I went over to SLCdunk.com to see what Jazz fans are saying about the impending offer and I was kind of surprised at how many people over there really want to keep him. All you see is people raving about his defense and how he could be their starting shooting guard for the next five years if they match. http://www.slcdunk.com/2010/7/10/1563165/portland-trailblazers-are I still have no feel for how good or bad this kid would be in a Blazers uniform, but if he's able to slide between 2 and 3 and provide the kind of defense Jazz fans seem to think he's capable of and he can also hit the open shot when he's passed to then I guess you could do a lot worse.
I am not sure how much you watched him play. But he is a pretty good rebounder from what I saw. He averaged 5 boards a game against the Lakers in the playoffs. And he can attack the basket as opposed to just sitting out 24 feet from the basket.
As a bargain basement gamble, I'd actually be quite interested in Matthews. The problem is, it doesn't sound like he'll be cheap. If Portland gives him anything close to the MLE, he'll have to improve a lot just to be worth his salary. There's no upside to paying a player essentially what his best case will be worth.
I didn't watch him a ton, but I also don't particularly trust infrequent observation to determine a skill like rebounding. His Rebound Rate (the percentage of available rebounds he got) was not very good. It wasn't terrible, so maybe saying he "can't rebound" is overstatement, but it's not a strength.
I have many Jazz friends. They love the guy. I had to watch their games just to see what they were talking about. You can't help but not want a guy like that on your team. Now at what price is another argument.
One interesting thing about Matthews is that his minutes went way up in the playoffs. Less than 25 mpg in the regular season, more than 37 mpg in the playoffs. (Less encouraging is that his fg% suffered - 38% (although 36% from 3, and almost 5 fta per game - more than Boozer) As I've said elsewhere, I don't see him as a Rudy replacement - he's more of a short SF, and I doubt he has the passing skills - he seems like a Martell replacement. Which is a little weird, if we end up paying him more.
8 guards on the roster! To heck with hiring a GM....can we get somebody who can count? Mathews might be the 3rd or 4th best guard on the team (depending on how optimistic you are about Bayless), so I guess this could be seen as a repudiation of KP's drafting ability - or something. Still.....8 freaking guards.
Batum's of course better, but the point is Matthews' numbers are right there. As far as rebounding, Matthews is a 6-5 G while Batum is a 6-9 SF. Of course Batum is the better rebounder. Besides, Utah was a better rebounding team than Portland anyways, and like I said, he's a G. Anyways, I wasn't trying to go down the line and compare the two at everything, just that their numbers are very similar in the same amount of minutes. Don't know enough about Matthews on defense, but from what I've heard he sounds like he's about Martell Webster on defense, which isn't bad at all. I'd have to watch more to really get a better idea though. Main point being, you said Wesley Matthews isn't a good player, and that's just false. Rudy Fernandez isn't a good player. Matthews can actually put the ball on the floor and get to the hoop and finish. I think you just got too caught up in using PER again.
The curse of small sample sizes, for the rest of the year his rebound rate was a paltry 6% ... that's baaaaad!
One day we're going to see this lineup. Mills, Bayless, Miller, Roy and Williams, with Johnson, Matthews and Rudy off the bench. Nate's finally got his lineup to counter Nellie.
Not sure how the Jazz rebounded when he was on the floor. But I do know that Duckworths rebounds were lower when Buck, Jerome, Clyde and TP were on the floor.
No, it's quite true. Absolutely. I like using something objective to measure player production, considering that none of us see all non-Portland players enough to make solid judgments on what are pretty subtle differences that mean a lot in terms of effectiveness and none of us are professional scouts. PER uses scoring, assists and rebounds just as you do, it just adjusts for efficiency (in scoring), opportunities (in rebounds and assists) and pace (everything, basically). I think you just got too caught up in using raw numbers again.
Some players' value doesn't show in their PER. Batum is one of these. Probably because a key virtue is defense, which PER doesn't measure. The poster boy for this is Tayshaun Prince. His per at age 23, in the season the Pistons won the title, was 13.3.
Depends on what the offer is. If it's a full MLE offer...they might not, because he probably isn't worth that. Of course, you can't always account for competitiveness. No matter how bad an idea it is, they may not want to feel like they got "beaten by Portland" for one of their players.
PER doesn't measure defense, that's true. No one really claims it does. It's a production measure. Batum actually had a pretty nice PER for last season and it's even better when you consider his age and likely growth curve. If Matthews is a true defensive ace, then I'm a lot more interested. I did note that in my first post about him.
