I feel funny asking this question about a player that's hit 30, but it's a serious question. At this stage of his career and factoring in everything from his injury recovery to his age, how good can JO be this season? I think it's a genuinely difficult question to answer. His recent history is a bit unprecedented when it comes to top-level forwards. I can't remember any big men who was so good only to succumb to such drastic injury problems for a couple seasons, and then refresh by taking such a significant amount of time off and moving to a new team. In the first 7 games of the season, he's hit both extremes and hasn't really given us a consistent indication of where he'll plateau. There's been some truly dreadful games where he hasn't made a noticeable effect and has struggled through foul trouble. And then there's been one's like last night, where he finally begins to finish and looks like the best player on our team. My take on it, is that JO's regressed from being a player that you can build a team around. There are some people around the team that still talk about him like that's true and I completely disagree. The contrast between him and Bosh couldn't be more obvious. Nevertheless, his defensive ability is as good as it's always been and his influence has trickled its way down to every player on the roster. Offensively, he's starting to look much more fluid on his post moves and off-the-ball movement. But his shooting touch clearly still has rust on it, and I'm not sure how much of it will return. I figure he'll round back into shape towards the end of December/the beginning of January. And I think then we'll be able to count on him for 15-16 points a game, 8-9 rebounds a game, and 1 and a half blocks a game, with the consistent potential to explode for a helluva lot more every now and then. Depending on what you expected when we made the trade, that is either a satisfying or worrying prediction. I personally would be happy with that kind of production. A lot of people have conceived of the Bosh/O'Neal tandem as a "twin towers" scenario with two legitimate superstars. I think of them more as being one superduperstar paired with one former star that's regressed into being a very good complimentary 2nd option (if he's up to it). What are your thoughts?
yeah, and aged drob is a pretty good comparison really. solid rebounding, scoring, and blocking shots. i think he's going to get better. i was confident that he'd be an impact player for us and he's proving me right. he and bosh will form more and more synergies as they get used to each other. we gave up a lot to get him but i'm glad we did. 16.5 and 8.5 with 1.5 swats sounds about right to me. a big part of the trade for the raps hasn't seen the light of day. i'm thinking jawai needs surgery. best wishes.
He can put up 1.5ppg and 1.3rpg. it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the win loss columns of the raps and the average point differential.
