The solution, of course, is to trade Blake, Raef and Outlaw for a stud SF... allowing Bayless to start (with Roy playing PG on offense), and Sergio to get heavy minutes with the second unit. iWatas
Am I to assume that I'm one of the "whiny little bitches"? Well, get ready to suffer more of my bitchy whining, which apparently, you find hard to take. What would that make you? From ample experience in pickup games and watching basketball, I believe that there are two kinds of players: the ones who have to "dominate" the game and do not think of the team as a unit, and can't really feel happy unless they have the ball in their hands, and the kind that honestly don't care who's scoring so long as the team wins. From everything I've seen of Bayless, he is the former. When is that okay? When you're Michael Jordan. (Or in highschool, where you can be the Michael Jordan of your own little corner of the world. But even there, Bayless didn't win a state championship, did he? Even in Arizona, not exactly a basketball hotbed. And his stacked Arizona college team underachieved.) But, people say, all successful basketball players are like that. No, they're not, and anyone who's played much pickup ball knows that. There are players who are clearly better than anyone else on their team who are still prepared to get them involved, and they tend to win. Brandon Roy is that kind of player. Terry Porter was that kind of player. It's doubly bad when your PG has that feature. I have seen players who even have the ability to pass as well as score, who just won't because they just seem to assume that their teammates are there solely to set picks for them and are honored to be in their presence. Maybe they'll work something out with one other player and work a two-man game with them, but that's about it. Bayless has been projected as a star for a long time. You can find plenty of footage from his college and high school days on YouTube. Find me one instance where he plays like a PG. "So what" you say (like a whiny little bitch) "he can learn the position". Bullshit. Nobody outside of POSSIBLY Terry Porter and Chauncey Billups (and those players, I would argue, had the second personality type) learns PG in the NBA. If it was possible, Jarrett Jack would've done it. Why are we excited about Bayless? Because he tore up Summer League. But he did that AS A SHOOTING GUARD. Early on they TRIED to have him play the point. It was a disaster. He can't do it. (And I find it worrying that (a) while he was "tearing it up", we all thought Batum was a bust. Hmm, maybe playing with a ball hog stunted his game? (b) in the final game that Bayless sat out, JR Pinnock put up IDENTICAL numbers playing SG in that system. And nobody seems to have jumped on the chance to sign him. I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but right now I see Bayless as expendable and I don't see him being a happy camper in the forseeable future. Brandon Roy, Rudy Fernandez and even Outlaw and Webster do what he does, and he has no more PG skills (except possibly bringing it up the court, but even Telfair had that) than any of them. Trust me, I know. I pronounced Telfair a bust at about this point in his career...
I wasn't calling you out specifically, it was more a comment directed at the general "tone" of despair and anger which has gripped the board with nothing more than 3 games to look at (a tea, minus two key starters no less) so apologize for the insult ... I was out of line. It's just getting pretty tiresome seeing the barrage of hand wringing, complaining and "player X" sucks/should be traded/etc. when we're only 3 games into the season, playing what is arguably the roughest first 20 games to start a season I have ever seen. My only wish would be to see people hold off on their downer posts until we've actually had a chance to see what this team is going to be -- I probably should take a break from the board.
My bad, I was out of line. I wasn't specifically calling out the OP, just reacting to the general pall and downer tone that seems to have permeated the board in the last week.
1. Bayless being a "too-short" SG on THIS team isn't a bad thing. 2. His purpose is hardly fulfilled. 3. I too believe Portland was truly after Augustine.
What KP meant by that is that he will trade him much faster. I think we should keep him as a good 3rd SG for a couple years and see where we are then. He will never be a good PG, doesn't want to be a PG, and it's a waste of time to try to make him a PG. It would be much easier to improve his defense against SG's. His speed makes up for his shortness.
I heard Nate say tonight that he was going to experiement with Rudy and Nic playing with the starting lineup. I would love to see Rudy and Roy play together, and if they thrive, Bayless and Steve on the second unit would be fun to watch. I like Bayless. He has the one ability that is the hardest to teach in the League. Getting to the hoop and drawing fouls.
Nice post, Rasta. Not that I necessarily completely agree with it, but you brought an interesting perspective with a little evidence. I don't think Bayless is quite as me-first as you portray him. I hadn't thought of him in comparison to Telfair, but I could see him as a bigger, strong Telfair with a jumpshot. That actually doesn't sound like too bad of a player. Not for this particular team, but for some.... My first impressions of Bayless are somewhat similar, and that's why I wouldn't have a problem trading him for a similarly hyped talent at another position. There will be many here who say, "Why trade him when he's so young?" Well, those are probably the same people who said we shouldn't trade Telfair or Rodriguez or Qyntel Woods or Jack midway through their first seasons either. Truth is that we would've got a pretty good value for those guys early on. It was great that we got Roy for Telfair, but we all know what a fluke that was. I'd really like to see guys like Outlaw, Bayless, Blake, Diogu, Raef and next year's pick moved in a consolidating move for a major talent. Bayless may be the most valuable right now among that lot, thanks to a cheap contract and a great summer league. I hope that he's a key part in any trade we make this year, because it'll mean we're getting something pretty good back in return.
Bayless doesn't need to be a point guard. To have a long-term future as a starter on this team, he needs to be able to do the following: * Bring the ball up the court against pressure defense * Defend point guards * Be productive (as some mix of scoring, rebounding and passing) He does not have to be a great distributor or leader. Roy has the ability to direct traffic and distribute the ball. But it would too much of a demand on his energy to require him to bring the ball up the court every possession, when pressure is being applied, and defend smaller point guards. As long as Bayless can handle the defensive duties of a point guard (defending opposing point guards), he can play like a shooting guard on offense, because Roy is more of a play-maker than a dominant scorer. So, really, basing Bayless' long-term value to the team on whether he has what it takes to be a classical point guard is beside the point, as far as I'm concerned. He has what it takes to occupy the guard spot alongside Roy, regardless of what you call it. What he has to show now is that he's a good, productive player. If he isn't, he's not going to cut it in any role.
That is great news. I think Nate is coming to the same conclusion I have--start Rudy, Roy, Batum, Aldridge and Przybilla. That lineup just seems to fit, and we'll have a nice size advantage at PG. We'll get burned by quick point guards, but we'll make up for it in so many other ways.
Quite honestly I wouldn't be shocked to see Batum take on the opponent's 1 some of the time in that lineup at least part-time; he was pretty effective on Parker at times. In which case you might see Brandon guarding an opposing 3 part-time.
FWIW on courtside tonight the guys mentioned that Bayless has been moving up the practice squad rotation in a big way....
I've been predicting a Rudy Roy backcourt for some time. They are the two most talented guards on the roster and have more then enough skills between them to cover the positional needs. If Rudy is starting then there would be even more reason for TO to provide scoring off the bench. STOMP
Man, I hope not. He has looked terrible for Charlotte so far (and I've watched almost all of all of their games because I have Gerald Wallace on my fantasy team and lots of free time). He looks like a right-handed Damon Stoudamire. *shiver* Ed O.
Stoudamire's only weakness was being left-handed. Clearly, had he been right-handed, he'd have been a Hall of Famer. Charlotte got a steal!
Wrong. We are excited about Bayless because he's a teenager who's got great size and athleticism and work ethic and attitude. We are excited about Bayless because he's been projected as a star for a long time (see your own post). We are excited about Bayless because we got him late in the lottery, much later than he'd been projected to go for most of the couple of years before the draft. Was it great that he dominated summer league? Sure. Was it shocking, given his history and the expectations he's had on him for years? No. Was it the basis for why we are excited about him? Not as far as I'm concerned... not at all. I agree with Minstrel's post (and the points of others) that Bayless doesn't HAVE to be a PG to fit into the future--and even future starting lineup--of this team. Ed O.
I think we would have settled for Augustine, but were thrilled that we got Bayless. Anyway, not to sound like a parrot with this repetition, but it's way too early to tell how either will turn out.
