Yea I never listen to courtside. I just get the wrap up here. Mike Rice is pretty smart about basketball when he wants to be. Most folks don't realize he is just joking around most of the time, and have a hard time telling between when he is cracking a joke and dead pan serious.
Don't get caught up in the trap of defining a certain role the PG plays. The NBA has evolved... I totally agreed with KP when he talked about that. Its about players and about fit and chemistry and how the compliment each other. Jerryd does what Roy needs, and Roy does what Jerryd needs. Those true PGs are a dying breed. Even the amazing PGs like Paul and Williams score a lot, and the ones like Devin Harris, Tony Parker, Derrick Rose, etc... that is exactly the type Bayless is going to turn into. Damn, it would be funny to see how angry you'd get after watching Devin Harris on our team for a week... you'd be saying the same thing... "He is a short SG!... we need to trade for Chris Paul!" Jerryd is averaging like 5apg over the last 4 if i remember correctly.
I really hate this argument, btw - if people hated JJ because he made mistakes they should loath Sergio - whose best TOV% (19.9) was worst than JJ's worst (19.6) - both last year, btw. Of course, there was the argument that with more minutes Sergio would be better - which was proven to be wrong - Sergio is currently at a mind-boggling bad 23.2% TOV%. JB, btw - is only at 17.2% - he takes care of the ball much better than our esteemed "true" PG.
This does seem to be a popular view - that Roy will be our REAL PG. But really? Not to sound like a broken record, but everybody thinks they're a PG and very few people actually are. Michael Jordan averaged a triple double when Doug Collins made him the PG. But there's a reason he junked that idea. Tons of tall guards have started out as PGs but only flourished when moved to 2G (Steve Smith, Penny Hardaway, Dwyane Wade et. al. The Clippers were "grooming" Brent Barry to be their PG of the future, or so it was said when he was a rookie). Roy is an exceptional scorer, but only has good court vision by the standards of SGs. Of course he wants the ball in his hands, and we want him to be of the mindset that he's the best player to have it. He said he didn't really enjoy playing alongside Chris Paul because he was "off the ball". Well, I'm sure Iverson said the same thing when Larry Brown moved him off the ball, but it was exactly the best thing to do. Roy is a great SG. Let him be an SG. Bayless is a great "microwave" player off the bench. Let him be that. He's the guard equivalent of Outlaw - it just doesn't work when they start Outlaw, because no matter how well-meaning he is and however much he wants to stay within the team concept, it just doesn't come as naturally to him as scoring. If you want to start one of our guards currently on the bench, I say start Rudy. He's got more PG instincts than either Roy or Bayless. It's just a shame his ball handling isn't that great.
If Outlaw was as good of a scorer as he is now as a rookie, and a defender in the mold of Bayless as a rookie, then wow... that would be awesome in my opinion.
Well it has worked well, imo. Roy seems to enjoy it also. Jerryd seems to be the guy finishing games recently with Roy.
In Sergio's defense (look out MARIS) I think a more generally valuable statistic is A/TO ratio ... now if you can get both a high A/TO ratio and a low TOV% you are gold. However on this team that plays a slow pace and with Nate who seems to value taking care of the ball above all else (hard to argue with that, since turnovers usually lead to easy transition buckets the other way) TOV% is probably much more important than it would be otherwise. Bottom line: I think Sergio's gambling, high risk, high reward style of play is just a god awful fit with Nate and with the style of our lone all-star. Put him in the right system (Dallas, New York, etc.) and he'd probably be a decent backup.
Well that's your problem, you're stuck in the player position mindset, that a point guard must have court vision, and must be a great passer. A certain skill set that is essential to being labeled a PG or a sG. It's a distorted view that is not true at all, especially if you want to look at the rest of the NBA. According to your definition: Is Derek Fisher a "point" guard? No. Is Devin Harris a "point" guard? No. Is Russell Westbrook a "point" guard? No. Is Jameer Nelson a "point" guard? No. Is Mo Williams a "point" guard? No. Is Rodney Stuckey a "point" guard? No. Is Tony Parker a "point" guard? No. Is Derrick Rose a "point" guard? No. The list goes on and on. The best way to construct a team, like someone said before, is to just get players who have skillsets that compliment one another, and I feel Bayless complements our SL very well.
Roy isn't this, Bayless isn't that ... for all of the comments about what our players are or aren't it's pretty hard to argue with the second highest offensive efficiency in the league -- this team is not struggling to be productive on offense and that is the ONLY thing that matters to me, not whether or not we have a true pass first point, or a true off-ball shooting guard. Right now I'd say we're on pace to have a 6'6" "guard" who can defend wings, and a 6'3" "guard" who can defend the point, how the offense flows or works is pretty irrelevant as long as the job is getting done ... not to say that there aren't areas that need improvement (better ball movement, less iso stuff, and more scoring from the low block would be nice) but I'm all about the result and not so much the process if it's actually producing a positive outcome. Our defense on the other hand ...
I would agree with you on offense - but JB is a much better PG defender than Rudy - and that's why it would not work. I still maintain that if you look at Portland's offensive efficiency - having Roy and Blake as your starters is not a problem - even if Blake plays a lot like a SG when Roy initiates the offense. This team is scary efficient on offense - and would probably be just as much with two people that can break down the defense and attack the rim from the dribble. The problem this team has is on PG defense - and JB is more than sufficient in this role - and he is the best of the PG prospects we have on the roster.
I disagree. A/TO is worthless if a team plays you right and forces you to shoot when you are a bad shooter/scorer. I would agree if you would do (Assists+FGA:Made)/(TOV+FGA:Missed) But since Sergio is not a high percent shooter (or if we want to look at getting to the FT and scoring from there - as shown by TS%) - he fails in this regard when a team plays him right - Steve Nash also has a bad TOV% - but his TS% is high - so overall - he is a great offensive player. Sergio's high-TOV% and high assists would be a great thing if he could score efficiently by himself - since he can not - his high TOV% is an issue. He would have the same issues in other teams, not just Portland. Probably a valid point - but I still argue that if his TS% was high - his high TOV% would have been less of an issue if he could score efficiently. He is probably a decent backup here as well (I still think that a Bayless/Blake PG line-up is better than Bayless/Sergio - but Sergio is a decent backup - it's just that Blake would be a great back-up) - my only point was that the claim that people hated JJ was because of his turn-overs is questionable - because Sergio got a free pass from everyone while having more turn-overs even last year.
Kevin Pritchard is on record saying Charlotte drafted D.J. because they thought that's who Portland wanted and tried to force a trade, but KP told them he wasn't interested. He also said that Bayless was the teams #1 A target in the draft (obviously Rose and Beasley were unattainable). One of the major reasons Bayless fell is because he refused to work out for teams out of the top 4.
The "true" point guard is a rare breed of player that doesn't come around often. There really aren't many in the league currently. That being the case, the chance of a team having one is small, so they have to make due with what they have available. Of Portland's current options, I believe Bayless to be the best. This is on the basis of attacking the rim and on the ball defense. Is it optimal? Of course not. We wouldn't even be having this discussion of we had a young Nash or Kidd on our team. But we don't, and chances are very, very good we aren't ever going to. Here is my list of players who are true point guards that are currently playing: Nash, Kidd, Williams, Billups and Paul. No one else is even close. That doesn't mean that teams without these players can't be successful or that there haven't been awesome point guards that are not "true" points. Isiah Thomas was amazing, but not really a true point guard. Neither was Earl Monroe, Tiny Archibald, Dennis Johnson, or Gary Payton. Rose isn't a true point guard, but he sure kicks ass. Parker is a load to handle, but isn't a true point. It is on the coach and gm to build teams and systems around the players available. And I think Bayless fits what Nate and KP are trying to build. Further, I think he fits as the starter.
I don't think the idea is really that first proposition. The idea is more along the second line of yours I quoted. Roy won't be "the real point guard." Roy has above average court vision and passing for a shooting guard. Bayless may have below average court vision and passing for a point guard. I'm not convinced that each player needs to be the platonic version of their position, so long as the "right amounts" of passing, scoring, rebounding and defense are there. In terms of court vision and passing, if Roy's above-average-ness at his position makes up for Bayless' below-average-ness at his, that seems like a fine model to work with. I think distribution of "point guard" duties over both guards can work fine. Neither Bayless or Roy may be ideal point guards, but if they can both play-make to some extent, I'm willing to believe that that will be equivalent to the "traditional" model of a point guard who largely handles all the play-making duties and a shooting guard who doesn't do much distribution. I don't think who specifically does what is the key. I think the key is that the team, overall, has all the things it needs. In an extreme case, if the team gets 10 RPG from its shooting guard and its power forward gets 4 RPG, I don't think that's a problem--all that matters is that the team gets all the rebounding it needs. In the case of the Blazers, I think the team will get all the passing it needs, as Bayless and Roy are probably at least average for NBA backcourts in terms of passing and Aldridge and Oden are probably above average for NBA front courts in terms of passing. Not having a classic point guard doesn't seem like a major issue.
