I'm warming up to the idea of landing Love and Miller. Although I'm still not happy about it. Someone who followed Love and/or the Grizzlies please tell me about who we got? I know Miller can play, but can Love turn into a great player like the college analysts on ESPN made him out to be? And what about the others? Can they play? I'm so confused!!!
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tim @ Jun 27 2008, 11:13 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I'm warming up to the idea of landing Love and Miller. Although I'm still not happy about it. Someone who followed Love and/or the Grizzlies please tell me about who we got? I know Miller can play, but can Love turn into a great player like the college analysts on ESPN made him out to be? And what about the others? Can they play? I'm so confused!!!</div> I'm still not sold on Love being a "great" player. He's going to be a good player and a great fit for our system, but I don't see any All-Star games in his future like I do see for Mayo. Love comes in to help Big Al as an additional rebounder as well as a very good passer in the post (ala Sabonis...not as flash but as efficient) he has underrated court vision with will enable him to see a cutting Foye or Brewer towards the basket or scope the wing for the open man for a jumper, which brings me to.....Miller. I like Miller and even though his hair bands look stupid, he can play and will fill our needed role as the perimeter sharpshooter. He can also surprise with good rebounding skills when put at the SG slot and as mentioned in many articles has shot just over 40% from the 3point line for his career (9 years). Cardinal was pretty much just a trade off for getting rid of Jaric's contract and Collins will help out Big Al at center but that's just to give the big guy some rest. What our team could really use is a better option at center and a backup PG. Both can be had at a reasonable price in the free-agent market....I would personally target Diop to play along with Big Al and Love he can come in and be that big body inside. And as for a cheap option to PG? Duhon...a very under rated backup PG who doesn't make many mistakes and is careful with the ball. We could've used someone like him in the games we had late leads. he's averaged over 3 asst per TO in his three years. Duhon has some serious game...in fact many people talk about his game against Miwaukee's Sessions, when Sessions put up 20 points and 24 assists....well, Duhon put up 22 points and 15 assists...but the kicker is Sessions played 44 minutes while Duhon only played 30!!! in a nutshell....still sad, but starting to accept...we get out of paying an additional year of 7+mil....and would like Minny to target Diop and Duhon!
Okay, so answering your call, I'm that guy who knows about Mike Miller's game. This might ruffle some feathers, but I've always felt that Mike Miller has been one of the most underrated players in the league, not just because he plays for Memphis, but also because he is white. He's just a white guy who goes out there and shoots well to most people, but to anyone who has seen the Grizz play all the years, he's a should-a-been All-Star. How many players do you know that go for 15-20 pts a night with 5-9 rbs and 4-7 asts on the most perfect shooting you've ever seen? He's really a player that EVERY team should kill to have. He's not going to complain about being on a loser (because face it, most players, even Mayo, would complain about being on Minny), and he's never going to demand all the offensive looks. His entire career, he's been second fiddle to Gasol, then Gay came up and when Gasol was traded, Miller became second fiddle to Gay. That's not really based on his talent, but based on the offensive sets that the Grizzlies were running. The offense mostly ran through the four when Brown and Fratello coached the Grizz, and then when Iavaroni took the helms, they switched it to an up-tempo offense running through the three and four (Gay), because they were rebuilding and wanted to develop their prospects. Miller's more than capable of being the go-to-guy offensively, and I think he should, and he's also more than capable of complimenting Jefferson. Okay, so Jefferson gets doubled down on in the post, so he kicks it out to Miller and he knocks down the open three (he'll NEVER miss an open three). Okay, so Miller drives into the post, and Jefferson's man comes over to help out, then Miller kicks it out to Jefferson who has an open look. Basically, I think Miller-Jefferson will work much in the same way Miller-Gasol worked offensively. I emphasize the point offensively, because we all know Gasol didn't do shit defensively, nor on the boards, and that's not Jefferson. Again, I think that most people didn't realize what a gem Miller was because he played for Memphis. I'm sure you guys could feel that pain being Minnesota fans. 99% of America doesn't know Al Jefferson, and most people didn't think much of Kevin Garnett until he was traded to Boston, and he was arguably the greatest player in the game for most of his time with you guys. This is not to say Miller is a Garnett type talent, so don't blow my comments out of proportion, but Miller is definitely an overlooked gem who is better than the stats show. Some people say stats are inflated by playing on a bad team, and often they are, but Miller's stats were not inflated by playing on the Grizzlies. If anything, they were overlooked. He was overlooked in the Grizzlies' offense, and they were overlooked by the fans who simply chalked them up as 'bottom-dweller stats'. Last year though, with Gasol on the team, Miller was still good for 19/5/4 on perfect shooting. Even as a 50-win playoff team, Miller was putting up great numbers. I mean, T'Wolves fans of all people should know that Miller's stats aren't inflated, given the way he guys lit Minnesota up this season. Yeah, he had good numbers that game (34 pts on 12-20 FG, 8-12 3pt with 10 rbs, 6 asts, 2 blks vs. Foye), but as you all probably saw, he even played above the numbers that game (that was one of about only 20 Grizzlies games I saw this season, because I was away at college and had just gotten home, so I watched the whole thing, and before this year, I had tickets a lot of the time and year-round tv access to all 82 games of the five seasons before, so I've seen a lot of the guy). Miller's also taller and more athletic than people think. He's listed at 6'8", and he's every bit of it. How many SG's do you know that are 6'8"? And here's where the being white thing comes into play and will probably get me into trouble, but Mike Miller is very athletic. Is he a Gerald Green/Vince Carter type? No, but he's more athletic than the average wing. Most people look at white guys and assume "well, he's white, so he's got to be unathletic," but after watching and working with Miller, I've realized that whole myth is not true, and in fact, it hurts the white players' reputations too much. I also worked with Miller last summer in a select camp he held for under-18 prospects. I worked mainly with his brother, Ryan Miller, but I know Mike sorta-well, having been involved with M33M and the University of Memphis's summer basketball prospect programs. Like I said, he's a lot taller than you'd realize, and he's a very, very nice guy. I've talked to him for a few mintues about ten or so times, and each of those times, he was really happy to talk to me, even remembering my face about the fifth or sixth time, which is saying something considering how many people those guys meet (I was just a trainer at his camp and a 12th man on his sponsored team). So all in all, as you could guess, I think Miller is a special player (and I don't toss around the word "special" like everyone at ESPN... I'm looking at you Jay Bilas, haha). Now about the rest of the trade. I think O.J. Mayo is a good player, but he's just that. He's one of those guys you've heard about for years and years, but does that mean he's better than the guys you haven't heard about? I feel like a lot of NBA fans are at a disadvantage come draft time because they don't watch college ball. This is another thing that will probably get me in trouble, but 95% of this board pisses me off, because they suddenly claim to know the games of players they've never seen. They read nbadraft.net and DX profiles of players, watch their SportsCenter clips, but they never actually see their games. It sounds weird, but a lot of these guys never watch these games, and they just make opinions based on what they read and the images of the players. Take it from me. College basketball is my game, and I watch the Grizzlies. Outside of that, I only follow NBA players, not teams. I watch college ball like I watch my own life - it's my passion. I've gotten into multi-page arguments on this very site arguing about Granger vs. Graham (siding with Granger), Tyrus vs. Aldride (siding with Aldridge), and so-on and so-on, where I never really get to claim the bragging rights but fully make the right picks, just because I ACTUALLY WATCH THESE PLAYERS. That's not to say I'm always right, but that's to say, I'm always informed. Now, Mayo is a good player. A great player? Maybe. But to think that O.J. Mayo is a superstar in the making as some posters on this board have suggested is an opinion influenced by the media. He's shorter than 6'4", can't run the point, averages more turnovers than assists, and hasn't functioned in an offense that doesn't revolve around him up to this point. He could be a star, maybe even an All-Star, but more than likely, he just becomes a brand-name. Now, Kevin Love is another underrated player. I love how every random poster on this site is calling him a bust. 90% of them have never even seen him play. They're just judging their opinions on the fact that he's a white guy with draft buzz. "Oh, another white big man? He must be a bust." If he's such a bust in the making, and it's so obvious to everyone on this site, then why was he considered as high as #3 and didn't fall past #5? Why did he average 18/11 for one of the nation's top three college programs as a freshman? He'll be a very valuable player, maybe best-case-scenario-stretching-it even an All-Star, and more-than-likely an above average starter at the four who does everything you like out of a four and nothing you don't like. He compliments Al Jefferson so well that it's ridiculous how upset Minnesota fans are. I'm a fan of O.J. Mayo's, and I'm very happy for Memphis, because it will help them market their team. However, from a basketball perspective, there's not that much different between him and Love, and the Timberwolves even added in a player, who in my opinion, is near All-Star level in this swap, in Mike Miller. Not to mention, Brian Cardinal will be good as the butt of alot a funny joke for the next few years in Minnesota. ; )
I don`t think Miller should have been an allstar as per the conventional way players get in. 1. He didn't deserve to get in ahead of Gasol. 2. Usually teams with really good records get more than 1 player in, and Memphis wasn't in that category. However sometimes if the names are big enough, like Yao and Tmac. They can both get in with less than normal.
Voodoo, I'm interested in knowing what you think about claims that Mayo coasted last year so as not to get injured and put in a solid not spectacular year so he'd be 100% for the draft. I'm also interested in how thoughts on last year's draft went, specifically Spencer Hawes (whom I said would be average at best and most likely a bench-bust)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Celtic Fan @ Jun 29 2008, 06:03 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Voodoo, I'm interested in knowing what you think about claims that Mayo coasted last year so as not to get injured and put in a solid not spectacular year so he'd be 100% for the draft. I'm also interested in how thoughts on last year's draft went, specifically Spencer Hawes (whom I said would be average at best and most likely a bench-bust)</div> I'm making this post at 6:11 my time, so I'm not really at the top of my game yano, haha. Still, as much as I've heard those statement, I don't get what they mean. He "coasted"? I heard cpaw say that, and I didn't reply simply because I didn't want to get into a long argument that had no conclusion, but I've been wondering since he posted that, what does that mean? I know a lot of us play ball, and a lot of us just have a passion for the game naturally but have never played on a high level. Personally, I've always played the game, always loved the game, and I don't see how it'd be possible for me to "coast" in a game. It just makes it sound like once you get to a certain level of talent you can just flip a switch and walk through a game like it's a video game. But that's unrealistic. If he wasn't bringing his A-game, he wouldn't have been playing, and he sure as hell wouldn't have put up the numbers he put up (the guy was a 21 ppg scorer). Last year's draft I'll comment on more tomorrow, but yeah, Spencer Hawes still has a lot of potential. It's one of those situations where you say "this guy won't show his true worth until three or four years into the league," and yet everyone still writes him off after one season of mediocre play. That's especially true to freakish big men whose games are just growing into their bodies. Hawes still has the talent to be one of the league's most servicable big men. Worst case scenario at this point, I'm still projecting him as one of the better starting centers in the league in his prime.
VC, I watched him play multiple times in HS as a Soph and a Junior and the Mayo that played at USC last year was a very subdued Mayo. And yes, Mayo is good enough to put up the numbers he did at USC w/out bringing his A game consistently. It was a lot like watching Oden when he first came back after the wrist injury. It was obvious to anyone that had watched him before that we weren't seeing the full Oden. Of course, that didn't stop people from bashing him. I can add more later, but for now, I've got to attend to my kids
I've watched some highlights of mayo in hs. And i have to agree i think he coasted at usc. He was just trying not to get injured imo. I saw dexter strickland yes the unc recruit agree it was on the sohh board. I just cant support this man. Love has bust written all over him. While mayo is a future star. Mchale is just making me wanna strangle him.
