especially since in the many ways Thabo is not distinguishing himself, it’s especially not as a primary ballhandler.

…I think Hinrich has a future as a starter, but w/ a ball-handling SG. Not one who dominates it like Arenas, but others that are merely competent: Wade, Roy, Bryant, McGrady, etc. In that way, Hinrich can have “stints” as the primary ball-handler or as the off-guard.

I think Gordon and Hinrich helped hide each other’s weaknesses whereas pairing him w/ some of the above would help amplify his biggest strength, his versatility. I think.

our opponent will attack him until he’s in foul trouble. Do we all realize this will happen?

Our opponents know that Ben Gordon can score. If he doesn’t have to guard anyone he can drop 30 on any team in the league.

You guard Ben Gordon’s scoring ability by attacking his defense.

If Gordon can stay out of foul trouble and at least stay in front of his man, he starts and is an All Star.

We need to start Ben Gordon just to see how he pairs with Rose as starters.

Is Rose playing? His uncle passed away so family matters take precedent.

though I guess being a talented shotblocker isn’t as nice to watch.

Should be though, just pencil me in with the rest of the league that over-values scoring :)

And the entire preseason of everyone else more or less sucking?

I’ve always held the position that Ben Gordon starts every NBA game when defensively he is prepared to face the attacks our opponent will throw at him.

I don’t care if he’s 6’1 guarding 6’6" players. Those opponents can shoot all day from 17’ and beyond. If Ben stays in front of them, avoids fouling, trusts his teammates to protect the rim, and forces shooting guards to shoot, they are going to make some shots. They’ll miss some too. But the key will always be Ben Gordon absent foul trouble ready to change ends and put the ball in the basket.

07-08 is an anomaly. For three seasons Ben Gordon gave us scoring chances to win a lot of ball games. The defense still was weak, but we covered for it as a team. The team defense was superb; top 5 in the league. We’re not going to be in the top 5 this season, but maybe we can score more points through more possessions sparked by decent team defense and rebounding.

Maybe if Golden Boy drops his no-trade clause, they might actually think about trading him.

I mean, it’s nice to be in the same place, but the righting is on the wall for everyone to see. Kirk has publicly stated his preference for playing and defending the point spot in the past and he’s done his best work there. He’d be better off elsewhere in the long-run, as would the team if it got a decent return on him.

is fine but his defense is a joke. With Vinny pushing defense so much it will be interesting to see how he reacts to BG’s lack of it.

he’s had good and bad stretches both starting and off the bench. The only consistent trend is that he usually starts the season like crap.

he obviously knows what ben can do, but since he’s been out, he hasn’t seen them play as a team or seen him play/practice with the starting unit.

it’s not like vinny doesn’t know what ben is capable of even though he hasn’t seen him in person for practice/games very much.

but enough about Hinrich….

Thabo’s been Therrible. He’s not even close to being Brewer or Peterson. And I still challenge the idea that just because some elite point guard don’t have a prolific SG next to them, it’s inherently a bad idea.

It’s important to us because we don’t have the options at the 3 that exist in New Orleans or Utah. We also don’t have anything close to the point production at the 4 and 5 that NO and Utah have.

Ben Gordon really matters because of what we lack at the 3, 4, and 5 in the scoring department.

I had the view that Thabo should be starting at the SG to open the season, but his preseason has made it impossible to defend that outlook.

Only ONE player said that…Gooden.

“So I don’t understand why they would start a player who is not really part of the future, a player who signed a one year contract and will be leaving next summer, unless they are looking to showcase his talents for a future trade (that of course he would have to approve).” – You just described both Kirk and Gooden there.

Even if they are rebuilding, so what! That means we want to start every game 15 points behind by starting Thabo??

that the Hornets had been reportedly after Gordon in the recent past?

You’re very brave to come on here and say such a thing!

I don’t get the idea that we just don’t need to get the best players we possibly can. Certainly we need the right types of players, but on it’s face it takes a real bunch of hubris to just assume player A is gonna be so darn good we just don’t need to find the best possible complements to Rose.

Michael Redd or Ray Allen or Kevin Martin would kick some major ass next to Rose. For the similar sort of reasons that Gordon might. Combine a guy who’s a great shooter with a PG that’s likely to create open shots for folks.

Which also gets to another point about Thabo. He’s about the exact opposite of those guys. He’s a shooting guard who can’t shoot. He’s got “defensive-stopper potential” but no more than any other player who’s currently not an elite defender but who has good size and athleticism. And no offensive game to speak of.

Brewer is an interesting comparison because he’s a similar player to Thabo, just a lot better. And you can make the case that Rose will be similar to Deron Williams. But when you look closely, the comparison totally falls flat, because what the Jazz really seem to do is play Brewer in more of the SF role. Mid-range game, slashing to the basket. Etc. Because that’s his offensive game… just like Thabo’s (just much better). This works perfectly well for the Jazz, because they’ve got a whole range of guys… CJ Miles, Kyle Korver, and even AK-47 who can defend well enough against SFs but who can shoot the lights out. And their bigs can step out and shoot as well.

We don’t have that. We’ve got Deng, who’s does a lot of things wonderfully, but shooting from range isn’t one of them. Our bigs can’t shoot either. But mostly it’s about Deng. As long as he’s here, and he will be come hell or high water, our other perimeter player absolutely needs to be a shooter. Not giving that option to Rose is, well, a complete freaking crime.

worked on his shot. That’s about it. Whatever came of that the results have not shown on the court. What we have seen is that he should have been working on his dribbling if he shot was never going to improve. Its been so awful thus far.

So tune in at 8:00 instead. No doubt Derrick will still get plenty o’ minutes.