0.5" less barefoot height. Less length and hops, more weight. I'd hope to see him get some PF run in TO's absence. STOMP
Exactly. I am anxious to see what Dante brings. When one window closes another one opens....... . Josh Smith and Joe Smith are two different types of PF's. Tomorrow could be interesting if he gets any minutes.
I think Dante can play either the 3 or the 4 on offense, and play it well. I don't think he can play either on defense, though. That's why I worry. We haven't seen him play enough for this to be definitive, so there's room for optimism.
I think pinning our hopes to a rookie taken in the second round is a bit of fool's gold ... this isn't to say I don't hope he'll be productive, but counting on it sure seems like a bad formula for success.
I do not think there is much pinning our hopes on him. He is going to get consistent spot minutes at the backup PF position - and he should be fine there. Yes, he is a rookie - but he is a 4 years college guy with high-IQ, toughness and the ability to bury an open jumper. That's all we really need from him, given that we also have J-Howard on the roster. It's a shame that we do not have Travis around - because he has a unique role on this team - but I suspect this will show us a lot more of JB as a scoring target off the bench - which is not a bad thing. The time is now to thrust JB into a more prominent role to see him develop. We will be fine.
I call bullcrap on the folks saying Dante is too small to play the 4. He is strong, and he is very knowledgeable about playing defense. He is as tall as Buck Williams was, and Buck was one of the best position defenders ever at PF. I am not saying Dante is Buck, but you can't write him off so fast.
Did Cunningham have injury concerns, too? I missed those. But if Blair were an NBA center, which is what he played predominantly at Pitt, he would have gone higher, irrespective of his knees. But he's a power forward. Just like Dante is not a power forward. Just like Webster was not and is not a shooting guard. I was one of the few people to see that in him as a rookie, and I'm similarly confident about Cunningham's position. He won't play much, and if he plays PF it will simply because there will be no one else to do so. If he ever EARNS playing time, it will be as a SF. Ed O.
Again, explain to me why Carl Landry is a PF but Dante is not? Explain to me why Nate used Outlaw, who seems like a prototypical SF as a PF? Dante plays like Landry, and to a point like Outlaw - he is a smaller PF that can shoot from the outside. Like Outlaw he is a pretty bouncy jumper without explosive speed, He (like Outlaw to a point) does not really have the handle you would rather have on a wing, but he has the mass and the toughness to do some battle on the inside taking advantage of his speed compared to some of the guys that will guard him or he will have to guard, while giving them some length/weight. He played PF before and seems like he will continue. The comparison to Webster is wrong, imho - the thing that moved Webster to SF from SG is his lack of handle, not his size (Joe Johnson is a SG that is as big as Webster, same as T-Mac) - The opposite is true for Dante. His relative lack of handle will ensure that he will be used most as a PF, not as a SF.
Carl Landry has a different game than Cunningham. Dante moves well off the ball and he's much more agile defensively. Just watch Carl Landry play and he's a PF... he doesn't move well laterally on defense, but he's got a great base... just very very different from Cunningham. Outlaw played PF because he was so explosive offensively and because that explosiveness wasn't as effective against smaller, quickly players. I disagree. We'll see. It might take a while for Dante to play SF, but if/when he's still out of the rotation in spite of the lack of options at PF, hopefully you will begin to see the light. Ed O.
You know what this teams needs badly - a consolidation trade. All this depth is going to kill our chemistry. BNM
If we need Dante, I don't think Nate should hesitate to put him in since they did put him on the roster for a reason, thinking he could actually play. But right now, he's behind Juwan in the depth chart at backup PF.
You probably follow the team even closer than I do. What was your recollection of summer league? My recollection was: 1) Him not playing well defensively. 2) An assistant coach and an announcer agreed that he couldn't really guard nba 4s. Again, I'm willing to give him a shot, but he'll actually have to show it first before I believe otherwise.
