I think people who comment on AB's defense just look at his size and expect every PG in the league to post him up...not too many PGs have post up skills I thought he played good D tonight. I think he lost his man and the guy hit a wide open 3 but not too many glaring screw ups.
Ditto. To maximize Rafer's contribution, he should stay the starter. If AB keeps up the solid play, Rafer can be pulled early when he stinks up the joint. If Rafer is on his game, keep AB's minutes down a bit since he's just a rookie. We shouldn't throw him into the fire just yet. In comparing AB to Sam Cassell, remember that Sam didn't do hardly anything until the 2nd half of the season, and even then he grew into his role and peaked late. Long term, I'm not sold AB will ever be a starting caliber PG. It won't happen unless he becomes so great on offense that it overcomes his worse than pathetic defense. Right now, he is a perfect change of pace off the bench who is still figuring out what he's capable of.
Brooks should be starting sometime around the break IMO. The team runs smoother when he's in there and getting it.There is no doubt that he is much more talented than Rafer.He just needs time to let the vet rules play out.....just a matter of time. The catch is that RA doesn't have the luxury of waiting too long.Brooks is as advertised and should be a great PG in this League for a long time. We need him in there playing plenty of minutes as we have injury problems.In the process he develops and is ready to kick tail at the end of the year.
Hells to the no Brooks shouldn't start. Look at it this way. Adelman puts Brooks in when theres a favorable matchup (oppsing PG is small). He puts Rafer in whenever Brooks is getting owned defensively, which will happen more often than not. Rafer plays regardless of the opposing PG's size. This is why he's our most consistent and reliable PG. He'll be starting and Brooks will come off the bench with decent minutes.
i believe that was against Mike Miller too, who is the equivalent of like 5 AB's. I'm keeping an eye out for his rebounding abilities. He's said to be one of those guys who will sneak inside the paint and snatch a board from their center, and he has great judgment expecting where the ball will go, by the way it hits the rim.
Yeah, I'm not seeing what other people are seeing when they say he's getting "owned" defensively. He'll make rookie mistakes now and then, but he hasn't been the liability people are portraying him as. Not to my eyes, anyways.
Glaringly poor AB defense tonight: (off the top of my head) Lost Lowry (wasnt even a screen/traffic to fight thru) who got wide open for a 3. Got outpositioned on a rebound by Lowry(only two guys in the area for the rebound) who put the ball back in for 2. That being said, I think his rotations are probably a bit off but his on ball defense(especially out front) has been as good or better than Rafer. Brooks should not start yet. But him keeping Rafer under 30 minutes per game is a good thing.
I've really liked how smart and aggressive Brooks has been as our backup PG. Most of his passes have been spot on as well. I did notice, however, in the very limited minutes I've seen him playing with McGrady, his aggressiveness level tended to drop. He did a lot of bringing up the ball and dumping it to T-Mac, kind of like what Alston does. I don't know if this the way the play is set up or just his deference to the Main Man.
Brooks was getting outrebounded by Lowry. there were like two times he went uncontested for putbacks.
Brooks plays better defense than Head even right now, and should be better as the season goes, but Head has not improved his defense much, would be a problem when it comes to the playoff.