Taj Playing Great but Still Heading for Demotion

I remember when Maxwell was in college. He was the guy who brought the ball up court, like a guard. He was hugely talented.

Boston had a culture of 6th man being a great player. Before McHale, it was Havlicek. McHale could easily have been the starter all along, he was that good. He wasn't because they wanted that 6th man thing to continue.

Without looking at the stats, I'm going to say that late in his career, the Celtics basically played him and Bird and Parrish at least 40 minutes a game, maybe even more. They simply didn't have anyone else to step in.

 

I was thinking about '85-'86. Man have you guys looked at that roster recently? It's sick.

On the flip side, Taj got one good night of headlines and all of the sudden, it looked like he thought he was Michael Jordan. Some of his rebounding yesterday was atrocious. I saw him get beat out by opposing guards on multiple occasions. This was before he grabbed one late in the game at Stacey King made an allusion to a lunch pail. Thanks Stacey. I have a clip for Taj:

[video=youtube;I4NdmXpmhr8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4NdmXpmhr8&feature=channel[/video]

I actually don't mind Taj becoming a shot jacker if he does indeed go to the bench. That will be his role. But if he put some modicum of effort toward rebounding, he would be a legit starter.

 

Yeah, but Scott Wedman was their starting SF before that season, and McHale on the bench. In 85-86, McHale started at PF and Bird at SF - they could have done that all along.

 

I guess Wedman didn't start, it was Bird and Maxwell.

 

I think he meant that it was Bird starting alongside Maxwell. And there's really no reason to call anyone out on not being fresh with Boston basketball history from twenty-five years ago, is there?

 

Amen, Brother.

 

I said Bird and Maxwell started the games.

However, in the 85-86 season mentioned, Wedman started 1/4 the season (19 of 79 games he played).

McHale started 400 of the 971 games he played in.

So statistics aren't the be-all and end-all.

 

I'm not ready to drop this yet. It's funny. I think I have a visceral reaction about who should start and then I have to go back and figure out why I feel this way -- which probably means my analysis is flawed, but whatever. I think the reason I believe the Bulls should start Taj for a while, at least, is the same as the reason I thought they should start the season off with Asik at center.

I believe in the idea of twin towers. Not in the plodding '80s centers way, but in the added flexibility that two bigs who can disrupt shots provides. We saw some mediocre Skiles teams grow into defensive gangstas' with two disrupting bigs and some wing players who played team defense. That's really all it takes. I also think the first ten minutes of a game may be the most important in terms of setting the tone on defense. There are so many players in the league who produce nothing if you shut them down for the first ten minutes. Taj has shown, of late, some signs that he can be that second big that sets the tone of a game.

Can Boozer be that guy? I think probably not.

 

No I don't think so . We're really waiting for godot here. How nice would it be to have Ben Gordon back?