LaMarcus is already the most talented player on the team, and the most valuable. It is not apparent however due to the fact that Nate pretty much ignores him in deference to Brandon.
LMA is inconsistent. When he learns how to bring the same intensity every night, and dominates like we know he can, then I will maybe concede that he is the most talented player on the team. I'm not willing to do that at this time.
I think he may be better than Roy in the long run- but there's no way he's had a single season better than Roy's thus far. He still needs to be able to rebound decently, scores less than Roy and isn't better defensively thus far.
Dude you smokin' crack. Roy is our franchise player, and the best player on this team. I implore you to prove otherwise, and stay away from the opinions of how the coach did/didn't do this or that. I'd love to see LMA crossover the perimeter D, and go right to left for a lay-up, over three defenders, or launch a buzzer beater from half-court, or shred the defense 1 on 3, consistently. But he doesn't, Roy does, and does things like that consistently every game.
If Miller delivers the ball to the big men, both Oden and Aldridge stand to have breakout years. Yes, even LMA. Brandon has *always* deferred, which is why he rarely "takes over" a game until the 4th quarter. He gives everyone else a chance, almost all game long, to excel. This is a character trait which, IMMHO, makes him uber-great. Then, if it is time to win the game, Roy shows up. If Roy keeps this up (highly likely), and Miller delivers the ball, Roy will have a statistically less impressive year because the team will put other teams away earlier in the game, and Roy won't have to hog the ball to win the game. Aldridge and Oden will look better. But come crunch time (at least this season), nobody will have any doubt who gets the ball. iWatas
Yeah ... I think there's a hint of truth in here; LMA is certainly the team's best two way player and has a a wide array of skills offensively, and without him you could argue that the team would have been just as bad off had they lost Brandon for any long stretches last year. And then you lost me. LMA probably has the highest upside of anybody on the team (even over Greg), but he still hasn't shown enough consistency throughout a whole season to warrant making him the number one option, but he does always end seasons incredibly well and if he can bring that from the jump, maybe he reaches the same level of prominence on offense that Brandon has. Either way Nate leaned on him plenty heavily at the defensive end of the court and he still ended up with a usage rate of 22% which is awfully high considering he's not a ball handler.
I wouldnt be surprised at all to see LaMarcus be our MVP this season. With Miller, Webster, and Rudy... I think Roy wont have to carry the scoring load as much and can be more of a Scottie Pippen type player who does more of the little things to help us win. He'll still be a stud and probably average around 20 pts, but I think LaMarcus may average more and of course grab more rebounds and block shots.
Mark it down, the single biggest benefactor of the Miller signing will be LaMarcus (followed somewhat closely by Greg). Miller is a great rebounder for his size and can initiate the break pretty quickly and LaMarcus can out run just about every big in the league. I can easily envision a 2-4 point jump in LMA's scoring average from lobs and receiving outlet passes from Miller alone.
