Interesting Tony Parker speculation

Batum isnt Pippen... YET! I think he has the potential to be very Pippen like.

 

His career PER is right in line with Miller's. Miller is declining due to age, but Parker is experiencing injuries. Parker has reached highs that Miller hasn't, and I do think Parker is superior to Miller, but I'm not convinced that Parker was ever more valuable than both Miller and Batum (at Batum's current level) except maybe one season (2008-09).

 

If Batum is dealt, you have to go with him there. He played mostly SG last year, but guarded SFs quite often. He did a nice job on Melo in the playoffs.

 

Nate,

The light is green . . . I repeat the light is green. Engage TP.

 

I'd really hesitate to compare him to a top fifty player of all time. If Nic can approximate the level of play that Pippen provided during his time in Portland I'd be more than happy with that.

 

I agree, I'm just saying that putting him there full time seems like a stretch to me. I'd much rather see Matthews get all of the backup 2 and most of the backup 3 minutes (Roy at 35~, Nic at 32~ and Matthews picking up the slack at around 30 a night).

In my opinion you need to surround Roy with good to great perimeter defenders as much as you can and losing Nic just to add TP (who I see as a slight upgrade to Miller, but likely to be productive for longer) doesn't make us a better team IMO. Honestly, I'd consider exploring a trade for Mo Williams giving up less assets before I'd part ways with Batum in a TP trade.

 

I think adding TP would keep opposing defenses honest, which makes us much better. You can't slack off of him like almost every team did with Miller last season. It should open the court up for if they need to come out on him and not instantly double Roy.

 

How does TP keep defenses honest in a way Miller was unable to? Parker can't shoot either. You can very easily slack off of him.

 

exactly. Thats the crux of the problem with TP. In fact, because of his speed, most defenders do sag quite a bit so they have time to adjust to his drives or switch when needed.

 

Exactly that is the thing about TP he is a bad shooter. He might be a litttle better shooter then Miller but not enough to make any difference.

 

You realize that TP is not an outside shooter right? Career 30% averages and 28% last season. TP does most of his damage in pick and rolls by either getting to the rim or using that great floater of his. Take Batum out of the lineup and you lose spacing and defense (and I'm not 100% convinced that Matthews isn't a Utah system player and 2/3 of a season shooting 38% from distance is an awfully thin sample to project future performance IMO).

Both Parker and Roy are going to need 3 point shooters to give them room to operate in the lane and with Rudy very likely gone, Babbit a question mark, and your proposed Batum swap we'd be down to just WM. To hell with that.

 

Anybody that wants to give up 3-4 players plus Batum for TP hasn't been watching enough Spurs games. I like TP and he is better then Miller but not enough to give up all those guys plus Batum and leave us using Matthews (if we get him) and Cunningham at SF.

 

Ok I am going to throw this out there as to why this works. The reason why this works is because Tony Parker, unlike Miller, is used to playing off the ball at times when Manu Ginobili is in the game. When the Spurs have Ginobili in the game handling the ball, it is virtually just like when Roy is handling the ball here in Portland. The other side of the coin being, I have always felt one of the problems with Roy and Miller is the fact that Roy did not want to defer to Miller, because the fact is Miller is not as good as Roy, and it is hard to defer to players that are not as good as you are. With Parker having multiple championship rings and all star appearances, Roy really can't do that. The other thing Parker brings is speed. For all the open court savy Miller has, he is not a very fast guard. Speed creates problems, and those problems are not your teams problems.

As for Mathews, I think there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the trade because they haven't seen a lot of him. I have seen enough to be very comfortable with the trade. By end of last year, I was openly wondering while watching some of Utah's games how we could get that guy, and how lucky Utah was to move Ronnie Brewer and end up with a good upgrade by doing so.

 

I think people are way too hard on Andre Miller for his performance in the playoffs. The guy lit up Phoenix in game one, but got zero help from his teammates after that, and the Suns honed in on him. If Roy had been playing at 100%, or even 80%, Miller would have continued to have a great series. Unfortunately, the Suns were able to put their best defender on Dre, and Miller was unable to keep it going. We simply didn't have enough weapons in that series. Aldridge was a ghost.

 

FWIW, its a free agent signing not a trade

 

He's talking about the hypothetical trade of Nic in a swap for Parker

 

No way. Parker is overrated.

 

MY bad

 

Agreed. While I think Tony Park is Amazing, I think Batum+Dre Miller > TP.

 

I really hope not.

And if we trade Batum for Paker I'll fucking riot.