and Hinrich as shooters. Yes, Hinrich is a career 37.7% 3P shooter. But, Ben is a career 41.6% 3P shooter. His career average is higher than Hinrich’s career high of 41.5% To put that in context, Ben is 10th all time among players with at least 400 attempts. And Drazen Petrovic is the only one in the neighborhood in terms of also being a high usage scorer. Unlike the other guys, he’s doing it as his team’s 1st option. Hinrich is 90th in career 3P FG% as a 3rd scoring option. Gordon is flat out a special shooter.

Ben had the highest offensive rating on the team at 110 points per 100 possessions and the highest USG% on the team. So if you send Ben away then not only do less efficient players have to take those shots, but other players also have to make up the usage gap as well. Without Ben, Deng has to become the 1st option instead of the 2nd. What happens to his offensive efficiency then? They’re all these dynamics that change on the team level when you swap out Gordon for Hinrich offensively and defensively. Which is why I framed it in terms of plus/minus at the team level. Gordon’s offense has been more valuable to the team than Kirk’s all around game at the team level.

As for Nash, Williams, and Paul. Nash doesn’t even really apply as he was the 15th pick in the draft and went to team that had Kevin Johnson and then traded for Jason Kidd. And your not recognizing when Williams and Paul put it together. Paul had a 22.0 PER as a 20 year old rookie and started every game he played. Paul was great from the very beginning of his carer, he just took it to new heights this season. Williams was the best point guard on the roster as a rookie, and had broken out by his 2nd year. Rose will have struggles. He’ll have turnover problems. That doesn’t mean you don’t give him the ball. You give him the ball and let him learn and adapt.

I’m just some retard who makes unintelligent posts because I don’t know any better.

/sarcasm

We need to channel Barack Obama here: disagree without being disagreeable.

With a Rose/Gordon backcourt combined with liberal use of Sefolosha – this will involve Gordon spending many minutes sitting next to VDN when the matchups dictate as such.

Sorry about that, for some reason i have thought that a.i. won the award at some point….my bad…....

6’4” could handle shooting guards (other than MJ) just fine.

Have a look at the new grown-up version of Tyrus in the fanshot section.

for scotter’s analysis about not drafting the developed jump shooter.

Morrison shot poorly in his first season because the Bobcats had no scoring. Morrison missed all of last season due to a devastating knee injury.

If you factor in Gerald Wallace’s concussions the Bobcats start to look like they have to have a healthy Morrison.

I won’t cast off Morrison because we just haven’t seen what he’s capable of doing. Missing your 2nd season with a knee injury is about as worse as it can get. I think he’ll bounce back.

http://www.charlotte.com/bobcats/story/655047.html

I think the deadline has already passed to pick up the 3rd option. Therefore the Bobcats must already have exercised the option to keep Morrison for a 3rd season.

But I think Duhon’s defense makes him more valuable than the vast majority of those other guards. Either way, he’ll be on another team next year and a new fanbase can bitch about their coach’s bizarre love affair with the heavy-partying backup point guard.

His PER for the last 3 years: 12.95, 11.94, 11.13. I think the truth is somewhere right in the middle.

Additionally, while he may have been 21st among backup point guards in PER last year, it is probable that some of the players who ranked ahead of them were playing over their heads, or over their typical performance level, and would not be able to sustain the performance over a long stretch as Duhon has done. (And we seem to be in agreement that Duhon’s defense places him above at least a few of the players who rank ahead of him in PER).

You’re right in that my assessment of Duhon as a “top 5” backup was probably wrong. But I don’t think I was off by too much. I think snley undervalued Duhon’s worth, and then I subsequently overvalued it, and we’re zeroing in on the truth.

It really is miles away, and we have a bigger sample than 2007-08. In the 6 years I have read basketball-reference.com… Oh forget it.

Deng’s TS% was 52.8% and Gordon’s was 55.8% – Deng used a lot more possessions to get his 17 points than Gordon did to get his 18.6, so YES, his scoring really is miles (okay, kilometers) away from Gordon’s.

I thought the kirk and thabo backcourt was really something special. Although thabo wasnt a great offensive threat, during the stretch that all other guards were injured the kirk and thabo backcourt did wonders. It allowed kirk to be more aggressive on offense which i think he needs to do for more then a one month stint to really know how to get into his offensive groove. Thabo could guard the big twos, and kirk could supply help defense, while kirk could guard some all star pgs with thabo supplying him help defense. Defensively it was formidable.

I dont know many peoples beliefs on basketball philosophy, one of mine is that offense will come. Meaning that the offensive part of the game will somehow make its way to you during the course of the game. What i use to prove this point is the lucky shot. You could throw a ball randomly towards the rim from any given location, without attempting to follow basketball shooting mechanics, and the ball could simply hit a wierd angle on the backboard (or any nearby objects) and for no reason fall into the rim, however, you cant randomly jump in the air with your arms outstretched and somehow come up with a block. you cannot wave your hands in front of you and randomly come up with a steal. You cannot randomly move around and end up accurately manning up on your guy. what this proves to me is that Defense has to be deliberate, focused, and requires alot of energy to keep consistently good, while offense can come to even the poorest players.

Take this philosophy into the nba, where teh players are anything but offensively incompetent (well except for ben wallace) and you should get to a point where you can realize that all the plaers on the court can score. Most teams often try to have a balance on offense and defense on thier teams, but i think most good teams settle to have a little more defense then offense. The Spurs come to mind as a good example.

This isnt saying you dont need good solid offensive players, but in the nba i think alot of the players have more of a chance to be solid offensive players rather then solid defensive players. I think ben gordon is superb on offense and that really is understatement, and i really would like to keep him on the bulls because of his inane ability to score, but kirk hinrich (as ive stated before) is a solid defensive player, and has shown flashes that he has the ability to be a solid offensive player too. Will he surpass Ben Gordon in terms of offense, i dont think so, although i think the better he can become offensively, the easier it is for a guy like him to get his other players involved, whereas i believe ben gordon not only will not get much better defensively, but lacks the ability to use his offensive abilities to get the entire teams offense working.

I would rather keep a guy like kirk who can give you defense and offense, and pair him with thabo who could give you defense and offense (and also offense quite different then kirks because thabo i think is more of a slasher himself, if you remember him in his good offensive games, performing kobe like manuevers while attacking the rim, while kirk is more of a perimeter scorer) rather than keep bg who will give you alot of offense, but less on defense. Also if we were to consider it, we could sacrifice ben gordon if luol deng continues to improve, and having someone like beasley at power forward as opposed to noch would also be a better fit, since beasley can do what noch did (shoot threes, wander from his man for a help block or two) and slash and power his way to rim.

Here consider this lineup:
Kirk
Thabo
Deng
Beasley
Noah

Kirk, and Deng especially can give you solid performances from both offense and defense positions, kirk despite his poor season this year i think is capable of scoring perhaps 20 pts a game, and his defense is good enough that he can at least be consistently placed within the defensive second team for a few more years. Deng does a good job guarding other sfs (like lebron) and his offense, until the fourth quarter is just phenomenal.

Thabo and Noah, are very good defenders for thier position, and though not superb they are far from defensive liabilities, who can score if they need to. Beasley is all offense and little defense, luckily when playing near the painted area, putting your body on a guy and keeping your hands up is usually all that is possible to do (unlike on teh perimeter where guards can go off of screens and have alot more room to beat you off the dribble) Beasley will have to get alot stronger to really hold pfs down, but his offense which unlike bgs can be effective from inside the paint and on the perimeter should really balance any and all scoring needs the team have.

Then for reserves we would still have tyrus, gooden, and hughes who can (but not necesserily will) play solid on either end of the court and at times, great. This to me would be a better 8 man rotation, with alot more flexibility then a rotation that consisted of rose and ben gordon (since this rotation really has only one short guard). Even with vinny coaching, the team would be a fairly solid defensive team as is, and have players all who could run (hinrich at the point running might be best since it would hide some his flaws as a pg). This roster would have a strong defensive presence, but solid offensive players who can keep playing defense, prevent other teams from scoring, and though not score in high numbers, could score enough to win games.

I regress that i dont think this roster would win championships as is, and having ben gordon not on this team is defenetly far from ideal, but i dont think ben gordon scoring is really going to be as missed as many believe it will be, its not like once ben gordon is gone then the offense has disapeared, although i think with kirk gone, the perimeter defense will definetly suffer (hughes will go for dum steals, rose will be raw still, gordon will save energy for his offense, and only thabo will be left as a solid defender).

Defense wins championships, and nba players all have the ability to score…why should we sacrifice some of our more solid defenders for a one dimensional (albeit amazing) player and a rookie who without playing one min of nba basketball is getting votes for the Hall of Fame (which hscs will tell you really means nothing).

= half

i forgot about that dude.

I’m a huge fan of Jalen’s from back in his Fab Five days, but it’s a really tough argument that the proper way to help your team is to play as selfishly as humanly possible, which is diametrically opposite to how he had played in the past.

Even if it’s true … it’s still a tough argument. And it was tough to watch.

Christ the Bulls were horrible on an epic scale for some years there. We also had that blogger scrub Paul Shirley play a few games for us. If you like uber-sarcasm and hatred of things, read that guy’s book.

They’re are a lot more guys who average 20/10 every season than 10 pts/100 ass.

20/10 does not = 10 points/ 10 assists. There were a lot of years where only one guy would average 10 assists.