Has Sasha played himself up to the Mid-Level?

That's why you keep things in the house. Most trades that happen are trades that come out of nowhere anyways. Usually when you hear rumors of a trade, nothing happens. Just take the Gasol trade for example. It came out of nowhere.

Anyways, I was just checking the stats, and Sasha shot 44% from beyond the arc this season, as compared to JCN's 36%. Last season, Sasha shot 37%. Is JCN's long range shooting abilities sort of overrated?

Also, I'm not too worried about Sasha. I believe he will be back. Mitch made it a priority to resign Sasha and Ronny this offseason, and I believe he'll get a deal done as soon as possible (for good or bad). I'm also pretty sure Sasha wouldn't mind taking a little pay cut in order to stay with the team he's been with all his career, and have the opportunity to compete for a championship every year for years to come. That's an opportunity most players would die for

 

Whoa he has a nasty stroke.









But I don't know. I wouldn't want the team to walk in on him and Pau having gay sex or anything. That would just kill the team chemistry...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ May 25 2008, 02:17 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Brian @ May 25 2008, 02:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>That's why you keep things in the house. Most trades that happen are trades that come out of nowhere anyways. Usually when you hear rumors of a trade, nothing happens. Just take the Gasol trade for example. It came out of nowhere.

Anyways, I was just checking the stats, and Sasha shot 44% from beyond the arc this season, as compared to JCN's 36% Last season, Sasha shot 37%. Is JCN's long range shooting abilities sort of overrated?</div>

I guarantee you JCN doesn't get the same wide open looks Sasha gets playing in Memphis. JCN can definitely shoot, he's a gunner and a better playmaker off the dribble.

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yeah, I like Navarro, but he's still a downgrade from Sasha. Navarro is ultra streaky, and defense is not in his vocabulary. Plus he lacks Sasha's length which is so important in the triangle

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ May 25 2008, 03:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Sasha's just as streaky if not worse. Let's not forget his 1-11 stinker in Utah. Sasha has the length, but JCN is a better ball handler and decision maker. I just don't find Sasha to be a very talented individual player. His success is the product of playing alongside three All-Star caliber players and an offensive system that caters to his outside shooting.

The beauty of the Triangle offense is the ability to replace players once you establish the triple post players. In Chicago the Bulls interchanged their shooters from Hodge, Paxson, BJ, Trent Tucker, Kerr, Buechler, and Harper. The Championship Lakers also did it with Rice, Harper, Fisher, Shaw, MP3, and Lindsey Hunter.

Even Devean George looked like a stud when he played alongside Payton, Malone, Kobe and Shaq.</div>

Sasha is NOT more streaky than Navarro, not even close man. I had Navarro on my fantasy basketball team, so I followed him the entire year very closely. He had two months where he broke 40% 3pt shooting, and four months he couldn't even break 35%. He had an entire month where he shot sub 30% 3pt. He shot below 40% FG in four of the six months, and shot 34% in April. The volitility of his shooting percentages are HUGE. It's even worst from a game to game basis.

Sasha has shot 40%+ in 3pt every single month after the first month. He has a very comfortable upward moving trend in makes and shooting %. 1-11 happens here and there. Kobe has those type of games, but I would never use it as an example of how Kobe is more streaky than JCN, especially when JCN's gamelogs are litered with those games himself

 

isn't everyone streaky???

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ May 25 2008, 03:40 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (notmuchgame @ May 25 2008, 03:37 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ May 25 2008, 03:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Sasha's just as streaky if not worse. Let's not forget his 1-11 stinker in Utah. Sasha has the length, but JCN is a better ball handler and decision maker. I just don't find Sasha to be a very talented individual player. His success is the product of playing alongside three All-Star caliber players and an offensive system that caters to his outside shooting.

The beauty of the Triangle offense is the ability to replace players once you establish the triple post players. In Chicago the Bulls interchanged their shooters from Hodge, Paxson, BJ, Trent Tucker, Kerr, Buechler, and Harper. The Championship Lakers also did it with Rice, Harper, Fisher, Shaw, MP3, and Lindsey Hunter.

Even Devean George looked like a stud when he played alongside Payton, Malone, Kobe and Shaq.</div>

Sasha is NOT more streaky than Navarro, not even close man. I had Navarro on my fantasy basketball team, so I followed him the entire year very closely. He had two months where he broke 40% 3pt shooting, and four months he couldn't even break 35%. He had an entire month where he shot sub 30% 3pt. He shot below 40% FG in four of the six months, and shot 34% in April. The volitility of his shooting percentages are HUGE. It's even worst from a game to game basis.

Sasha has shot 40%+ in 3pt every single month after the first month. He has a very comfortable upward moving trend in makes and shooting %. 1-11 happens here and there. Kobe has those type of games, but I would never use it as an example of how Kobe is more streaky than JCN, especially when JCN's gamelogs are litered with those games himself
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You're not factoring the team JCN is surrounded with and team Sasha is surrounded with. You don't think JCN could shot a high clip playing on this Laker team?
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I dont doubt that he would, but that wasn't my point. I wasn't arguing that his % is bad, I'm arguing that the volatility of his % is bad. My point was that he's ultra streaky, moreso than the norm of a guard. When Gasol was there, he was all over the place, but still in the high 30%. When Gasol was gone, he was still all over the place, but down about 5% across the board. Pre-Gasol trade, his team doesn't change, but his percentages fluctuated like mad. Post Gasol trade, his team doesn't change, but his percentages fluctuate like mad , but at a lower range. If he was on the Lakers, his percentages will still fluctuate like mad, but at a higher range.

Point is he's not as pure as Sasha, and again, I cannot emphasis more about the defense. We already have a no-defense streak shooter with no size in Farmer. Having two is getting a bit redundant IMO. We can stick Mike Pemberthy in there if we want to disregard defense.

 

Why shouldn't we give up one of our scrubs to keep Sasha? He's pretty much the best player off the bench we have (Ariza's injury problems really annoy me, I don't consider Radman a pure starter and he's very streaky). I'd definitely give up Farmar, Luke, Ronny, or one of the other inconsistent players I've mentioned. Luke was terrible in the regular season but he's stepped up in the playoffs to an extent, so that could be a harder decision (he's already going to earn close to five million a year, Sasha is definitely in his range).

As for what Kobe deserves contractually, he can ask for the Max if he wants. The guy is the best player in the league and people should indeed be fortunate to play with him. I'm with Shape on that.

I think people are making a big deal about just a couple of million.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ May 25 2008, 05:05 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ May 25 2008, 04:20 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Why shouldn't we give up one of our scrubs to keep Sasha? He's pretty much the best player off the bench we have (Ariza's injury problems really annoy me, I don't consider Radman a pure starter and he's very streaky). I'd definitely give up Farmar, Luke, Ronny, or one of the other inconsistent players I've mentioned. Luke was terrible in the regular season but he's stepped up in the playoffs to an extent, so that could be a harder decision (he's already going to earn close to five million a year, Sasha is definitely in his range).

As for what Kobe deserves contractually, he can ask for the Max if he wants. The guy is the best player in the league and people should indeed be fortunate to play with him. I'm with Shape on that.

I think people are making a big deal about just a couple of million.</div>

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't, but teams around the league aren't going to just take those bad contracts off your hands.

You're right it is just a couple of million, which is exactly why Sasha should not complain about it. He must take less to play for a winner.

It's all about perspective. Sasha making around $2M this year is good value, but if you start paying him $5M to $6M, we would all have loftier expectations for him. I think Sasha is getting the benefit of us fans having very low expectations for him to begin with based on his first few seasons here. Most of us felt he didn't even belong in the NBA, let alone the Lakers. Prior to his outbreak season we all felt he was a waste at $2M.

Now all of a sudden he's undervalued at $2M because he's doing what he should have been doing all along?

Luke Walton at $2.5M looks like a good asset, Luke at $4.5M is an overpaid scrub. So yes the $2M dollar difference does factor in to the way we evaluate a player's worth.
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Sasha is a shooter, he won't rely on athleticism as much as Luke. His skill will probably last longer.

If we can't keep him, I understand, but he should get priority over most of our Bench (unless we want to go after some random guy with the MLE that's just too good to pass up). I'm just reiterating what Mitch said, and I did not agree with Luke's contract last year either.

 

He is probably worth 3-4 mill. I wouldn't say 5-6 mill.

 

I remember when I hated Sasha.

Now I LOVE the guy. No homo.
He's been very consistent, and plays feisty defense.

If he asks for the MLE, no negotiations, we sign him for the MLE.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Shapecity @ May 26 2008, 03:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>We don't need to use any part of the MLE on Sasha because we already own his Bird Rights. I don't think we'll be using the MLE next season unless there's a player willing to sign that is too, good to pass up, or we make a deal to free up cap space.

Signing Sasha to a long term deal paying him $5M to $6M is overspending in my opinion. Especially when you factor in he's probably going to have a reduced role next season with Bynum coming back and a healthy Ariza.

This should be our projected starting lineup & depth chart next year:

PG - Fisher, Farmar
SG - Kobe, Sasha
SF - Odom, Ariza, Luke
PF - Gasol, Radman
C - Bynum, Turiaf, Mihm

I'm not sure who rounds out the last 3 roster spots at this point, but let's assume we bring back Mbenga, Karl, and Newble for now.

The reason Sasha is getting more PT this year is his improvement, but also Kobe playing a lot of minutes at SF. Next season everyone will be in their natural position and Sasha is going to get the left over minutes Kobe doesn't play or when Farmar is struggling.

There's 48 minutes in a game, and you can pencil in Kobe to play at least 38 of them. This leaves 10 minutes at SG for Sasha. Farmar & Fisher combined for 47 minutes at PG. Maybe next season they cut back on Fisher's minutes a little more in the regular season, and Sasha picks those up. At max 4 to 5 minutes?

This would equate to Sasha averaging 15 minutes next year. This current season he averaged 17 MPG due to a lot of our guys being injured.

I don't think a guy playing 15 to 20 minutes is worth a $5-$6M dollar deal.</div>

I don't agree with another long Luke-ish Contract, but a couple of years at 4-5 million seems reasonable.