My point is less Minnesota, and more Boston and Utah.
Have people given up on Big Al?
- Thread starter JFFR
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My point is less Minnesota, and more Boston and Utah.
Low-post play is unbelievably overrated. When you're paying a guy more than anyone else to do it in its basest form (meaning, without the accompanying skills that can make it effective), you're being foolhardy.
I don't think most people have given up on the guy, and I guess I can't say I have either since I never believed in him.
I don't think most people have given up on the guy, and I guess I can't say I have either since I never believed in him.
I don't have any recollection on Boston.
It's clear you can't win if one guy has the ball and 4 guys stand around, which is ALOT of what happened. The question is if that is singularly the fault of AJ? I don't think it was at Utah. It was partly the situation/system.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
Boston doesn't count. His rookie year he barely played. His 2nd year he played 18 minutes on a team that won 33 games. His 3rd year he started for a team that won 24 games. Those teams sucked.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
Low post play is overrated? Are you kidding?
Why is it the fault of the system that wins, and not the player that loses? You can point to a lot of reasons the Jazz were worse this year, but the only one that is CLEARLY evident was that the big that the Jazz wished they could run everything through had no ****ing clue what he was doing. There were a lot of reasons Deron grew less and less patient, but one of the biggest was that he quickly discovered his Robin was a slothful dope that couldn't finish anything another person started or help anyone else because of the attention he drew. Boozer's a turd, but I think Deron quickly grew to miss playing with someone that could give as much as he was given (offensively, anyway). Millsap was the closest thing to an actual co-pilot on this team, and now everyone wants to trade him off of the singular notion that he's too short. Holy ****ing Toledo.
And his rookie year, the Celtics went to the playoffs. He played more the next year, they won less. He played a lot more the next year, and they managed to win even less than that. I know correlation does not necessarily show cause here but...
There have been 2 players drafted in the last 20 years (or 1 in the last 15, or 0 in the last 10...) that have gotten rings with the offense put on their backs in the post. If you don't have the smarts or the personnel, and ESPECIALLY if you're forcing it, you're not getting very far.
So no, absolutely not. And Shaq had Wade and Kobe. And Duncan was a complete player (that also had Robinson, Ginobili, the best or 2nd best coach of the last 20 years, and/or probably the most perfect arsenal of role players ever assembled).
TEAM basketball. Take what the defense gives you. NOT "throw the ball into ogre, ogre score basket".
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
Way too simplistic. In fact, if you look at his third year, when the Celtics won the least, he put up the best FG and TS percentages of his career. Posted a then career high in assists. Going a step further, what he did was so promising they were able to trade him for KG.
Anyway, I tried to avoid this thread, then I thought I could get away with a concise thought. But I can't say anything about the guy without it turning into the same discussion that has been poured over two-thousand times. I've said what I'm going to say.
Go Big Al. Go Jazz.
Go Big Al. Go Jazz.
billyshelby
Well-Known Member
Of course big men need other good players. And of course they have to play in a system. But a low post scoring threat is part of virtually every winning team, and often it's the most important part. The Lakers won behind Shaq. The Spurs won behind Duncan. The Rockets won behind Hakeem. Yeah, there are exceptions. When you've got Jordan, you don't need the bigs to be truly dominant. But an inside outside game, usually anchored by two stars, is like the hallmark of championship building.