Dude Kelly take some words of advice from a freakin fan: Move your feet. You cant just wait for the ball to fall into your precious hands. Notice how Kevin Willis jumps and moves towards the basket to grab a ball. Thats called a rebound. Can you say rebound?? How about you try and stick your hands up when you see a person trying to score. Dont puss out and run away. Just stand still like a good little boy and try and swat that little orange sphere that the offensive player has in his hands. You remember how to block dont you? Lastly, check your pulse. Is your heart ticking?? I dont think so. Where is Pig Miller when we need him? DD
Dude, I know I've met you and all...but you're full of crap. Seriously, I thought Cato played pretty well. While 9 pts and 7 brds a game aren't worth 6 mil a year (well MacCollogh's getting that...so who knows), I'm happy with our output at center right now, Cato included. Tonight he had some big rebounds on both sides of the court. He's been deserving of ridicule numerous times...not tonight though.
Pig plays with the magic all stars. i saw him when they played Mich St. Old ass Hakeem had 9blks the other night and for all of cato's defensive prowess, he's avg what 1 blk a game. at least he's rebounding decent and playing better than in past yrs.
Man some people are so quick to crack Cato that they just wander off and rant without even paying attention! Cato is getting better, 9 points and 7 rebounds on a team loaded with scorers (though you wouldn't know that last night) is pretty good. We're getting production from the center spot. As for Cato averaging 1 block per game and Hakeem having 9 block shots that was ONE GAME! The entire team was on a block fest in that game. This was Mutombo he was guarding. Those numbers are impressive for a young center to be matched up with a guy like that, especially with a somewhat in shape Derrick Coleman wandering around. Nothing to complain about with Cato. Sometimes getting defensive stops is better then a block shot. All a block shot means is you stopped a guy once or twice. Besides the guy up front who got burned the most was actually KT who was guarding Coleman. And KT actually did a great job considering.
I enjoyed watching him pull the chair out from under Dikembe tonight. I was surprised because I consider that to be a rather savvy move, even for a veteran. Something that requires getting into the head of the other player a little.
I like the play at the center position right now. I did however get ticked off when I seen Coleman drive in for a layup and Cato just let him go up uncontested.Later in the game when Coleman got a dunk Cato could of had a block,DC barely got up and dunked it!Willis is non stop huslte and even though Cato is playing a whole lot better I still see him standing around underneath. Im waiting to see if Rudy will ever get both Willis and Cato in the game!?!
Ren, Was any of that because he was in foul trouble? I know he fouled out and I thought in the first half he went in and out pretty quickly because of fouls. It may have been that he was trying not to foul out in the instances you refer to. Don't know for sure.
Dude you guys are having pipe dreams (pardon the pun) if you think that Cato can stand up and play hard against the better teams in the west. Lets face it, we really havent played a tough team IMO quite yet. The Spurs and Lakers will be a TRUE test of how good Cato is. My point is that the dude doesnt really play tough. Sure he had a couple of EASY dunks and maybe one or 2 jump shots, but the guy lacks the fire that I see in Willis' eyes when he jumps off the bench. I tried to cut him some slack this game, but the rebounds he caught fell into his hands, and the Sixers inside game had WAY too many second chance points, and offensive rebounds in the paint. The dude should be swatting away at the blessed height of 7 feet for the love of Christ. Where are the blocks??? He had a big goosegg last night while Kenny had 3..........
You must be watching a different game. I see Cato hustling out there and giving a good effort. The one thing Rudy has been emphasising with Cato is not to get dumb fouls. I read an article that said Rudy told him not to always go after the block if it is going to take him out of position to defend. It seems to me that is exactly what Cato is trying to do. Not to fall for the fakes and missed shot blocks and instead holding his ground. He occasionally makes mistakes like when he reached in for a block and fouled someone on the arm. But for most part I think he is playing good D. Oh by the way Cato appears to have a decent 10 foot jump shot and he can slam on a alley oop as good as anyone on the team. As for competing with the rest of the western conference I think Cato matches up with Shaq as good as any other center. The bottom line is no one is going to stop Shaq, no one. I am more concerned about our power forward play than anything. While Kenny is playing great basketball and I've been surprisingly impressed he till is our weak link on defense. He has to matchup against KG, Duncan, Malone, Rasheed Wallace, Brand, Nowitzki etc. and that's just too much for him at times. Still he is giving a valiant effort. Anyway I think your assesment of Cato is way off and in fact I think Cato is definitely a part of why we are 5-1. Which by the way is a heck of alot better than I thought we should be at this stage. I figured we would be a 500 team untill the beginning of next year and then we would start jelling. So in my opinion we are way ahead of schedule. And i think there's just way to much complaining for a team playing above expectations.
I agree with a lot of what Drewdog is saying. Cato just doesn't move right or jump right. He has the perfect body. If he did know how to play the game and had 1 aota of instinct, we would see a difference. There would be a lot more "wow!s" coming from me and this bbs. Personally, I've got a lot more wows for K9. They guy is the smartest player on our team, imo (maybe Rice will proove to be, I don't know...and Francis definitely has it in him). That is one reason he is the most used picker for Francis and is often flashing through the lane from the weakside on cue. I don't think this can be understated...without smart players like Kenny, Bobby Knight cannot invent his motion Passing Game...it is all about moving on cue and reading which way to move and when. Francis needs that on the traps on the pnr. Thomas must read that fast and so does Francis. And they have about 4-6 reads to make on different defenses. His passing is starting to finally show, too. Instinctual, with good reflex and speed, that is Kenny. That is called talent. Too bad he doesn't have 2 more inches. But he is our Kenny, and he is giving solid contributions....and improving. I still don't see talent in Cato. I seriously don't. I want to. I thought I did at one point. I'd say the biggest difference between this year and previous is Cato is "patient and staying down" just like Rudy reported in camp. Ummm. Cato, when the coaches teach you to stay down on defense, they don't really mean for you to never jump. Cato can get up for some alley-oops can't he? Well, do that defensively without picking up 2 quick fouls. Can you Cato? OldManRock, Kenny isn't our weak link on offense. Cato is, no??? And just because 3 guys named Francsi, Mobley, Rice are better option, doesn't make Kenny a weak link. He still helps us run plays. He doesn't make too many mistakes on offense or clog the lane, or cut at the wrong time, pass to the wrong player. The hesitation problem is improving...he's getting better. I don't think Kenny is our weak link on defense, either. Kenny just has to go mistake free on defense. That is tough to do. The superstars will make him look bad sometimes. But mistake free, and he'll give anyone fits with his speed, imo.
Cato does need a lot of work on positioning, timing and it wouldn't hurt him to take some of that 7 mil. of this year's salary and go buy some instinct. He doesn't really have a nose for the ball. That being said, he didn't play that bad last night. Although he did commit some very silly fouls on some very SLOW headfakes by Dikembe. These were headfakes that a local high school kid wouldn't fall for. I guess this Thanksgiving we have a lot to be thankful for.....Cato is PLAYING, and not playing all that bad. That's more than we have ever gotten from him in the past. Thomas was solid last night. Granted, he was facing a size disadvantage against Coleman. But down the stretch particularly, he played Coleman tough, and went to the hole at seemingly at will. Coleman could not stay with him off the dribble. Each time Kenny got it low on the wing, I was saying, "PLEASE don't shoot a jumper, take him to the rack." He must have heard me. He'd juke, fake, and then dribble to the hole either straight down the pipe, or spin and back him down, eventually making a nice pivot to the basket. Plus, HE FINISHED his offensive moves. He barely dribble a couple of them in, but they went it!!!!
Watch the games guys. Kelvin had a great game fo us. His defense was as good as we could expect. He certainly outplayed Dikembe and Kevin. So what if someone dunked on him. I thought Speedy Claxton made Stevie look foolish on a couple of plays, but we aren't ripping into him. All we ever asked is that Kevin stay in the game block a shot or two, score when he gets and open path to the basket, and rebound. He's not an all-star and if he was, his contract would be double. I guarentee you that without him, we're sitting at 2-4 right now. Get off the guys back and start being decent fans for a while. We're 5-1 right now and Kelvin is playing DECENT ball. How bout' we all crack a smile and be proud of our guys for at least the first 10 games before we try and take Rudy's place on the bench. I don't follow the Rockets so I can b**** about some rookie not getting enough time or how someone's overpaid and lazy. I have enough problems with that at work. I follow them because in my life they've provided me with some very special memories. Sure it hurt when we lost to Utah or Seattle in the playoffs, but that can't compare to how good it felt when we won it all. All I'm saying is give the guys a break. They're young and they will some bonehead plays. But if you stand behind them now, it will make it that much better when you're celebrating their 3rd championship in a year or two.
While I admire your enthusiasm....don't you think you are being a bit melodramatic? Cato did not outplay Dikembe by any stretch of the imagination. Dikembe had 16 points and 18 freakin rebounds. Compare that to 9 points and 7 boards for Cato, and him fouling out in the 4th. I expected Dikembe to outplay Cato, he should. But to say the reverse is a gross overstatment. We won the game, and that's the goal each night. I am not disappointed in how Cato played. He's been doing ok. Again, that's much more than we got from him the past two seasons.
I was talking to a friend about this last night. The one thing I've noticed that Cato lacks is PASSION!! He's has NO passion. You can tell from his body language and his expressions. I mean look at the differences between him and Willis. I saw Kevin sprinting down the court last night, I mean first back after the other team scored. Kevin plays with intensity and passion like a young buck. Cato looks like an old man out there. He doesn't sacrifce to get rebounds. I saw Willis last night bumpin' on the floor getting in players' faces and getting physical on the floor!! Cato has does none of this. I mean look at his pre-season comments, "I'm in pre-season shape" look at his amazement of how well Cuttino was in shape, these things show sloth and laziness... Out of the seven deadly sins: ENVY, SLOTH, GLUTTONY, WRATH, PRIDE, LUST & GREED...Cato has a few covered. In my opinion, they include, SLOTH (slow and lazy) GREED (a big @ss contract) & GLUTTONY (what kind of cars does this man drive? I've heard a Bently and a purple SUV??)... those sins he doesn't exhibit manifest themselves in opposite ways like. A lack of PRIDE. Is he ENVIOUS of those that are in better shape or play better than him, who knows? When will the other team feel the WRATH of Cato? Does he LUST for a championship? It's gonna take a lot more than numbers for me to get excited about Cato... he needs to show me that he wants to play and win. He needs to show some PASSION! Maybe he could use a few therapy sessions? Get his head in the right place??? rH
I agree that he has shown great improvement, specially in his desire. And he did play Dikembe tough. Nice elbowing not caught by the refs and he fouled out on a key play by the 76ers. As far as Cato goes. just showing the effort he is showing right now is enough for me. You cannot expect the guy to become a monster in the paint overnight. However, it also looked to me, and this may be because it has been ages since I last saw Cato play, that he is quite slower than he was before the added weight. He seems to have lost some or a lot of his athleticism to me. Can anyone confirm this? Or am I just getting confused in my old age?
What I saw was Dikembe schooling Kevin. Sure Dikembe might have outplayed Cato. He's one of the top 3 centers in the league. He's supposed to. But you can't always look at the stats. Dikembe got 8 rebounds in 4 possessions because of tips that didn't go in. Does that mean that Kelvin was pathetic. No. Both teams shot under 40%. There wasn't exactly a lack of balls flying around. My point , and maybe I over emphasized a little, is that Kelvin will never be a top center. No one expects that. But when he's in there he has played well, except for the second game of the season. Averaging 9ppg and 7rbg in 25 minutes is OK with me. Sure I wish it was double that, but that's unrealistic.
As much as ya'll feel that Kelvin is playing like it's his job not something he has a passion for, I am not overly upset with this. I am infact pleased because Cato looks more relaxed, more happy when he's on the court and when he's like that you can only expect better things from him. Personally I would like Rudy to get Cato a few open 15 footers because he looks like he can knock them down. Give him abit more time and he will prove himself. One step at a time, keep the faith and have patience.
Cato + PASSION = 5 fouls + 1 flagrant. He's working hard and improving and starting to earn his keep. He's beginning to have an impact; I, for one, am very happy to see this turnaround.
Hey Crispee I was talking defense. And yes on most nights Kenny is a liability and or weakest link. Hey last night an old Derrick Coleman seemed to have his way with him and so has every other strong power forward including Brand and Garnett. Also a couple of Cato's fouls where the direct result of Kenny not being able to cover Coleman and Cato had to rush over to help. Why do you think the rookie Griffin was playing in the fourth quarter against Minnesota. Because Kenny could not stop Garnett at all. At least griffin made him work for his points. So while I really like Kenny and I think he deserves mad accolades for his hustle and enthusiastic play I still think he can't consistently defend the bigger and stronger power forwards in this league. And by the end of the year either Mo Taylor will be back starting or Eddie Griffin will be starting. Mark my words.
