Matthews can shoot. Aldridge can shoot. Miller can shoot out to a point. Why fixate on one player that doesn't have three point range? Is someone not a shooter if they can't hit a three? What if they can hit just from within three point range, are they not a shooter?
You did read the part about "one guard" being able to drop into a double-team, right? One bad perimeter shooting guard is all it takes to allow the player defending him to sag into the lane. That a fairly basic approach to playing defense on a bad shooter; not exactly complex stuff, here.
A defender can only "sag" on the same side. If you isolate Roy in the post on the opposite side from Miller, no defender is going to leave Miller completely alone to go across the court to double Roy. Miller is going to score a ton of easy baskets, either on mid-range shots or attacking the hoop, if he has no defender on him.
Defensive rotations aren't allowed? Miller is a terrible outside shooter. Let's not pretend that isn't a weakness. Sagging, by the way, isn't the same thing as not defending someone.
Of course it's a spacing issue. That's the point. Less space in the lane because more space can be allowed between Miller and a defender. As I posted, this isn't anything complex. Whether you think Roy's general opinion is correct is one thing, but sagging off of bad shooters happens at every level of basketball. Hell, it happens in pick-up games.
They are, but offensive schemes are allowed. You can post Roy on one side with Batum/Matthews and Aldridge, and have Miller on the weak side. There's no one for Miller's defender to sag off onto. His defender can either choose to guard him or not. Who's pretending that? Every player on the roster has a weakness. I'm disputing your long-held belief that Miller is incompatible with Roy due to his weakness. I agree. If you read my post, I was saying that by putting Miller on the other side of the key from Roy, Miller's defender wouldn't be able to sag off onto Roy. He'd have to leave Miller entirely if he wanted to double Roy. Leaving your man entirely is the same thing as not defending someone.
Great. We agree. Except for the opposite side argument, because Miller's defender can still rotate off of him. The second Roy gets the ball, the defender can double Roy, no matter if Miller is sitting in the opposite corner or not. At that point, passing the ball around the perimeter out of the double team to try and beat the defensive rotation is a standard counter by the offense. Meaning, if executed properly, the ball ends up with Miller having basically an uncontested 3-point shot. In your scenario, wouldn't the Blazers be better served having somebody who can shoot on the weak side, in this hypothetical world where the offense runs through Roy in the post. It sure doesn't seem like a very good use of Andre Miller's strengths to me.
Ideally, a guy who can nail threes would be great. But unless we're talking about a star point guard, which is what it would take to have Miller's strengths plus a great three point shot, a "shooter" to replace Miller would cost the team his other strengths, which I think are a real benefit to the team, especially in a world where Roy can't isolate, break down the defense and find others with passes. Roy has a post game, but it's not so great that I can envision a good/great offense built around him isolating in the post each time down. On the occasions that Roy posts up, if the defense employs a rotation to double him, only the most disciplined defenses will leave no opportunities for Roy to hit someone during the rotation, as defenders are moving around. Even in the case of a very disciplined rotation, leading to passing around the perimeter, the person who ends up with it (Miller in this case) doesn't have to let fly with an uncontested three. He can, instead, drive baseline uncontested. Defenders moving over to contest his shot at the hoop will create opportunities for any of the other players to be open and take the shot. The essential point is that you only put a shooter directly "above" the player posting up, which places his defender in quandary (sag down or play his man tight). As long as you don't put a non-shooter directly above the posting player (i.e. Miller) you create a chain reaction for the defense that good passing can exploit, even if every player on the team is not a shooter.
