As a fan, it is hard to watch Meyers. His silly fouls and subsequent look of disbelief drive me up the wall. Freeland busted his ass this summer and deserves the minutes.
Agreed that Claver has more reason to complain than Leonard. I wonder if he'll follow the Rudy/Navarro route back to Spain after this year. The main issue is that Stotts is still playing his starters too much so there just aren't that many minutes to spare.
Meyers should be playing every game until he gets at least 4 or 5 fouls. 25-30 minutes a game if the refs let him play.
LOL. No, Meyers has shown he should not be playing right now. I have not written him off, however. He is a long term project. He has at least another year to show whether he is worth extending and whether he should be groomed as a PF or a Center. Honestly, TRob isn't all that at the moment either. His decision making is pretty bad. I'd like to see how Meyers does playing PF.
As much as I am against giving up on him. I also believe he needs to earn his time. He can do this on the practice and game court. I think he is still a bit mature and I'm not sure they have the right prescription for him when it comes to a big man coach. I think the right coach could get it out of him.
I guarantee that Meyers will get minutes. Lopez and Freeland will both miss games due to injury over the course of the season. It's up to Meyers to make the most of those minutes and show that he can contribute to the team.
Once 82games.com starts posting their stats for the current season, it will be very interesting to see how Meyers' net production stats compare this season to last. Last year his PER was 12.5, but his opponents' PER was 17.8., for a net PER = -5.3. He scored 15.0 pts/48, but allowed his opponents to score 20.7 pts/48, for a net of -5.7 pts/48. So far, the sample size is miniscule, but his PER is at 16.5 and he's scoring 18.0 pts/48. I have no idea what his opponent's PER and pts/48 are this season, but it will be interesting to see if he's actually made any progress in narrowing the gap between his own production and that of his opponents. BNM
Great example of how little value advanced stats can have. Meyers has been terrible this year and his PER is far better than Freeland. Stats of PER for an opponent are an indirect stat. NBA teams don't play defense 1vs1, its within a team concept so its difficult to capture that in a stat. Those stats can start to be interesting for a player playing tons of minutes over a large potion of a season but for a 3rd string player they are nearly worthless. Very often we see 3rd string players leading the team in those types of stats.
Agreed on the point about sample size. That's why 82games.com doesn't even begin publishing these stats until later in the season. At this point they are pretty meaningless for everyone. Last season, Leonard played 30% of the team's minutes at center. That's a significant enough sample size to be relevant. This year, playing behind Lopez, Freeland and Aldridge, his sample size may not be meaningful. We'll just have to wait and see. BNM
Probably time to start a thread about Claver, since he's played on 13 less minutes than Leonard this year. Who would you have drafted over Claver?
I don't have a problem with Claver. I have a problem with people overrating him. I think he's fine for a 11th man.
Easy, the same player I wanted to draft at the time - DeJuan Blair. Averaging 8.7ppg and 7.4rpg for Dallas in 20.1 mpg with a PER = 23.2 and TRB% = 20.5%. Has played 5583 career minutes with a 17.2 career PER compared to Claver at 815 career minutes and career PER = 7.0. It was a no-brainer pick then and still is. BNM
