You're in Neil's shoes...

He certainly doesn't have the scorer's mentality of Klay Thompson, but I can see a senario where Nic could average ~17 ppg. The only thing holding him back is his FGA/G. He only average 10.0 FGA/G last season because he defers to Aldridge (20.6 FGA/G), Lillard (15.9 FGA/G) and Matthews (12.3 FGA/G). But, Nick had a higher TS% than any of those guys (OK, Wes had basically the same TS%).

On last years's second unit, Mo dominated the ball (9.1 FGA/G). This year's second unit will feature Steve Blake, a pass first PG. Last year, when Nic played with the second unit, he was a facilitator - basically playing the PG role. If Nic plays significant minutes alongside Blake on the second unit, his FGA/G and scoring should both go up. Enough to average 17 ppg? Maybe not, but I could certainly see him in the 16 - 16.5pg range.

BNM

 

I wouldn't trade any of the starters. Nico does the intangibles on the court and always makes the right pass to our frontcourt players. He was a big part of Rolo's offensive numbers going up last season. Both Wes and Nico are important pieces to the puzzle and getting scorers who need the ball isn't improving the team. Mo looked only for his own shot and didn't distribute the ball so our bench last season was cold or just ignored. Nic makes guys better around him. Wes is a warrior. I want him guarding James Hardin.

 

I like Wes, but goddamn if he isn't the most overrated player on our roster. His defense isn't that great, and his offense is ridiculously streaky.

 

To me Wes is not that streaky at all on offense nor is he overrated. His weakness has always been his ball handling and he's admittedly working on that and finishing in traffic. Wes and Nico are two way players. Hardin is not a two way player. Compare Hardin money to Wes money and I'll take Wes at the two

 

Wes is extremely streaky. I disagree with that statement completely.

 

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/stats/_/id/4032/wesley-matthews

 

And? Should I just throw out a random link as well?

 

This one is even better, http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/players/281-wesley-matthews
If you notice, his shooting efficiency last season was above the avg for 2 guards and almost all his stats were above the avg and increased every year. How this translates to streaky is hard for me to understand but hey...I'm not a stat guy. These guys, however, are

 

I rarely post links but reading your post just did a quick search for a sketch of Wes and his efficiency and those are what I found.

 

Do you realize that he was scorching hot for the first 1/3 of the season when our team was unbeatable? After that he slowly started to come back down to earth and level out, but he was on fire for a good couple months before the All-Star break. Wes is like that. He really wasn't very good offensively in the playoffs.

 

The starters come playoff time were gassed, had to log huge minutes to win 54 games. Playing defense for that many minutes over 82 games takes it's toll. Dame talked about it recently. Tired legs make shots fall short. We didn't have bench balance and that's another stat..minutes played last year if you check the chart, Wes had about a bucket every 4 minutes he was on a basketball court no matter how he got them as well as guarding the West's best 2 guards night in and out....ironman..I love the guy

 

Every fucking team has to play the same number of minutes ... and the Blazers weren't playing that much defense

 

I disagree..Duncan, Parker and Ginobli sat out entire games (didn't even travel to Miami once) and most of the regular season played 20 or so minutes. Our starters played more minutes than most teams. Dame and Mo were defensive sieves last season but I don't lay that on Wes or Nico

 

Duncan, Parker and ginobili play less minutes because they're a thousand years old.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

They still didn't play the same minutes and starters from across the league generally don't come close to the minutes ours played last season. This season I don't expect it to be the same

 

Not saying he's available but DeRozen would be a perfect fit with this core at SG.

He's not really an ISO guy like I want but he got to the line more than any SG in the League other than James Harden.

 

I love Wes. That said, I'm with nate. Jr Smith shot .394 from three. That's really good. But, the guy would make six threes one night and zero the next. He's super streaky. Not saying that wes is as streaky as JR but it just goes to show that percentage over a season doesn't show if players are streaky or not.

This vid in kind of interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLmBLqAZhKI&list=UUSpvjDk06HLxBaw8sZw7SkA&index=4

 

Wes is unstoppable when he's on, but he's extremely one dimensional when he's off. He can't really drive, he can't really create his own shot, other than that step back three. I just feel with Nic being inconsistent as a scorer, it really hurts us to have two guys in the starting lineup who don't consistently score every night.

 

To me the beauty of an unselfish team is that guys don't need to be the leading scorer every night. They make the extra pass. The Spurs do this, the last championship Pistons team did it. They look at the team as one entity instead of a collection of individuals that get their stats win or lose. Wes and Nic are unique in this aspect of the game. Other two guards that score more than Wes usually don't have a scoring pt guard. Blake is going to find Nic and Wes much more than Dame or Mo did. Balance and depth are underrated. Sometimes Ginobli is a streaky shooter but he's a winner. Someone asked John Lennon why they didn't fire George Harrison and hire Eric Clapton and the answer was, George fits better. Wes fits better

 

Wes needed to add one main thing to his offensive repertoire and that's taking the ball to the basket and finishing in traffic. If he does that, he would have a very well rounded offensive game. He's already a very good outside shooter and as last season progressed showed an improved ability to take his man to the post and make turnaround jumpers, especially against smaller defenders or poor defenders (Harden).
I agree his defense is slightly overrated. He was our 3rd best defender in the starting lineup which isn't saying much with the way Lillard and Aldridge played defense last year. His defense on Harden was incredible, though, and he's by no means a liability on defense. He's a very solid one-on-one defender and has an OK understanding of team defense.