There's a reason why Wafer's been a benchwarming scrub for most of his career. Of course DD knows better. Tell me, DD, what do you think will happen when we have Artest, Brooks, and Wafer (3 ballstoppers) on the court at the same time?
Need MORE Battier. MORE of what he's currently doing. INCREASE his minutes to 43 a game. Get Wafer OUT the game. (obvious flipside argument)
I feel like some of you are being a bit obtuse here. Can we all at least agree that Battier has not been producing at the level he's expected to produce at? I don't know that Wafer's the answer to this problem, but last night at least I would have sure as hell rather seen Wafer out there than Battier.
going by that logic, chauncey billups would be a bench player for the rest of his career since his career started out so beautifully wafer's young. he's making mistakes, and he'll learn. i'm sure we can use the "good" mike james right now and wafer's that guy. no one is saying he's a good player, but hes a "dynamic" player, which is what we're lacking.
Wow, what a post. Hey, let's put 15 scorers and then see if we win more games than the Warriors. Let's do it! We'll be unbeatables.
If you leave Wafer in the game for 40 minutes, Yao Ming would probably be averaging 5 shots per game.
Yes Wafer should start and get more minutes than Battier. I can't believe posters are calling for Barry - he stinks and is not an upgrade over Battier. He's a turnover machine who can't shoot anymore. Wafer has youth and maybe a future. Barry and Battier are killing this team!
Ahhhhhhh, yes...I'm glad somebody finally brought this up. You know you have to be careful when you say it's time to limit a players minutes on the floor because you are opening the door to being flamed, quickly. But I think it is time and I think there is no better time. Battier's shooting percentage the other night I think was 11% or so, dismal. Fortunately, Battier has been the most consistent player when it comes to his shooting! Who said this team needs consistency? Von Wafer's shooting percentage was 50%, if I recall correctly. I also agree with the point that Von played better as a starter. He may be trying to do too much coming off the bench because he knows his minutes are going to be limited, and in the long run, I think that hurts his offense. Last night, for instance, I watched the game and thought that Von Wafer started off shooting horrible and picked it up later on only to find out that he ended the game shooting 50%. I think he has to get in the game and get a rhythm similar to McGrady and I think that when he does, he could play more valuable minutes than Shane, and he should definitely get some more time. Definitely need his aggression to put some pressure on other teams. Right now, our offense is playing 4 on 5 ball, not fun. Great post, DD.
Now that my day has pretty much concluded I can respond to this thread. My rebuttal, why Shane should still get his 30+ minutes on the court. First of all, let's look at more than just Shane's night against the Lakers, which we can all agree was Kobe saying GTFO to Michael Lewis and his NYT column. (oh and Battier got quite a few minutes in the first half when Kobe was on the bench and he was playing with the Wafer, Kyle, Carl, Chuck combo) Their Efficiency ratings so far this year... Shane +10.27 (okay that's not spectacular - in fact it's below average) Wafer +7.34 WHAT? You mean he's less efficient than Shane? How can that be? But that's not all. Statistically this year, with Battier in the lineup we are... 29-15, a 66% win ratio, with him averaging the same amount of minutes in all of those contests... approx 33 minutes (which I would say is just about perfect). Despite the fact that he is recovering from surgery I would say that understandable, especially since I would guess about 10 of those losses he was still trying to get his feet under him. Our Record with Wafer in the rotation is 33-19, ooooh that is better than Shane right? Wait a 63% win percentage?? With that record he is averaging 21 minutes in the losses and 19 minutes in the wins.. hmmm could that be right?? Surely when Wafer plays even just two minutes more we should win more games. But let's continue... In losses, Von is shooting 46% from the field, how can we lose when he's being that efficient?? In wins, Von is shooting 41%... hmmm does not compute!! In losses, Shane is shooting 31% from the field and in wins he's shooting 40% from the field. Well, oh my gosh I just proved Von is doing one thing better than Shane, but wait, it isn't turning into wins, how can that be?? Hmmm maybe we should look at some of the other statistics.... To be continued.
The OP's fantasy basketball team is flat out destroying the Sleepy Adelman's team. When will he learn?
So let's just stick with the box score, since we all love it so much. (Daryl and I think it's the bees knees) Well Wafer has to be contributing more, because it's just all about him being productive on the court. Let me try... rebounds. Von can jump high surely he is averaging more rebounds than Shane in winning games. Let's see Shane has 131 rebounds in the 29 wins (that's 4.5 a game) and Wafer has 63 in 33 winning games... that's... ruh roh only 1.9. Well shoot I was sure he was crashing the glass because he can jump so high. Guess I will have to try something else. But wait if I give wafer ten more minutes he should get more rebounds right?? Let's try rebounds per 40 minutes. Let's see Wafer is getting 1.9 in 19 minutes.. so for simplicities sake we will doubt that... so Wafer will get 3.8 rebounds in 38 minutes. That's well, closer to Shane's rebounds per 33 minutes. (must make note to let wafer know he needs to go for more rebounds) I know! Blocks. Von can jump high surely he averages more blocks in his minutes than Shane. Drat... foiled again. Shane is averaging 1.03 block a game in our wins and Von is only averaging .121 Maybe I better just give up and realize that Shane does things on the court that are vital to the success of this team. When you are forced to give him less minutes the team suffers as a whole. The defense slacks and has less rotation, we have less help defense, our transition defense has it's moments but it much more likely to suffer with no Shane there to cover our PG's arses when they are under the basket and get stuffed. I understand that you all like to see Von's dunks and highlight reels as he slip slides his way to the basket. But there is a lot more to what Shane contributes to the team as a whole when he's on the court than his shooting. Yes he is currently struggling with his shot, and as you see, we do better when he shoots better. BUT, that doesn't mean you give more of his minutes away. If anything they should all be giving him more time on the court with the second unit so he is forced to shoot more often and break out of his slump. And now, that I have vented and mocked DD in my post of why the idea of giving Shane less minutes is asinine, I can now go to bed. By the way, I got all my numbers off the nba.com game logs. I just copied them into excel and sorted by wins and losses. PS I could do another whole spiel about on court and off court numbers too, but I will spare yall and my sleeping time and only do that if necessary.
I agree with DD's proposal. When Shane's struggling and in a shooting slump, we are playing 4 on 5 on offense. They just leave Shane open, double Yao and still have enough hands to guard the other 3 Rox. Wafer temporarily as the starter will relieve Yao's pressure. We know it is vital to set the tone for Yao because when he starts great he would be playing in a more assertive and aggressive manner. Indeed Yao has to overcome this mental hurdle. Coach can always keep Wafter's play in check and pull him out when necessary. That's his job and he has to do it more decisively. I hate his slow reaction in player rotations.
with all my respect to barry but the experienced barry makes more mistakes with his stupid passes behind the back and the pass to yao from midcourt. im with you he should see mnts but only in playoffs, he should play the most off bench.
Hayesfan, given what you wrote, what do you think of Adelman's decision to play Battier 28:22 and Wafer 27:37 in the Lakers game? Do you think he should have had more faith in Battier's other contributions and, despite his poor shooting night (1-5, 4 points), played him his usual 33 minutes? Or is there a certain point when Battier's shooting slump begins to negate his other qualities, and did we see that in that game? Just curious.
Van is full of energe but cares his data too much and makes so much shots that he shouldn't. He could not be the terminator of Rockets. He is just a role player , a supplemental for Yao, Scola,Ron and even Carl. I don't meant to negate his agressive but sometimes he regard himself as T-Mac by mistake.
I think Adelman might think that it does, because he is more offensive minded, but I don't agree with pulling him. Eventually his shots will fall. Von was playing pretty well, so leaving him in wasn't a bad idea. I actually would have pulled some of Ron's minutes and given them to Shane. Ron played over 40 minutes and basically muscled his way the minimal 11 points he scored. Scoring 11 points while taking 16 shots is way worse than taking 5 shots to score 4 points. Think of it this way... Shane on the court 5 more minutes could mean that Yao got 3-4 more shots instead of Ron heaving it thinking he was Mini-Kobe. The only thing Ron did well was get a few steals... and even that caused him to do bad things because he started gambling defensively and gave up more than he gained in return.
Not a revelation and I'm sure alot have already said this, but we have too many specialists with limitations and 1 way players in our roster. The only well rounded 2 way players I can fully say is Artest and Scola. Maybe Landry but he's short and I don't like tall 4's matched up against him. Yao, it's already well documented what his limitations are. Brooks is a bad match up when teams pick him and force him to switch to a 2 guard. Shane, I love the guy but he's a handicap when we need someone to score and Yao is doubleteamed, the ball finds Shane because he is wide open for the obvious reason. Wafer is a boneheaded player who makes as many spectacular plays as boneheaded plays. Barry is old. Lowry doesn't have a reliable jumpshot yet otherwise he is the starting PG period. (I'm not fooled by the high percentage he shoots out on the perimeter, he hesitates and I can see why, he doesn't have alot of confidence in his J and is forced to shoot at times cause the shot clock is winding down and he is wide open.) Hayes, no explanation needed. We can wear down a team and build a good lead during a course of the game because we have good role players and we have good coaches that develop good gameplans. But when the 4 qtr rolls around our limitations at times starts getting magnified when a more well rounded team starts beating us with plain simple 5 on 5 basketball. We can beat up the sisters of poor teams cause not alot of teams can match up against Yao, but against the playoff contenders, it's easy how to get a gameplan against the Rockets. Keep the the game close, don't burn up too much energy against them early in the game, and in the 4th qtr doubleteam and front Yao and starting poking the ball away from him. Force the ball to Shane with the shotclock winding down. Hope Ron starts becoming a ballstopper and chucks bad shots. Keep Scola off the boards. Hope Wafer and Landry aren't having good scoring games, they're level of play goes up and down depending if they are contributing. Keep Lowry out of the lane, let him take J's.
