What happens? We can all feel horrible about how Mo's locked up forever and there's nothing we can do about it. I gotta laugh at all the people overrating Eddie Griffin. Gimme a break, people. It's gonna take a few years and this guy is not gonna be a superstar when he's done. We're talking Shareef Abdur-Rahim lite.
Remind me again when Shareef Abdur Rahim has ever been a dominating interior force and shot blocker. If you teach SAR how to block shots and play defense like Griff, he'd be a top 5 PF.
BTM, your posts are almost always downers. Does BTM stand for "B*tch the Most" or what? The Griffin could well be the Rookie of the Year. Teamed with Taylor next year, the front line of the Rockets will be awesome. See my earlier posts.
To tell you frankly, I really doubted Mo T's existance on the floor be a big impact to the team, with the type of injury he sustained, he might not be able to keep up the pace and not to get hurt on the same injury. I hope it's not going to happen to Mo like what happen to Grant Hill and other players in the NBA with related injuries. I forget those other two players who had that same injury in the past.
enbehay Judging by his eye for talent, it could be Big Time Meathead or from what he did on his first trip to the Zoo, Bite The Monkey.
BTM griffin hasnt played a regular season game and u already think hes not going to be a superstar... just a SAR light... well i hope for ur sake griffin kicks ass n makes u eat crow. please go sit in the corner in the trolls webpage w/ jock strap dude... becuz thatz the most pre judgemental n biased opinion ive ever heard
Its crazy to say Mo taylor was that big of a loss to us. He let a guard, an old man, and almost the 2 guard outrebound him. He gave us no inside presence at all. All Taylor was and is is a big soft 4. He came in out of shape and overweight from the get go and all he talked about was changing his attitude about rebounding and never did. Taylor is yesterdays news and if we weren't so desperate for help lst yr he would have been picked up real late. Hell we were the only team other than Seattle to express about him signing a contract. As far as Eddie and Taylor complimenting each other is ridiculous. Taylor bings nothing that Eddie can't do inside or outside. Teams have tried, but none has prospered. Does anyone remember when they tried to play Webber and Howard at 3-4? They were supposedly complimentary, but what happens is webber or Howard would wind up guarding a 3 which in most books is a mismatch. That experiment last exactly a yr because although both players could play away from the basket, it took one or the other out of rebounding range. Can you picture Eddie or slow ass Taylor chasing Peja, Marion, Lewis, Odom,Dirk, or some of those guys around the floor. Now people will say , what about the other end? Say Eddie plays the 4 on offense and the 3 plays Taylor, what good is it when all he will do is shoot jumpers? David and Tim compliments each other, Francis-Mobley compliments each other, Peja-Webber, Jordan-Pippen, Dumars-Thomas, those wer duo's because they were playing different positions, not the same. Taylor has the contract,but Eddie is a natural at blocking shots and rebounding, while Taylor is as much as an underacheiver as Cato. All the Taylor fans just better suck it up because what we have is someone who gives us a presence inside. Age isn't as imporatant as skill level. Shareef, Joe Smith, McDyess, Garnett, and a few more guys came out undersized, but grew into the position because of their natural skill level, not age. So what he only had 1 yr of college ball, thats basically what Shareef, Marbury, and a few other had also and they played well their first yr , so why can't eddie. Joe Smith avg 15pts 8rebs and 2 blks as a rookie on a pathetic warriors team. Do we not thing Eddie is as skillful as Joe was. Oh yeah, he was only 19 also.
As i was going through my line-ups from last yr, i didn't notice 1 lineup where 2 guys playing the same position succeeded at the 3-4 slot. I agree that 4-5 is swingable and 2-3 is the prototype swing position, but someone please show me where a 4 man played the 3 and they complimented each other . Sometimes ou just have to have people slotted to be successful. Thats why I think Glen Robinson or Tim Thomas will have to go, Richardson or Maggette will have to go, or Miles or Odom will have to go. The same could be said for Taylor situation. Thats why you don't spend high lottery picks on a player unless you plan on getting the other the hell out of dodge. Thats just like Houston, if the Rockets miraculously get the number 1 selection in the draft next yr and they draft Jason Williams, does anyone think Williams and Francis could compliment each other? I think not, someone would have to go, plain and simple.
I think many of you are incorrect as regards to Maurice Taylor's future on the team. Maurice Taylor is not a rebounder, he is not a defender - what he is is an exceptional offensive talent. He may become a tolerable rebounder, but asking him to provide rebounding is like asking Dikembe Mutombo to provide offense, neither one is capable of doing that, and it is folly to ask that of them. There are, in my mind, two types of players in this league - stars, and complementary players. You ask stars to do everything. Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, and soon Eddie Griffin will be stars. Maurice Taylor is a complementary player, and an excellent one at that. You ask him to score and he can do that with ease. His jumper and ball-handling are far superior to Griffin's at this point, and no matter how good Griffin's jumper gets, I don't see it ever becoming the equal of Taylor's shot. I see no reason why Taylor and Griffin cannot co-exist on the floor together. When Quentin Richardson was drafted by the Clips people wanted to know where they would play him, seeing as they had Odom and had acquired the very talented Maggette, Alvin Gentry was asked where he would put Richardson, his answer, "On the floor". You win in the NBA by putting your best talent on the floor and making the opposition adjust to you, that was why you saw three guard lineups consistently last year, and why the Mavs went with small-ball. P.S. - The Wizards made the playoffs the year they had Howard and Webber, after that year, due to injuries, Howard and Webber were rarely found on the floor together before Webber was traded for reasons that had nothing to do with his play on the court.
What exactly is so humorous? You saw him play last year, the guy is a below-average defender and a poor rebounder, but he can put points on the board.
I don't see why not. I doubt that there is any pf in the game except for maybe Rasheed Wallace that has a jumper equal to MO's. Mo's jumper is definately among the tops, if not the top, of all the power forwards in the league. His handles are also pretty damn good - I've seen him pull off some killa crossovers, and you can pretty much tell that he is a great dribbler just by watchin how fluidly he dribbles the ball. His footwork is good - maybe even great, but I haven't seen him use it enough to call it great. The only thing that he does not display (notice I do not say he lacks it) is his back to the basket game, but his face up game makes up for that. Towards the latter part of the season, when he really started makin an effort to go inside, he was very hard to stop. And lets not forget his SIZE either - at 6'8, 260, (though I hear he lost 20 pounds over the summer?) he's not very easy to stop. I know he averaged 13 points last year, but it was on 50% shooting - and this comes after the 1st part of the year when he still was in an adjusting period. If you ask Taylor to score, I believe he can do it no matter who is guarding him, which is what makes him an exceptional offensive talent.
That's just Rockets fever playing with your brain. Exceptional offensive talents score more than 13 points a game on lottery teams. Let's put it this way, Francis averaged 19.9 pts/game last year and there were 25 players in the league who averaged more than him. Mo Taylor's highest scoring average EVER was 17.1. Exceptional? I don't think so.
Come now, you know that points per game is directly dependent on the number of opportunities you get. When he gets the ball, he puts it in the hole on a consistent basis in numerous ways. That is why I think he is an exceptional offenive talent.
Aren't your number of opportunities dependent on how good you are? BTW, 72 players either scored as much or more than Mo Taylor last season. Taylor was 17th among power forwards.
How many PFs can put the ball on the floor? Mo can. The only ones I can remember that come to mind is Anthony Mason and Charles Barkley. Yeah Mo's numbers went down, joining a new team with a new system, but he was the third option behind two powerful offensive options. Remember the last time that happened with the Rockets? When the Rocks got Barkley. Being an option behind Clyde and Dream, his offense dropped about 12 ppg below his average, so why would you expect Mo to put up career numbers being the 3rd option? That doesn't take away from the skills he has. He has a ton of offensive moves. And that will go well with our other big men.
Only to some extent, at some point, you just don't let complementary players get that many opportunities, your stars will get the bulk of the opportunities. Mo Taylor is an excellent offensive complementary player - he can score in a number of ways, but he'll always be a complementary player, albeit an excellent one. There is a cieling to how many opportunities you get.
Well Cat, you can say you will ignore me, but Cato wasn't a lottery pick. Cato was picked at the end of the round if I'm not mistaken. You expect more out of a lottery pick than 12pts 5 rebs. In fact, he went like 7th in the draft. So why would you not say he's an underacheiver? You wonder why some teams are horrible, i'll tell you why. A player chosen in the top ten should be a impact player, not role player. Of all the teams that has been sorry year in and yr out, its because they have made piss poor draft decisions starting with the clippers. They picked Kandi man #1 overrall!! The Grizzlies picked Francis and they knew he didn't want to be there and you had Odom on the board.The Bulls draft Fizer the year after Brand was co-rookie of the yr. The Warriors, well we might not as well go into that one. Whats my point? If you draft bad players, your going to be a bad team, plain and simple. If Taylor was a 24th pick and he put up those kind of numbers, then i'd say, thats about what you expect from a late round draft pick, but he was a high lottery pick! So what he has a nice jumper, J. Neal doesn't really have a refined game, but who would you take on your team? The guy with the nice jumper with his career in neutral or the guy with no jumper but rebounds, blocks shots, and plays hard? Yes the Wizards make the playoffs 1 yr, then the next they were in the tank and the next webber was traded. isn't ironic that Howard had an all-star yr when webber was out? If it was so effective, why trade success? Maybe I'm missing something here about Taylor's game. I mean I watched every game last yr and most of the games when he was a clipper and he hasn't progressed at all. I mean how many , they drafted Thomas, to be heir apparent to Chuck, but when given the chance they sign another 4. I'd bet if you gave Kenny Taylor's minutes, he could get the same number of points and more rebs. So what makes taylor so valuable to people. 6'9 260 jump shooting big man doesn't sound good to me. Like I said, old ass , half hurt hakeem put up the same numbers as taylor and had a larger impact on the game. Maybe when he fully comes back in 2 yrs, because thats how long it really takes, i'll change my mind about him, but the way i see it, when he fully recovers he'll be a man without a position on this team.
Maurice Taylor was NOT a lottery pick. He was a mid-first rounder, just like Cato. Hell, they were drafted <b>back-to-back!</b> Come on now. And the Wizards broke up Howard and Webber because they were concerned about Webber's off-the-court activities, not his on-court game. No offense, but once you get past the lottery, you don't have that good a chance at finding even a starter, much lss anyone halfway decent. As for late first rounders - if there still on the team in a few years, consider them a success.
