Free Agent Hi, I'm the Realist! Here are some of my takes on the team

Career so far Damian A/M is .66 , way below what a good PG does.

Mike Conley on the other hand is moving up, it now nearly .9. A good coach could push him into the good territory above 1.
Like Rod Strickland's when he was a Blazer was almost 1.3 or Dave Twardzik at around 1.4. Even Terry Porter had a 1.1
Damian Plays the position like a shooting guard on offense but not on defense. Ouch!

 

err, he's gone you know. Perhaps Damian could have help that a bit when the big fella was here, develop a Pick n roll game with him, like Rudy did or the other guard that;s gone.
The times I saw Damian try, he was using a fucking bounce pass that finished on the leg of the big guy. Wonder why no one has told him, you have to get the ball up to the big guys where they have shot of catching the ball in rhythm to the hoop? Coach Gill would have jumped all over his ass the first time he bounce the ball to a big guy on the move.

 

Maybe if LMA knew how to roll... You said you want a PG who knows how to play the position, but obviously didn't care about having a PF who didn't know how to play the position.
Also, you're full of shit regarding the bounce pass and the P/R. It's a perfectly acceptable way to run the P/R.

 

You punished him already. Bring back Realist!

 

It work pretty damn well when he played with Rudy. Oh yeah, Andre Miller did a fair job too.

"Also, you're full of shit regarding the bounce pass and the P/R." Well now I guess you never
were advised differently by a coach. You can see why that would be if you watch one of the few times
Damian ran the play with Lamarcus, or Leonard.

I can think of two coaches that would have a fit over doing it, Slats Gill and Pete Newell. Personal experience
there along with the ripped parts. Dr. Jack didn't like it either but that might be because Walton didn't like it.
Watch some video of Rudy/Lamarcus and then some of Damian/Lamarcus doing the P & R, and then get back to me.

 

When LaMarcus was catching lobs from Miller, Camby and sometimes Rudy he was finishing hard at the rim. It seemed like since Stotts came a long he was far less aggressive, he went up soft so much near the rim 2013- and basically became a blackhole from 15-18 who'd get hot here and there. Also LaMarcus was never a great roller because he's always been a shit pick player. He made up for it earlier in his career with his athleticism and aggressive play.

It's hard to dissect Dame's game fully when the first three years of his career he was playing with the 2nd best distributing forward in the NBA and a player who focused on getting himself better looks than getting his teammates better looks (Mr. I'll half ass set a screen and then pop out for a long two while you get hounded by two defenders....).

Dame will never be a Steve Nash or a Jason Kidd, that's not his game but with a team built around him his assist numbers will go up as will his usage. What we will see will be very similar to what we saw with mid-2000s AI in Philly.

 

That video of Nash is exactly what I am speak of. When Nash bounces the ball to the big, the big is not on the move and even so, Nash bangs the ball down so it bounces up to him.
You can't get the ball up in a forward bounce pass, and it sure screws up the timing to get him a low pass that he must bend down to get and then back up to the rim in one step on the move.
See Nash get the ball UP when the big is in the move to the Rim.

Fuck when he standing there, you can roll it to him. That is neat the way Nash can suck the defense to him and put the ball down hard for the open big to get it and continue to the hoop.
I covet the sight of such play.

 

We'd all covet one of the top 5 passers in NBA history. BUT you can't slight Dame as a player because he isn't.

 

Nash did not start out great. Hell, it took him years to become good with progress every year. Love to see progress.

 

It was .161 in the playoffs, not .116.

And there's a good bit of evidence his 3pt shot was being thrown off by injury in the 2nd half of the season, and his attempts form 3 did in fact go down during that time as he tried adjusting. Combined with his big strides in scoring the ball in the paint and I'd say there is a lot to look forward to from a healthy Dame offensively this year.

What's A/M? Assists per what?

 

That's the thing, Dame was never asked to create much for others as he had one of the best distributing SFs in the league and they ran the offense through LA a lot. Even with that, he still had over 6 assists a game.
Now though, distribution will be a focus of his and the coaching staffs, as he'll be attacked by defenses every night. Hell need to take avantage of the attention by distributing the ball well (much like Westbrook did during that insane run last year). If he improves on that and his defense, he'll become a top 10 player. I really think this is the year he'll leap to superstardom, and it'll be because of little tweaks and improvements to the way he plays. I expect him to get 25 and 8 while raising his percentages.

 

You're really gonna have to find something else to gripe about. This shtick is getting old...

 

It's the bullshit stat that he uses to bash Dame regularly. Assists per Missed shot? GTFO.

 

No matter who the player is, there's always going to be someone who hates them.

 

His "reason" is serious bullshit though. And, it's the ONLY thing he can come up with. Next he'll say defense but his fave PG Nash....

 

Nash might be the most overrated MVP of all time. He was a system point guard. The Mavs didn't do shit with him.

 

Lillard did indeed go downhill from his great rookie year, especially in clutch shooting. Reasons I've often given:

1. He started spending most of his energy on defense, but to little avail.

2. He had to share the ball with other passers--Batum, Mo Williams, etc.

3. He was more motivated as a scared rookie with sharp edges, and is now a compromised conformist, like all veterans.

I often posted that his percentages would increase if he could hog the ball...in other words, if Aldridge and Batum disappeared. We now need a SF who is 1) a star shooter but not 2) a ball-hogger like Aldridge and Batum.

 

Some of the things you guys say about him make absolutely no sense...

 

I think you're remembering the rare exceptions when it comes to Rudy/LMA lobs. Sure, they happened occasionally, but it was never something that was consistently used or developed. My guess is that it happened fewer than 20 times. Also, if memory serves, they weren't P/Rs, they were lobs when Rudy would drive from the wing and LMA would get behind the defense.
As someone else already pointed out it's hard to run a P/R when the big doesn't know how to set a pick (or how to roll). The onus is on the big to set the play up correctly - something LMA never did.
But it's good to see you backpedaling on the use of the bounce pass. Again, if LMA set a decent pick then Lillard would have more space in which to properly throw the pass. But because LMA set shit picks Lillard had to squeeze passes through tenacious double-teams and a shitty passing lane "created" by LMA not knowing how or when to roll. I suppose we'll find out this season whether Dame can effectively run a P/R now that he has a couple bigs who know how to fill their role as the big.
I'm not even a Dame homer - I think he's an average starting PG. But he's an above average player. And he plays his position better than LMA played his.