Blake's primary task against the Lakers was to deny Kobe the ball, so he wouldn't have to play "on ball" defense against him. I remember Blake doing a pretty good job of that at least once last year.
Yeah, I'm on that wagon as well. Travis is certainly not perfect, but he has the ice-water of an assassin while Webs seems drenched in self-doubt. If a deal had to include one or the other, I'd trade Webs before TLaw without hesitation. However, I'd trade 'em both for GWallace...
If he played the rest of the year like he did vs houston, there would be no need to look elsewhere for a SF.
I like Travis more than Webster as well. He brings a rare attribute - being able to create a shot for himself against just about anyone. Webster does not do it. He might be a better shooter than Batum - but I think that a Batum will be a better complimentary player than Webster and Travis's gift is just too rare to overlook.
I like Martell over Travis. Martell is younger and will be better at 24 than a 24 year old Travis Outlaw. Why? Martell has a better basketball IQ. Something Travis severely lacks.
We sure could use Gerald Wallace tonight. Not only does our offense suck, our defense is just as bad. No weakside help to be found.
No, it's just one measure. Quite. I said exactly the same in my post. Not a great on the ball defender. I simply think he can do more to bother an offensive player than Blake. I don't think that's a seal of approval. I think that's simply not wanting to burn Roy's energy by making him try to defend one of the best scorers in NBA history. Bryant is going to get his 30+ regardless. Roy might make him work harder for it, but at the cost of less offensive output.
If we're going to run a system with Roy dominating the ball, so be it. Thus the attributes in a PG are getting the ball down the break (Blake sucks), defending other PG's (Blake = maybe mediocre), and hitting an open shot (Blake is also mediocre). Let's just play Bayless and Sergio, who cares. If Rudy and Roy are both getting 32 a game anyways that only leaves 32 between those two guys, I trust them each for 16 mpg. This year is our last learning year (and our consolidation year). Let Bayless, Sergio, and Oden learn together...bringing in Wallace is perfect. And he'd be a fine 4 against almost every 4 in the league (how many teams have two actual big guys?). We could play a mean zone with Oden, Wallace, and Batum in there. Moving Blake/Frye/Outlaw for Wallace would be risky in that we'd be relying on Martell, Bayless, and Sergio to some extent, but not that bad really. We'd see a tougher team, we wouldn't age much at all, our core would develop more cohesively, and we'd be a great defensive team almost instantly. Our second unit (Sergio/Rudy backcourt) would probably have some trouble on D but with a zone (w/Wallace, Batum, and Pryz behind them) they'd be fine and extremely exciting with steals and fast breaks. The other teams backups would be This rotation (while inexperienced) would be dynamite: Roy/Sergio (with Roy getting majority) Bayless/Rudy (with Rudy getting majority) Martell/Wallace/Batum (Martell starts for spacing) Aldridge/Wallace Oden/Pryzbilla we're probably looking at something like: Roy 34, Aldridge 34, Rudy 30, Wallace 28, Webster 28, Oden 24, Pryzbilla 24, Sergio 16, Bayless 16, Batum 6 That's a very solid rotation with pretty consistent roles and while we're inexperienced no one who's that inexperienced (Sergio/Bayless/Batum) is really relied upon for too much at all.
