Shane may be a good hustle player but we still get that from our PF (Hayes/Scola). Why not slide T-Mac over to 3 for a good chunk of the game so all the guards can get more PT?
It's not all about hustle. Compared to Hayes and Scola, Shane brings better team D and much better scoring capabilities, which is what this team needs from their starters.
We need Shane....he brings defensive mentality and hustle attitude to a team full of shooters and scorers, he doesn't always need the ball to be effective. But for him to make a difference, he's going to have to show up against the good teams and in the playoffs.
I still think we should start Battier, but just reduce his minutes some if he really is getting so many. I think Scola is showing he can score and Francis /James I think showed they could pick up the slack too.
It's a pretty freakin sad state of affairs when the guy you traded away turns out to be the exact prototype of player that your team needs. That ridiculous trade set us back a few years.
You can't measure Battier's value by individual stats. The past two years he's saved our butts so many times with his help defense covering up for mistakes by other players. He's the smartest player on our team and possibly the successor to Stern as Commish. I know that means nothing on the basketball court but look at his +/-'s last year when he was on and off the court. The one thing i do agree with is that it's too much offense to sacrifice with him and Hayes on the floor together. In my opinion, when Bonzi gets back he and Hayes should be tied together at the hip as the first unit to come off the bench, and the same should be true with Scola and Battier as a rotation tandem that would start. When Tracy was out it was painfully obvious that we needed Scola to hit those wide wide open jumpers, and at least make the other team pay somewhat for not guarding our PF's at all. Hayes couldn't hit the ground with the basketball from 10 feet away, so that's where I feel we make our change in the starting lineup rather than with Battier. And yes Battier, Alston, Hayes all need to play less minutes than they did last year. That was sort of the point of bringing Scola, James, and Francis in, and Bonzi back.
Yeah, I'm still against that trade big-time. Gay is playing well this year and will only get better. I think he will become a better defender than Battier with his size and athleticism. He seems to do an ok job on T-Mac when we play them.
At least we can say we are the most "intangible" team in the league. Or would that be the team with the most "intangibles"? Not sure.
maybe? LOL. at the time I thought well this trade is gona look bad in 3 yrs. now it's only the 2nd yr, Rudy is averaging 19/5, shooting 46%, 38% from downtown. I know why coaches like to play Shane, he executes their plans well. he plays his role, doesnt turn certain things uncertain. sometimes those are enough, everybody loves everybody. sometimes those are not, ie, in April. Elite teams need glue guy, for teams never get out of 1st round, glue is overated, at least not at the expense of 19/5.
It's interesting to hear some of your opinions. I'm still a bit unsure on what we need to do. I'm slightly skeptical we don't have enough offense in our starting lineup but I guess we'll have to see what happens.
This, precisely. I've long maintained that a role player's value sharply declined the second he starts buying his own press clippings. We've seen it with many Rockets secondary options/sixth men over the years, from Jim Jackson to Kevin Willis. It's a disease. A role player with a skill manages to exploit the other team, primarily because nobody is keying in on him. Suddenly, the role player decides he's really more of a star, and begins to shoot too much outside of the offense. He loses his value and becomes a liability. Role players who never do this, no matter how much praise they receive, are invaluable. Battier is such a guy. Bruce Bowen and Robert Horry are other examples. Limit Bonzi's minutes to those situations when we don't really care if he plays outside of the offense. For minutes in which we want offensive flow, Battier a far, far better option than Bonzi.
