Taj Playing Great but Still Heading for Demotion

On the brighter side, he seems like exactly the sort of guy a team like Denver or Memphis would like. Although I was noticing the other day that the Griz' Darrell Arthur played very well, a la Taj, in the absence of Zach Randolph

 

If guys like Taj keep growing and developing their games, then there isn't really a need for Melo, just a better SG. If Taj develops a decent post game, he becomes a candidate for an 8 figure contract too...

 

I think you greatly overestimate Anthony's all-around game. Why has he only made it to the conference finals once and lost in the first round in 5 of 6 years? Denver has a good enough team to play with the Lakers, why does Melo want to leave? He's got a bad head for the game and doesn't seem to be driven to get a championship like some of the other guys of his caliber.

That said, I still think he's a better finisher than anybody else in the league, and a truly gifted scorer. But his head is never in the right place it seems. So unless you have a coach who can get in his head and get it right, I don't think he's a guy who gets you championships. Unless something changes, I think it would be really frustrating to root for a Melo led team.

 

And yet they won and Melo lost. Two years ago Denver was a couple of plays from beating the Lakers. They have plenty of bigs to beat the lakers assuming they get healthy. But that assumes Melo is the guy to carry them over the hump. And he doesn't seem to be able to do it.

And give me a break, Melo has lost more world championships than he's won. And he's on an all-star team, so I am pretty sure they would have won that medal easily without him. He's got one gold medal, right? He was an integral part of the '04 team that lost, too, wasn't he?

 

FJ alluded to this in another thread, but I think the biggest upside of Taj's play is his usefulness as a bargaining chip.

He's got three things going for him:

1). He's still on a rookie contract
2). He plays in the frontcourt, where good players are relatively more scarce.
3). His game and personality are bland in a really good way. There are no warning signs with Taj.

His combination of good play, redundancy on our team, and dirt cheap contract might end up making him a disproportionately good trading piece, either to a good team looking to get a little bit better, or a team that really sucks and is bleeding cash.

There are potentially a lot of good Taj Gibson trade scenarios out there.

 

I've already said that I'd trade Deng for Melo straight up. But including Noah looks ridiculous now, and Taj looks like a solid starter now and will be fantastic bench depth when Boozer comes back. At this point, I wouldn't go farther than Deng, JJ, and Asik and some picks for Melo.

 

Boozer broke his hand, didn't he? There's no reason he shouldn't be in shape. Depending on the details of his cast, there's a good chance he's able to lift weights as well.

I don't think Boozer should need too much of a 'breaking in' period.

 

Agree 100%. My main fear/concern is whether he's becomeing so good that we really would want to ignore a lot of them. I'm still pretty high on Asik, but I don't know that I want him to be our third big. A third high quality big is a pretty important piece of a team.

No offense, but that seems like a crazy Neil Funkism to me. McHale only went to the bench because he was falling apart. The Bulls don't need scoring and rebounding off the bench. They need scoring and rebounding. Period. Boozer is a way better player than Taj, but still, when Taj goes to the bench, he will provide an upgrade in the "scoring and rebounding off the bench" role.

I know it's a totally nutty and contrarian theory, but how about we just start the five best guys? I'm a big fan of Ed Pinckney as coach, but I don't see the need to him to propagate the welfare recipient NBA starter theory just because he was once a beneficiary. And ultimately, that's usually what this idea of bringing your best players off the bench seems to be. At best, it's a matchup trickery the other team can and will easily account for. At worst, it's playing some kind of head game with your high priced talent in a time everyone should be past playing games. Which is why the coaching staff would have to find an "excuse" to do something. Usually, if you have to find an excuse, it's because the thing you want to do is not a very good idea!

He might shoot like garbage for a while, but that seems pretty irrelevant to whether he starts or comes off the bench, no? If he's not well enough to play, it'll manifest itself whether he comes off the bench or starts.

 

Oh, we're talking about at the beginning of his career when he came off the bench behind Cedric Maxwell?

Well, Cedric Maxwell was a Boston icon, an NBA Finals MVP, and generally an absurdly good player, especially in the post, in his own right. If Taj turns into Cedric Maxwell, then yeah, we'll have a real question on our hands.

But generally, I think the abilities of McHale and Maxwell sort of underscore why I don't think there should be much question between Taj vs. Boozer. McHale was certainly a better player than Maxwell over the course of his career, but for the first few seasons, while McHale was young and Maxwell was in his prime, Maxwell was the better, more accomplished player, and that's who you start and play the most.