Which player on our roster put up these stats last March/April?

*In 22.7 minutes per game...

9.2 points, 7.2 rebounds, 0.9 blocks

66.3 FG% (65 / 98)
67.3 FT% (35 / 52)

 

For those of you that said Tsakalidis, you are correct.

Reading over the trade thread I felt that a lot of people were taking him for face value (ugly, big and slow, foreign, low averages, etc.) and were prejudging his potential on this team before ever seeing him on the court.

I just wanted to show that, given minutes, it's not just that he could produce but that he actually has produced. A 2-month span is a pretty nice sample for an NBA player, in my opinion.

So, to say that this was a bad trade, or even to say it's a lateral transaction, I think is selling Jake short to some extent. Let's give him a chance.


Here are some games from that stretch last year...

18 points, 9 rebounds in 30 mins vs. Clippers
15 points, 7 rebounds in 26 mins vs. Spurs
11 points, 11 rebounds in 23 mins vs. Warriors
19 points, 16 rebounds in 36 mins vs. Boston
17 points, 12 rebounds in 28 mins vs. Philly
17 points, 15 rebounds in 28 mins vs. Seattle

 

Why would I bother mentioning that? He's a backup, and 20-ish minutes per game is backup type minutes. I'm saying he's good insurance in case injuries happen...a guy that can step in and actually hold his own. What if Deke goes down before Yao gets back? What if Deke ends up retiring? I think Jake is a good option to have in both of those situations. Of course, we'd have to resign him if we want to keep him past this season. I would do it.

 

All I'm saying is that Jake is a competent player who can at the very least be serviceable as a backup, and if the situation were to arise, has also shown that he can put up very nice numbers when called upon.

For example, if Deke were to have been hurt in tonight's game and was going to miss a week, Jake could step in and be a lot better than most people think. Of course, it'll take him some time to mesh with the team, so that's not the best example...but you see what I mean.

Some will look at that and say "well we already have Juwan and Chuck who can play center" but what they don't consider is that the more players we have to play at center, the thinner we get at PF. In my opinion, we needed another legitimately big body and I think Jake is a fine pickup in that department.