This was observation from today's game that is not different from my prior observations - when Durant plays and dominates the ball as he does, his teammates do not seem to play better than I have seen them without it. It was certainly the case today for Rose, Iggy, Rudy Gay, Odom - things seem to stagnate and he mostly gets the ball and goes to the basket somehow. It is criticism, valid one, imho, and does not change the fact that he is one of the greatest scorers to ever set foot on a basketball court as I said in the original post. Unless he can become a better facilitator and much better defender - which he could still do - I do not see him as the main-cog of a championship team - but as a T-Mac/D-Wilkins kind of guy. On the other hand, based on what we have seen of a dominant Greg in the 21 games before he went down last year, I do believe the Blazers, with a healthy Greg, are contenders immediatly. As usual, YMMV.
Exciting game. Most of the 4th was hard to watch but the end made up for it. USA has a good chance to win gold, but their half-court execution is still terrible and they're vulnerable on defense against a team with solid ball handlers and a post threat. Splitter was a mixed bag for me. He's great on both sides of the floor in the PNR where he really moves his feet well and has good instincts, but I don't think he's going to be a huge threat offensively next season for the Spurs. He has no range and his post-game doesn't translate well to the NBA (His footwork is solid but slow and methodical and his release points are low on both his turnaround and his hooks). He also doesn't seem to be a great finisher in traffic. Overall I see him as a decently efficient, low usage offensive player, with solid rebounding and defense. He will probably start for the Spurs, and be an upgrade for their front court, but I don't see a huge impact player, at least not right away.
McGrady was a great passer and facilitator for a wing. He wasn't a "main cog" on a championship team because he never, in his healthy prime, had the talent around him to be on a championship-level team. Durant resembles Kobe and McGrady as a scorer, but not as a passer or, IMO, as a defender. He's probably a bit better a rebounder though.
Durant is going to have to get much better with the ball in his hands if wants to be number 1 on a championship team. We saw in the playoffs that he tends to settle for contested jumpers and become bit turnover prone when used mainly as an Iso scorer in the half-court.
I agree, but how many 21 year-old players finish 2nd in the voting for MVP? With Durant's work ethic, and barring injury, we're going to see a Tier 5 Pyramid player (stolen from Simmons' brilliant idea for the Hall of Fame) within the next 5 years.
Of course he's not better than Scola! Scola is the best post player in the entire tournament. But he's a lot younger, and he's taller, so he has a chance to be as good. Brook Lopez is a very apt comparison, only Brook Lopez with a history of winning big games in the pros. (So Splitter is the best Center in the entire tournament, but that's not saying all that much.) It's funny: the only position that I think you can say the US has clearly the best player in the tournament is at SF. Maybe if Rose counts as a SG, he'd be in the running for that, since Ginobili isn't playing, although probably Navarro is more important to his team. So the US is winning on depth and athleticism and defense.
Patty is so hot and cold. He put up big numbers in the first half against Argentina (when I wasn't watching), but I was disappointed watching him in the second half. He was jacking it up way too much and not running plays. Meanwhile Prigioni was picking Australia apart without shooting (except for a clutch three near the end). Watching that game, which should have been a great day for the Aussies, actually made me okay with letting Patty go. In general I love how a lot of international PGs play. Not just the usual Spanish suspects (actually just Rubio - Lopez is terrible) but Prigioni, Huertas and the Greeks in particular. Always moving the ball and more concerned with precision bounce passes (sometimes through traffic) than jacking it up. The contrast with players like Rose and Westbrook is eye-opening. Obviously Rose and Westbrook are made for the NBA game, but I can see why some international fans don't like the NBA style for that reason.
8 turnovers today! To be fair, at least a couple were the old international travel calls that would never be called in the NBA.
I personally didn't like the way Chauncey played at the end of the game, and it's the style of play that would drive McMillan nuts. Pull up 3pt shot on the fastbreak with 21secs to go on the shot clock is just kind of bad(especially when you miss). He did make one clutch layup, but he seemed to be trying too hard to make all the big plays at the end when the ball should have been in Durant's hands.
He's really committed himself to that end and was a big reason OKC was an unexpectedly good defensive team last year. This experience should help him even more in that regard...
We must have been watching different games. Australia currently play through their big men, so Patty's role isn't to make plays. He was 4/9 from 3pt, only 1/5 from 2pt, but shot 7/8 FTs. As for Prigioni "picking Australia apart": Patty 5 assists, 0 turnovers; Prigioni 7 assists, 3 turnovers. Then again, I am pretty biased.
I never got that impression - but I am certainly not an expert on T-Mac in his prime. I never thought T-Mac, even at his best, could create as well as LeBron or Kobe. I would argue that at his prime his supporting cast was not much different from LeBron's - and LeBron usually lead his team much further in the playoffs. What Kobe always had the ability to do - much better than T-Mac and Durant, so far, at least, is impose his will on a game. Say what you want about Kobe - but when he gets that look in his eyes that says "I am taking this game over" - he was a real handful to deal with. Same with LeBron, same D-Wade, much less so, imho, with either Durant or T-Mac, and while Durant could, one day do that, I certainly did not get that impression from the way he played this game - which was where my observation was. This Team USA is a lot more talented, imho, than what LeBron had to play with in most of his Cleavland career - but they do not seem even close to being able to dominate as these LeBron Cleavland teams are - and the main reason, is again, that LeBron raises the quality of the play of his team-mates, Durant, so far, has the opposite effect.
LeBron deferred to Kobe Bryant when things got tight in the 2008 gold medal game. The 2006 FIBA world championships were a disaster for LeBron, and he had a MUCH better supporting cast. I wonder which games you were watching to formulate your opinion. http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fe/06...3507/teamnumber/379/fe_teamPlay_teamRost.html
McGrady also wasn't able to win because he wasn't as great of a scorer as people made him out to be. He had a 53.6 ts% in his 4 Orlando years if you average it out. Compare that to a guy like Durant who has had 57.7 ts% and 60.7 ts% the last two seasons. Durant is leaps and bounds better of a scorer than T-Mac ever was.
Shhhh. This type of news upsets many myopic Blazer fans. It upsets me as well, but I'm not going to trash Durant just because Oden has been a dud so far in his career.
Well, the numbers bear out my impression. Look at the Assist Rates. Kobe, in his prime has been between 22% and 29%. McGrady has been between 23-30% (with one remarkable 37.5% season). And it isn't because McGrady has had better teammates to pass to. First of all, James is a significantly better player than McGrady and Kobe. I was comparing McGrady to Kobe, not to LeBron. I think James compares favourably to Jordan...he's beyond players like Kobe and McGrady. Secondly, those Orlando teams were complete trash outside of McGrady. Players like Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mo Williams, Anderson Varejao, Carlos Boozer, Delonte West, etc, are no great shakes but far better than players like Andrew DeClerq, an aging Darrell Armstrong, Jacque Vaugn, Pat Garrity, etc. In four seasons in Orlando, he had a teammate surpass 15 PER in a season four times (Darrell Armstrong twice barely, Drew Gooden once and Bo "I'm not Travis" Outlaw once). I won't get into the imposition of will thing, since that's so subjective and really can't go anywhere but "Yes he did," "No, he didn't." I will note that the narrative is largely driven by the success of a team. Even for Kobe himself. When the team is fighting for a title, the superstar taking it upon himself to "win games" is seen as imposing his will. The superstar doing the exact same thing on a first-round-and-out team is seen as a ballhog. As I said, this switch in narrative sometimes happens to the exact same player. When the Lakers flailed out of the playoffs against the Suns some years back, I read tons of stuff about how Kobe was selfish. In fact, the same was said when the 2004 Lakers were upset in the Finals. Kobe didn't change his game, he just got an upgrade in teammates. Now he's imposing his will to lead his teams to titles. McGrady has been alternately accused of being selfish (when he's tried to take games over because his teammates weren't getting anything done) or passive (when he spent periods of games getting his teammates involved). The moral of the story, IMO, is that, in terms of perception, you cannot possess a virtue when you're on a losing team, and everything's a virtue when you're on a good team.
Was that the defense that got Brazil to within one possession when he reached through the cylnder with a minute left and goaltended a bad shot that was rolling off the back of the rim? Or the defense that was a bad foul in the final seconds to send some no-name Brasil guy to the line with a chance to tie the game? Just saying. That defense was sure the difference in beating a team with two NBA role players on it and 8 guys who were surfing last month.
