I was going to ask the same thing. I saw the title, and wondered if he had been traded, waived, or hurt.
Nope, just more clueless, unjustified, unsubstantiated, pointless bashing o our second best player by a so-called fan. BNM
It also didn't help that both Roy and Nate publicly supported Steve Blake over Miller when Miller was clearly the better player. Way to make the guy fell welcome and part of the team. BTW, how is Blakey doing this year playing in an ideal situation beside Kobe and in the triangle where he's sure to get plenty of wide open shots? Huh, that's funny. He still SUCKS. He has a PER of 7.5, a 13.6 AST%, a 19.7 TOV% and a 0.051 WS/48. He's averaging 4.6 PPG on 0.371 FG%, averaging 2.0 APG, averaging 0.4 STL and still can't get to the FT line. He's playing in a superior system, under a better coach, alongside a superstar in the back court, and those are the numbers he's putting up? Yet, Nate and Roy both thought he was a better player than the guy who has a PER of 19.1, 37.6 AST%, 17.2 TOV% and 0.137 WS/48 playing in an inferior system on a roster decimated by injuries. Could they have possibly been wrong? No way, because NOBODY is ever wrong about Andre Miller - or at least nobody will ever admit it. BNM
A 19-20 PER player is often a team's second- or third-best player. Why so hostile to Miller? He didn't injure Roy's knees, you know. Does this go back to BLANKY?
BLANKY is hitting 40% of his threes, which of course you don't mention. I posted a long list of PER and how it relates to PGs in Phil Jackson's offense a month ago, and you ignored it. PER is worthless when assessing a triangle PG; look at the history of that position under Phil Jackson before you go and post a bunch of irrelevant statistics next time. The PG has one primary offensive goal in PJ's offense; hit open three point shots. BLANKY does that better than Andre Miller ever could. Andre Miller is a ballhog who can't shoot and can't defend. I certainly don't advocate waiving him, but if he isn't traded at the deadline, it will be a huge gaffe by this organization.
Miller's the one that pouted from day 1. He wouldn't accept his role that McMillan gave him and team chemistry suffered for it. Roy was the one that wanted every guy on the team to accept and play their role. Miller wouldn't do it, period. Miller being a vet should have respected this was Roy's team. Instead he came in here and wanted to run the show. It was terrible for team chemistry.
BLANKY come back! Anyhow, I just don't think Miller is a winner. I was shocked to hear he was 16th all-time in assists. When I heard he passed Muggsy Bogues to be 16th, the shock went away. An overrated statistic for an overrated PG who has won nothing in his long career. I've long said he has trade value, though, so Cho should use it as part of his mysterious "long-term" plan.
If he's averaging 4.6 ppg, that means he's hitting 1.5 threes per game? You think the Lakers are getting their moneys worth? If his only job is to hit threes, he's not doing a very good job.
That's impossible to quantify, though. Either could be correct, and history, at least in terms of Miller's playoff success, leans more toward causation, IMO.
You're right... he wouldn't accept his role as a backup point guard behind a terrible player. I don't blame him. It had nothing to do with "running the show" or who's team it was, he just wanted to play. You fault him for that? Also, Roy has pouted since day one about having Miller on his team, and that pouting continues to this day. Roy is the captain of this team, you think that's appropriate behavior from the captain?
I thought your point about "triangle point guards" was either confused or else intellectually dishonest. There's no evidence, logical or otherwise, that the triangle suppresses point guards. Going back over the point guards that Jackson has had, he's never had a particularly talented point guard. That goes a much longer distance to explaining why the point guard position hasn't produced much under Jackson. Arguably the most talented player Jackson has played at point guard was a broken down (offensively) Ron Harper...his main talent by the time he reached the Bulls was defense. Blake follows in that tradition of not having talented point guards. It's not like Jackson had a bunch of excellent point guards who's numbers tanked with Jackson. As for Miller being a ballhog, his excellent Assist Rates show otherwise.
The guy gets a consistent 20mpg on a team much better than the Blazers. He must be doing something Phil Jackson likes. Either that, or Phil Jackson likes to give 20 mpg to players who "SUCK", as BNM so eloquently put it. I invite you as well to search for my post on PER and PJ's PGs. I guess if winning titles with a PG with a PER of 9.1 means the players SUCKS, then I'll take that sort of SUCK.
History doesn't show that one player, be it Andre Miller or Michael Jordan, can single handedly win basketball games. It's a team sport, which means you have to have at the very least five guys on the court for your team. Andre Miller is just a cog in a machine, and while he is an influence on whether a team wins or loses, he is not the only factor that determines the outcome.
I never said the triangle suppresses PGs. I said that a high PER is not an accurate measurement for the PG in the PJ system. If that is 'intellectually dishonest' to you, well, I don't think pointing out hard statistics is ever dishonest. Questioning the integrity of that post seems like an admission that you really can't combat the raw data, though.
Talk to Laker fans about Derek Fisher or Sasha Vujacic last season. Neither guy was stellar. Their point guard corp right now isn't the best in the world, which is probably why they signed Blake in the first place. They were looking for help at that position, but it's obvious they didn't find it in Blake.
So Michael Jordan isn't to be credited for winning 6 NBA titles, as he was just a "cog in a machine". LOL
While Blake does suck, I'd also accept that sort of suckage if I could also have Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom (and to a lesser extent Andrew Bynum and Ron Artest).
