That's funny because when I watch the Lakers I don't see their guards cutting inside and setting picks and moving all over the place. Fisher spaces the court for Kobe, Kobe creates off the dribble or pulls up and shoots. Gasol stays in the post and takes advantage of mismatches when they're there. He sets picks when he has to because he's a big. Odom works off of Gasol and crashes the offensive glass. Ariza stays on the perimeter and shoots open jumpers and crashes the glass when the shot goes up. Theres nothing special about it. You have 2 creative offensive talents in gasol and bryant, the rest of the guys space the floor and let those guys go to work. When Bryant and Gasol are out of the game, then yeh, they do have to go to those highschool sets youre talking about because they become talent deficient.
No, not if you have a post prescense down there. If you're confident with how your bigs match up, you dont want guards going in the paint unless they have the ball in their hands looking to score or dish. Guards should be the ones recieving the picks because they're the ball handlers. If guards are setting picks, then it probably means that theyre totally useless on offense because they cant shoot or create off the dribble themselves.
Yeh because they were horrible shooters and playmakers I dunno, but if i were sloan, id rather see stockton running a pick and roll and hornacek shooting the deep ball. if they're setting picks, i may be a little concerned.
I'm not really sure why this argument is going on to begin with. If you're questioning mcgrady's decision making and his contributions on the offensive end, I don't know what to say. He's an elite decision maker and scorer when healthy. He has carried our offense since he's been here with the exception of last season.
Not really sure what this means at all except for the latest example of Dakota revisionist convolution of the facts in justifying a Dakotaism. Although it's served futile to engage you point for point and hope for any substantive response beyond further regurgitation, I'm going to go ahead and break this down for the viewers at home just to demonstrate the level of absurdity your personal T-Mac bashfest has reached: 1. Your current gripe with McGrady is that he didn't 'trust others' or 'let them make decisions' or whatever chosen rhetoric for that according thread/post. 2. In support of this assertion, you are citing the fact that he had the ball in his hands the majority of the time at the end of games. 3. The objections were raised that 1) that is his role as a closer and 2) there was no supporting personnel on the team for him to relinquish this duty. 4. You chose to dismiss these objections. That is fine and has been noted and is no longer relevant to my next point. 5. You are now citing Hakeem as the counter-example in illustrating what you had hoped of T-Mac (ie: "learn to trust teammates.") 6. Dream got the ball on 99.9% of the possessions late in games. He was the sole decision maker. The only distinction after his "epiphany" is that he started kicking the ball out after double teams - something he didn't do prior to '93. 7. Tracy made the decisions 99% of the time during crunch time. And Tracy has always willingly passed out of double teams. Unless you are somehow asserting that Tracy doesn't pass the ball out of double teams (which would be blatantly erroneous), then the only distinction here in this comparison is that Dream finally started passing the ball off of double teams - something Tracy has always done. The ball still always went into Dream. The only way your analogy would hold even a grain's weight of validity would be if the team didn't dump the ball into Dream and gave it to Otis while Dream slipped in through the backdoor - basically what you are claiming should have happened with Tracy. What exactly are you even getting at here? Do you even know? The latest proof of your mistaken assumption that the NBA is somehow an extension of college basketball. Pretty much every last champion of the modern era called. They disagree.
So you can't answer my question because you decide that we are not going to agree? Do you know me personally? Or can you just read my mind? I am not asking you to agree. I am asking you a very simple question. It is an opinion, and I know you have those. Ok. Sure. That's great. Cool. Alrighty. Dakota, I am not arguing any of your points. It is nice and dandy that you believe those things. They may be true. They may be off. It is not what I asked. All I ever wanted was a simple win total projection. You who have an opinion in all, surely have one on this. It is nice that you want to play Ring Around the Rosie, but that is not my intent. Stop dancing around the question. You don't have to give me an explanation of your philosophy. That is not what I asked. Just give a number. Even a range. Give me something, instead of changing the topic. If you think you may be wrong, admit it. If you believe in what you say, defend it. And defending it does NOT mean repeating it. Over and over. It means actually answering my question. I am not attacking you. This post is not about YOU. I am asking for a simple opinion, so stop copping out with the "we won't agree"s, and circuitous explanations. This will be the last time I ask. If you cannot give me the courtesy of an answer, then you are right, we will not agree. Who is wasting who's time?
The triangle is designed to space the floor for your post player. That's the first option. The second option is to get the ball out on the perimeter to your playmakers. who can do something off the dribble. I guess if all else fails you can make your smallest players go underneath the basket or set screens on bigger players, but IMO thats bad offense. Small players cut inside to recieve a pass to score? What are your bigs doing then? Is he out by the three point line? This is the NBA. Its not pickup ball where everyone on the floor is 6 feet tall 180 pounds.
I'm not sure if anyone's mentioned this but does anyone else think there is a timetable for his return but the Rockets are being hush hush do overplay the potential insurance angle when it comes to trade negotiations?
Sacramento Kings. Nuff said... Having your Big on the outside creates space for more powerful guards to do work on the inside, something we should have done with Ron ALOT more...
Versatility. Yao is not Wilt Chamberlain, and would benefit from the lack of pounding on the perimeter, that he gets on every single play. It would keep the defense on their heels, and would get other players involved in spots where they are comfortable. Plus, A 7-6 entry passer is a nice weapon to have....
The irony there is that in the games they did manage to win in the ECF, it was because they simply ISOed Lebron and let him work. Just goes to show you the importance of supporting talent in the NBA. Dakota and a few others ascribe to this strange notion that the NBA is identical to the college game in the belief that system/teamwork trumps all other considerations and that a team can win big simply by adhering to the principles of its set offense. I honestly can't think of an example of this succeeding in the NBA. Most would agree that Jerry Sloan's Utah Jazz have been almost synonymous with the concept of a rigid, team-based motion offense, yet true to my point, late in the 4th, everything always broke down and it was Stockton-Malone pick n' roll to death. Same goes now with Deron Williams. Every NBA champion except the '94 Rockets has put the ball in the hands of a guard at the end of close games and allowed him to decide the outcome. That's just how the NBA works - it's a different level of basketball. The '94 Rockets dumped it to Hakeem - they weren't running some complex motion system with cuts in the 4th. There are a lot of things one can criticize Tracy for, from his big mouth to his declining skills, but to assert that he was somehow hurting the team by having the ball in his hands at the end of games is absurd.
If Tmac was as good as Lebron he would get closer......and BTW, Lebron moves EXCELLENTLY off the ball as evidenced by his numerous back door dunks off of passes from West and Mo Williams. He is still the closer, but he keeps em honest off the ball too....which is all I am saying Tmac should be doing. Regarding Dream and the connection I am trying to make, he consistently took on double and triple teams early in his career and it was not until Rudy came in later and got him to trust his teamates with the ball in crucial situations that the team really became championship caliber. And in particular Hakeem went out with an injury and the team won 15 in a row one year which seemed to prove to him that his teamates were pretty good too. After that year, the Rockets won the next two championships..... We are truthfully discussing semantics, as Tmac is nowhere NEAR as impactual as Hakeem. Dream could carry a team by himself and he still needed to learn trust....Tracy can not......at least not as often as Dream could. And as much fun as it is to type this from the Admirals Club lounge here in Dallas, I have a flight to catch to the UK. CX, I am not answering your question because it is a waste of time, I have no answer for how many games they would have won, there is no way of knowing.....not backing up any ascertation, it would all be guessing....so to me, a waste of time..... I am done arguing about TMac in this thread, we are not going to agree. And Cabbage, stop trying to say it is the college game that is disingenous....it is just basketball, every championship team has guys willing to cut, pick, roll....play good fundamentals. That does not preclude the best player having the ball the majority of the time, but it does mean that they need to present different looks to keep em honest. I will just agree to disagree, you think my postion is silly and I think yours is.....arguing about it more is even more silly. DD
That's not exactly a definition of 'shooting guard'. Guys playing at that position are not supposed to have the ball in their hands most of the time and they are sure not supposed to be playmakers. Why? Because it makes point guards useless on offense. Sure, when you have a superstar at that position you want him to have the ball, especially if he is as good playmaker as T-Mac is. Tracy is more of a point forward (really) because he is supposed to be a playmaker on this team. That's why you think that all shooting guards are supposed to be playmakers. But with the history of this club's past few years, we really haven't had a real playmaker at the point guard spot. Rafer was not a playmaker and neither is Aaron Brooks. That's why Tracy's job is not only to score but also to create for others. You can't ask Mr. Brooks to be your playmaker because he is used to being a scorer. He has been doing that his entire carrer. He is small and he starts as PG, but on the floor you can see he is playing like shooting guard/scorer. That;s why I think we have to find a good playmaker at the pg spot and put him in the starting five. I love Aaron but he would be ideal off the bench, bringing in the scoring touch.
