Hopefully the basketball gods will bless us with a huge trade by all-star break. If Jermaine O'neil or Marcus Camby are coming to Oakland, I'd love that a lot. First, we fix the interior/transition defense + rebounding + athleticism, and then we can worry about inside presence on offense. I think that's what most teams have been trying to do as of late. The bulls for instance, they didn't worry about finding stuff from Mike Sweetney (arguably their best inside player with legit post moves but is fat and slow as a pregnant cow), they just wanted to make sure they got the defense and rebounding squared away first and so that they could run a little. It's a hard game to play out West, but hey I'll take anything that can get us stops in the paint and prevent the other team from scoring on us inside or on the break. Dunleavy, Murphy are pushovers to me and cannot play C, PF, SF, whatever on defense. I'd rather see Biedrins, Ike, Foyle, Pietrus fill up that lane if that's the way we're going to play. It's been ridiculous how much Dun gets to play because nobody else on the squad is a point forward or has real playmake instincts aside from Baron. Even then Mike Dunleavy Jr. is still a bit overrated because he doesn't shoot very well aside from recent stats. It's like a weird jigsaw puzzle that has to fit or else there's no way to win more times than not. I wish there was a better answer on how to balance our attack more thoroughly on both ends of the floor so that defenses have to honor us inside and out and so we can stop the ball better before they get deep in the paint or passed our defenses. I think we have trouble doing this if we don't look for guys like Ike or occasionally Foyle. Guys don't mind driving the lane against us. I hope we can fix that. If anything stone hands would probably have a field day if he had decent team defensive coverage, so he could stay at home and block shots. Then with Ike, you know he led the Pac-10 in blocked shots, so he's going to block at least one a game once he's in shape. Sigh.... Hopefully injuries might show Nelson how underused guys could be effective. Maybe even Murphy if he's dealing with a slower team.
