In retrospect I'm fine with the way McMillan handled Oden. Instead of trying to force it at the beginning of the season McMillan made Oden prove he could handle a bigger role on offense. Once Oden started showing signs of improvement, Oden started getting more touches and his confidence was rising with every game. It was almost perfect. If Greg didn't get hurt he could very well be averaging 15/10 right now, which is what he was averaging in his last 7 games before he went down to injury. The scary part is he only played over 30 minutes in one of those games, and that was 30:04. If Oden stays healthy he'll be a beast, no doubt in my mind.
We were 52-30 last year without Miller. We're 28-21 this year with him. See, I can make dumb arguments too!
Considering the players from that 52-win team lost to injuries, that argues even more strongly in Miller's favour. Well, you certainly proved capable of undermining your own position.
Wow. Just like your analysis of Miller, and PG being an "overrated position," you're wrong. We were 54-28 last year. Not that that has anything to do with this year. The league changes.
It is an overrated position. Look at the championship teams over the past 20 years and tell me how many of them had great point guards. You win in the NBA by being good in the paint.
If you can win multiple championships with Derek Fisher at point guard that in itself proves it's an overrated position.
How many had great centers? The Bulls, Spurs and Celtics didn't, nor the most recent edition of the Lakers. Only the Rockets and the Shaq-Kobe Lakers. Does that mean having good or great centers is valueless? Of course not. The argument "How many championship teams of the last X years had Y?" is a terrible way to evaluate the value of positions, because championship teams are a small sample size...a few amazing players dominate the that sample size, and it's random what position they happen to be. In the '80s, you had great point guards (Magic/Thomas) taking home 7 of 10. In the '90s, you had great wings (Jordan/Pippen) taking a majority. It's having the best talent that wins championships, not having talent at specific positions.
The top 3 point guards over the past few years are pretty much universally recognized as D-Will, CP3, and Nash. How many championships have they won?
There is a famous (infamous?) story about Oscar Robertson early in his career. The Big O played on the Royals with Jerry Lucas - a great rebounder who could also shoot. Lucas complained about Robertson ignoring him on offense. Oscar's response? "You want the ball, get it off the offensive glass." Late in his career, Robertson wound up with the Bucks, and grudgingly learned to feed the ball to Kareem....and finally got a ring.
