <i> They beat Dallas because they could match them as far as transition scoring, and just eat them for lunch when the game slowed down. Chris Webber ring a bell? Webber and Divac were getting off on Lafrentz and Dirk pretty bad. Notice this trend- </i> It's not like Webber and Divacs were just posting up and scoring. Their interior points came off of guards penetration and drawing the defenders. I don't see where toughness had anything to do with it. How is that any different than what Sacramento did to Shaq and LA? It has nothing to do with interior toughness. Webber's numbers were pretty similar against LA, do they lack interior toughness? My argument against Odom still comes down to the same thing : He weak defensively, he doesn't shoot well enough and he doens't force teams to play us any differently. If you were coaching against the Rockets with Odom at SF, would you play us any differently than the soft zone we saw last year. Wouldn't you just pack it in and cut off the driving lanes and then dare us to shoot over the top? I don't see how Odom is going to keep teams from doing that and I don't see how he'll help much when teams play that way. I know that you think that Odom is somehow going to make us a fast break team, but I don't see that happening. He never made the Clippers a running team in the past 3 years, so I don't see how he all of a sudden forces us to run.
