Isiah is nothing like Dame, and CJ hasn't really blossomed enough to see where he's gonna end up. If we are being extremely general then OK, I can see the small school, scoring backcourt comparison. Mostly I just love the idea of CJ being Joe Dumars, that just cracks me up
See the thing is, we are looking through the hindsight glasses again. I wonder what fans would have said when Thomas and Dumars were 2-3 years in the league?
But I LOVE my hindsight glasses..... Dame is a little more distance oriented than Isiah, but I would wager a lot of that is a product of the 3point revolution. Mostly I just don't see the fit, but I agree they would be pretty groovy for stretches next to each other.
Damian is very good, but he's not that close to Thomas in year three. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/thomais01.html
It IS a shitty comparison... unless you have a fucking clue what we're talking about in this thread. Basically, people don't think CJ and Dame are a viable starting backcourt. Perhaps the biggest reason is height. I have shown that, while not common, it HAS been done very successfully by a much shorter backcourt. One might say that they're very different from CJ/Dame, so I preemptively showed that there are a lot of parallels. Of course, at some point the parallels are going to break down, Mr. Dumas.
Is today opposite day? http://bkref.com/tiny/zMa0r The look very comparable; 1720 Pts vs 1748 for Zeke last season, in nearly exactly the same number of minutes. Though, Dame has a higher TS% (.560 vs .520), a better DRtg, and a better ORtg; he shoots better from 2P%, similarly from 3P%. He also had almost exactly the same Defensive Win Shares while having a much better Offensive Win Shares value. What Dame didn't do last year is dominate the assists numbers. Let's talk about that after his first Batum-less season.
Be as snarky as you want. That gap between assists isn't just some piddly amount. The difference between 6 dimes a game and 11 is significant. I'm not even saying Damian is a bad player, but apparently saying he's not really comparable to first ballot hall-of-famer is pretty much the same thing around here it seems.
And his assists are about to skyrocket with the amount of (what I can only assume will be a FUCK TON) of pick and roll we are about to play every game with all of our new bigs.
Like I said, let's give it a year. Except for assists (I know, that's a big deal), Dame and Zeke look eerily similar statistically. The game has changed a ton in 35 years, though, so comparing them is by necessity indirect. Also, I'm sorry to everyone today; I replaced sleep with caffeine to get through today (toddler decided 2am was the right time to demand to watch Frozen on the iPad... YEESH!). I was way saltier than normal, and for that I apologize. Y'all are great people even if we disagree.
11 dimes to 6 dimes IS a big difference. What about game winners? 3 pointers? Doesn't matter, my point is that a small backcourt can succeed, and in fact it has happened before. Do I think Dame/CJ will be our backcourt of the future? Not sure, but I'm not willing to dismiss it yet.
I see Dame averaging 8.5 assists this year. They will go up with no Nic and more low post guys with good hands. How often did Robin post up? LMA? I would LOVE to be wrong and say he will average a double double, but I think too many shots will be missed on him. The year after? Possible.
