I misunderstood your beef with Shandon then. It seemed that you advocated his return to the team on the basis of playing minimal minutes and at a low salary (reflecting his new status), but instead you wish him all the best as he plays for another team? Basing this on the fact that he won't really accept his role and will disrupt the carefully built chemistry? ------------------
I think that everyone is having inflated expectations of what Griffin and Morris will bring next year. I remember everyone last year at this time, and it still happens, saying how Langhi was going to be our SF and would be starting by the All Star Break. Griffen will be a great player. Someday. He will not have a Steve Francis type impact. I think that Griffin should get minutes. I think he will contribute. But we need Shandon back and he needs to be apart of our long term plans as our 6th man. Depth is essential to winning and Shandon is a great 2nd string guy and I want him on this team. He definitely gets an E for effort every night and that is something that some players (cough cough cato) just dont do. He plays great defense and is a hussle guy. I wanted him to have more of an offensive punch but that isnt his forte. And other than Shandon, we have no defensive players. ------------------ Noooooo!! They're all gonna laugh at you!
Griffin is a defensive player. we have others who play defense and aren't one dimensional! ------------------ Rarely is the question asked: Guns kill squirrels than REDRUM to fools across the nation?
Sounds like your talking about MoTay's lack of rebounding ------------------ "For there is nothing either good or bad, thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Hamlet [This message has been edited by BobFinn* (edited July 06, 2001).]
Anderson agent will have to come off his demands of more than the early bird exceptions. I think anderson would fit fine with the new role of 6th man.
crispee, your posts always seem to have these perplexing agendas, that you go about supporting by talking yourself in circles. for example: yes, shandon anderson has weaknesses. so does every other player on the rockets roster. what's your point? you say: "Shandon lacks Ballhandling & Shooting skills for a SG either from lack of practice or he simply can't learn it .... which is it!" shandon's role on the team last year was NOT about offense! it's a good thing, too, because we've got offense to spare. okay, maybe we could use more O in the low post, but that's not shandon's fault. perimeter d was at a premium last year. we sure as heck didn't get it from mobley. but guess what? we didn't ask for it from mobley! we asked for offense from him and we got it! (except for assists ) "Guys like that don't try to improve themselves through practice." oh really? how can you make that claim? ????? ------------------
TheFreak, how many times do I have to show you quotes. He admitted to on court arguments with Francis in December, "Those things happen". He said Rudy's system is not suited for him..."I am not a spot up shooter" and that he wasn't happy with his role. That is blaming the system for lack of you own assertiveness. Don't overstate what my words "blame" and "complain" mean. I can use those words in this context. You are the one stretching my words to imply he is a cancer. I am simply saying he has complained and he does not like our Rudy system. He wants change. His quotes confirm that, and his requests for change are questionable. Now I have quotes regarding his need to practice ballhandling and shooting. I keep giving you the quotes you ask for. Maybe, just maybe, some bball fans don't need quotes for these things except to spur conversations about it. Watching Shandon from the stands, it was obvious to several of us what his weaknesses were. It was obvious to us he was not aggressive enough of the time, both on offense and defense. It was obvious he waved for the ball in the low post more than he deserved. It was obvious he look dejected and had words with Mobley and Francis quite often on the court, several viewers have spotted that. He is a smooth professional. But how many more quotes do you need to see that he is not a content team player, and he lacks SG fundamentals. Bob Finn* the difference is that Mo's rebounding is not overrated, and no one is in love with it. The Shandon love-fest, I defend him because I like his mannerism, consistently overrates his value to this team.
buffalospeedway, you perplex me as someone who doesn't want to consider Shandon's weaknesses, yet will most definitely point out Mobley's. You and I are merely scouting players and trying to understand their value in our system. This is what this bbs is all about, imo. please don't overread my words "complain" and "blame", like TheFreak consistently does as if I'm trying to call Shandon a Whiney b**** cancerous Pippen or something. You know TheFreak needs to pigeon-hole posters so it is easier for him to follow along in basketball discussions hehe My point is merely about measuring his value now that he wants a new contract! Besides, what else is any poster's point in calling out a player's faults and weaknesses. If we don't praise and critique, then we are all are either sunshine asses or caveman bashers. I think Shandon's lack of offensive skills allows defenses to trap Francis and Mobley more often. He hurts our offense. You cannot isolate his defense in a discussion like he is on a football team or something, anymore than you can isolate Walt's offense and say he doesn't hurt our defense. Rockets Fact: Shandon doesn't play many 4th quarter minutes. Why? What does "claiming" have to do with it? That is my strong opinion from loving and playing this game for many years. It is merely my strong opinion. I know players who practice only to fill a role. They practice team ball and execution as a team. I consider Shandon that type of practice player. By stereotyping him like that, maybe we can discuss it. It is unnecessary for me to "prove" it, like I'm trying to win an argument or sumpin. Practice players like I'm describing Shandon as, are not a bad thing. I am stating that players who lack fundamentals often don't practice individual skills over and over. And players who lack fundamentals can practice team ball all they want, but their team value will have a limit, especially if they keep voicing their opinion that the team system (or their role) should change for them. imso, Shandon lacks fundamental ball skills because he seems not to value individual skills over teamwork and many, many college coaches would agree with his philosophy. Whether that stereotype of Shandon is true or not is unnecessary to this discussion, other than laying a stereotype to aid the discussion. We don't have to agree on that, but correct if I'm wrong, stereotypes can be discussion aids. In the NBA, defenses will exploit players who lack fundamental ball skills for their position. And defenses were indeed exploiting Shandon by guarding him softly so they could get aggressive with Mobley and Francis. To me, Shandon hurts our offense by making life tougher for our guards, and that is why Rudy sits him in the 4th Q more often than not. [This message has been edited by crispee (edited July 06, 2001).]
crispee, i don't need quotes one way or the other to tell me anything about shandon's SG skills. i've seen him play. i know he has SG skills. btw, there's more to SG skills than ballhandling and shooting, AND just because someone says they need to work on something doesn't mean they're hopeless at it. shandon is a good ballhandler, and if you take away his 3pt % (27%, not good), he is a decent shooter, too (over 50% on 2pt-ers). he wants to become even better. is there something wrong with that? ------------------
DrN. I'm not really following that last string of questions, especially the "wish him the best". Right now, Shandon hurts our offense, but he is a young athlete who can compete against other bench players very well. And if he does develop a Mario shot, he will rock as a spark plug, junkyard, do everything player. What worries me most is that I am not sure he can play from the bench again. And money of course worries me. We have a center spot to fill still. This is a question of cap manipulation, no doubt! It is a matter of timing with our cap windfall; we must find a center in that time frame, and save money everywhere to find him. What I most definitely am not is a Mobley lover who thinks Shandon steals minutes from him.
I would give Shandon the full early bird contract of 4.5 million for two reasons. First, the Rockets have a reputation for taking care of their players who take less to stay. (Maloney, Harrington, Barkley). I'm not talking about making Joe Smith type promises - just taking care of players who took less to play here. Players remember ingrate GMs like Krause when making their decisions. Players also remember Phoenix took care of Danny Manning even though he had blown out his ACL. It comes down to being a class organization. Second, he only counts 2.86 million against our cap space if we sign the other free agents first. After that, it is Les' money, so who cares? I don't think there will be any quality unrestricted free agents next year for which to save our money. ------------------
I think Shandon,as the 6th man, will bring us the Shandon from Utah that used to kill us 3 years ago. If he comes out with the 2nd team he will be counted on as a scorer and D is always important. I think Shandon is very important to the future of this team. We need to keep him. ------------------ the Heat suck!!
Which is what I had originally thought - but as I said that was my misinterpretation! ------------------
Shandon is a decent player who deserves a chance, but at what price? His agent wants 4-6 mill. a year and it just ain't gonna happen! We can sign someone else (Nate James) that does all the little things for alot less and still have cap for Webb or some other front court player. We should keep him only for 1-2 mill. a year, but I don't think he'd agree to it. ------------------
