Between Nic, Wes, and Johnson, I think we have a very solid defensive core to build around. I think Aldridge can be a great defender too when he wants to be.
talent has to meet opportunity, and I think if Roy had never suffered any of his debilitating injuries over the past couple of years, there's a good chance Nic never fully exploits his abilities on the offensive end of the court ... which he appears to be only scratching the surface of.
Certainly possible. My feeling is that the best coaches get talent to play together such that everyone can close to fully exploit their abilities. That's what I look for/hope for from coaching. Whether McMillan is that type of coach, I don't know.
A good example was Tracy McGrady. If he had not left Toronto for Orlando, he might not have realized the potential that he had. He had been playing in the shadow of Vince Carter with the Raptors, but on the Magic he became "the man" and was able to flourish.
One can never know, but I think great talent tends to flourish, especially in basketball. In football, players are so dependent on others that, say, a talented quarterback may not emerge if from the start he plays behind a terrible offensive line. But basketball affords players the chance to showcase themselves, if they're capable of it. While McGrady's emergence did coincide with going to Orlando, it also coincided with his fourth season. Kobe Bryant really emerged as a superstar in his fifth year, despite playing alongside Shaq. So I think it was more just getting older and moving further along the development curve.
Maybe Ray Allen and Michael Redd would be a better example. Allen was traded and Redd assumed the starting shooting guard position.
Yeah, hard to say. Redd was already in the midst of his second very good season when Allen was dealt. Redd certainly got more shots and so more raw stats...but whether he developed more is harder to say. Maybe.
Wasn't he, at one point, behind Kidd and KJ? I seem to recall Phoenix having all thee point guards at one point. And maybe. I'm not saying it's impossible that a player could be blocked from realizing his full potential in a situation. Just that I feel most players ultimately rise to their own level in basketball (barring injury).
+1 My sentiments exactly. I even wore #30 in high school because my favorite player was Gross. I now own THE jersey he wore in game 6, when we won the Championship! (gift from my Dad.)
This is what I've been thinking since people started saying that.. I don't remember much about Pippen but Batum doesn't really seem much like him.
By this point, the Bulls were running Pippen at the point in the triangle offense, so of course there is going to be a discrepency in assists.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/tiny.cgi?id=VR3dW Batum versus Gross for their 3rd seasons. I'm amazed at how similar the stat lines are (I am too young to have ever seen Gross).
Other than AST% and TOV%, the advanced stats are VERY close. Gross had twice the AST% of Batum, but also 2.5x the TOV%. BNM
