Who started calling him D.B. Hooper, that's hilarious... His line looks ridiculous; let's push this a few months. If Toronto Mans turns into a 6-8 Jamal Crawford I would be pretty happy about it TBH.
I've become a Banton believer. He was good last year when the team was losing and half the players were out due to injury. But this year he's performing at a high level with the team winning games. Here's some fun stats: He's increased his scoring per 36 every year, and is at career highs for Ast/36, Stl/36, FG%, and 3P% He's second on the team in PER - He's second on the team in WS/36 - He's second on the team in BPM - And he's 1st on the team in VORP - I'm not saying he's an all-star or anything, but I think he's proven he deserves some solid rotation minutes if not even starting. I think the Blazers best unit is: - D Banton - S Sharpe - T Camara - J Grant - R Williams III That's a solid balance of offense and defense. I think the Blazers found themselves a diamond in the rough. Let's get DB Hooper more playing time!
Agreed, that is the best 5 man unit, although I wouldn't start Timelord since he has to sit B2B and limit his minutes. This would be the rotation I'd like to see; Banton - Scoot Sharpe Camara - Rupert Grant - Deni Clingan - Timelord
Billups simply has to give him 30 min a night. Shae, DB, Scoot, Tamara all need 30+. Klingon, Rupert, Murray 20 or so.
Scoot should not be in that first group - dude isn't an NBA level player at all right now. I'd still leave him in the rotation and depending on game flow maybe he gets to that 30 minutes for some games but he shouldn't be guaranteed anything until his play improves. Also if DB and Shae are getting 30mpg its going to be hard to also get Scoot there... I'd set the first two with bigger roles first for now. If Scoot play gets closer to Banton level then re-evaluate, but right now he is clearly the inferior player.
I am a Banton fan. I like having that taller PG. However, I am curious to see what happens when teams apply pressure late in games who have scouted him. Granted few PGs can handle a double team so there always needs to be 2 other players on the court that can help out (Shae, Deni, or Simons) So maybe he is best as the secondary ball handler and not the starting PG that a few are wanting. I guess there is only one way to find out.
With Sharpe, Deni, Rupert, etc I think we're pretty good using a team approach to pass and break any of that pressure. We don't have any Aminu wing types that can't dribble which makes this much easier to solve. I agree that it is something to monitor. If its becomes an area opponents are exploiting then we can get Scoot extra minutes or such. OKC might be the best team at applying pressure and forcing steals, especially now that they go small with Chet injured, so we can see how this looks tomorrow.
people associate banton with last season's cynical, dire tankfest, and it is taking a very long time to cleanse their palates of that.
It's funny that everybody keeps saying "TRADE TIMELORD NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE" when it's Banton who's literally an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.
