Pistons Possibly Trying To Land T-MAC for Billups and T-Prince

What I find curious is that you will post a commentary by the two-face Richard Justice on McGrady in the playoffs but with Scola it's the "what do you expect him to say" routine. Somehow the offense managed to be TMac oriented and he wasn't even in the lineup. Who would of thunk it was possible? Let's just say I value what Scola has to say over your objectiveness and leave it at that.

 

First, let me say, all of you guys that are so high on Billups pass me whatever you guys are smoking.

How about just look at the numbers huh? 40% FG is pretty darn erratic, more so than your favorite scapegoat - TMac. In addition, TMac has higher CAREER assist numbers than Billups! Ridiculous.

Seriously, when you try to address each point like this, make sure it makes more sense than this. Give some facts to back it up. Sure he gets doubled so does TMac. While TMac is able to use it better by hitting the open man and making plays (see our record without him in the lineup) and Yao is not able to that effectively because he does not have the court vision nor TMac's talent.

Yea, getting an improved Rafer and a role player in Prince is not an improvement.

 

fair enough, but how about lets listen to what JVG had to say about TMac and how important he is to the Rockets offense? How about Adelman? Didn't someone post Adelman's quote as well? Ok how about look at friggin facts? Win/loss ratio without Tmac and without Yao??

 

Whats ridiculous is that you're measuring current players and current abilities by using career numbers.

Do you remember the Utah Jazz series this year? They proved that single, physical coverage against Tmac is highly effective. If they did double the pick & roll, it was very brief. The defender flashed out and then retreated. On the other hand, when Yao gets defended, he can generally abuse any single defender. Consequently, he will normally have 2 defenders draped over him. Thats why he draws double teams more effectively.

What you're not understanding is that Yao doesn't need to have Tmac's level of court vision to be effective. Also, you need to realize that Yao doesn't have good 3 point shooters around him right now. If he did, it would open up the game a lot more.

Actually, Chauncey is much better than Rafer, and Prince is all-star caliber. That being said, Prince is the piston I want the least.

 

You know, Billups would be a big improvement over Rafer and I like Prince. He still can play defense, he still can score ans shoot the ball. I like them both.

It would be an improvement but ONLY with Yao in the lineup. Now we gotta ask one question. Will Yao stay healthly for the entire season (next)?

If yes than this trade is not that bad for Houston. We get great pg, and player who can score and defend. With Yao I think Billups/Prince would be very effective and Rockets would be pretty good team.

But now, if you ask no, than this trade is a disaster. Why? I just don't see Billups and Prince being able to carry a team on their back, especially in the West.

 

Failed logic. Billups shot nearly 45% from the field last year, 40% from 3pt [bold]and 91.8% from the charity stripe.[/bold] There were too many opportunities wasted from T-mac's missed FT's

 

no it's not richard justice. it's common sense. do you want scola to throw one of the star players under the bus saying our offense is more efficient for the 10 games when he left? that our defense got better?

scola is a team player. he said the same things when tmac went out although the offense picked up a little bit too. he said we miss his playmaking blah blah blah.

our team last yr got better playing without both stars more than ever under JVG and that's an attribute to adelman. that's b/c guys like scola, landry, and rafer stepped up. scola knows his role and he's humble. that's why we love him. that's why he's untouchable.

how about thinking outside the box man? if you believe EVERYTHING an athlete says at face value, well, i don't know what to say.

do you really believe them when yao got injured when they said, "we miss yao, but we can win without him. we can still get that championship?" dude, AT LEAST 3-4 of our players said a championship was within reach. now tell me, you think they really believe that. it's PR. it's the media. you don't want to say anything controversy, esp. for a guy who just came into the L like scola trying to find his way.

 

how does yao draw double teams more effectively than rafer? tmac draws double teams not just in the post. he draws them from pick and rolls, post ups depending who's guarding him, and a lot of team shadow him when he's at the high post.

 

exactly. if you're gonna trade tmac, might as well make the team into a complete balanced team (a better version of the pistons). with this lineup, nobody would have to score more than 20 points a game and everyone would be fresh.

 

wekko, just ask jerry sloan, ak47, harpring, boozer, and deron and the utah players who actually PLAYED in the game. they all said they doubled/tripled tmac more than ever (moreso than their usual game plan anyways). they may not have doubled him straight up all the time, but they always put 2-3 guys to shadow him cutting off his lanes or forcing him to pass.

but hey, you made the gameplan right?

 

wekko, furthermore, yao faced single coverage as single coverage can be v. okur last yr. sloan said he would let yao go off and try to shut down tmac, esp. his playmaking. yao didn not "abuse" okur. in fact, okur "abused" him several times with blocks in his face.

again, i really only care about playoff performances b/c our team is a great reg. season team. keep the best playoff performers (tmac tops the list on THIS team). but if we're going to trade him simply for change, billups + hamilton is a good trade.

but again 35 pages of pure speculation. only tmac can do that on this board.

 

Shadowing and cutting off lanes is not the same as doubling. By cutting off lanes, the defender is not fully committing himself to the double team. Therefore, he can quickly get back to the man he was originally guarding.

Shooting 44% isnt great for a big man, but it isnt terrible either. I dont really recall the specifics of the games with Yao, but according to you, Sloan also said that Tmac was doubled. In reality, he wasn't. So if he's exaggerating his gameplan for Tmac, its possible he exaggerated his gameplan for Yao.

 

so are you saying utah didn't double kobe? that's what they did, but even less than v. tmac. for a perimeter player, the only thing you can do then is shoot bc you have 3 guys near you to stop any penetration. that used to be illegal defense, you do know that right.

no, after every post game, reporters asked him, how are you going to slow tmac down? he said with a lot of double and triple teams. the only guy sloan used with little help is ak47. everybody else got A LOT of help. it came straight out of the horses' mouth. even ak47 admitted to that defensive gameplan. like i said, they played illegal defense on tmac a lot and rarely straight up.

but he never said he would double yao. he wanted yao to go off. okur was on an island with yao 95% of hte time. okur played yao straight up with no shadowing or help most of the time.

and i find it funny how you say 44% isn't terrible for a center, that's 6% off of the avg center's % of 50. tmac shot 39% last yr, which is 6% of the avg for a great SG like kobe of 45% and you said that was horrible. if you compare it to their relative positions, both shot HORRIBLY. but again, anything yao does to you is not terrible even when it is. both of them shot like garbage last yr in the playoffs. just admit yao does have his mistakes and move on.

 

Why is it that everytime you're wrong, you go off on a tangent and assume I dont understand your tangent?

You said that Tmac was doubled. And then you explained that by saying he was shadowed. I pointed out that shadowing isnt the same thing as doubling. And now you bring up Kobe? And past illegal defense rules? How does that relate to how Tmac was guarded?

Well, he said one thing and did another. During the playoffs, there were threads pointing out that Tmac was predominantly defended with single coverage.

Yes. I said it wasn't great but wasn't terrible. Are you somehow interpreting this as a compliment?

Why dont you include all the information? 39.4% FG Percentage, 25% 3 Pt Percentage, 73.7% FT Percentage. His overall fg % isnt terrible, but his 3 pt & ft shooting percentages are.

If you think that a center shooting 44% from the field and 88% from the line is garbage, you're in the minority. Yao has his flaws, but not nearly as bad as you make them out to be.

 

Wtf? 39% from a swing is terrible. 44% from a big is also terrible.

This isn't even debatable.

 

wekko, you dont even know what your talking about, just admit it, YAO lost us the last game. He got out hustled BY boozer and admit!

 

If you think that Yao is capable of beating Boozer in a footrace, then yes, Boozer outhustled Yao.

 

44% is horrible for a center no matter how you slice it. Go and check Shaq's FG% heck even Dwight's. And if you watched the Jazz series, Okur 'abused' Yao literally. Blocked him at least 2-3 times a game (or it seemed), easily outrebounded him the whole series. Now you are talking about Yao's FT%, very convenient. Then why don't you bring up TMac's assists and rebound numbers when he has mediocre shooting nights as well?

 

No I should measure them just by what they did last year. Riiiight.. how abou that Rafer then huh? Career numbers with enough sample size is a good indicator of a player's actual skill.

Pass me whatever you are smoking. TMac was doubled everytime he put the ball on the floor. Just because they didn't front TMac (which is not possible) like teams do with Yao doesn't mean they didn't double TMac.

Yea, someone pointed it out many times, you have two decent 3 point shooter in Rafer and Shane (mid .300). What else do you want, .400 shooters?? Hard to break it to you, those players are rare.

We really should stop throwing all star title out like this, unless it is a joke. Seriously.