Would Stephen Curry complement Brandon Roy?

yeah I agree, but I think Rudy is making our team much better this year. Brandon's awareness has been getting better from playing with Rudy (recognizing the cutter) and Brandon's starting to learn that if he cuts Rudy can reward him and make his life easier. Rudy's unselfishness and attitude is contagious and every game he affects whether his shooting is on or not with his passing, hustle, and willingness to take the big shot with the clock winding down. Championship teams stars are complimented with a couple of Rudy's IMO. And I think Rudy will look much better in a year (when Oden is more of a threat in the post, the team knows how to pass better to him, and he's gotten more used to the game), he's really doing well for a foreigner adjusting in his first year. That's been one thing I've really liked about Blake being out, Brandon and Rudy's chemistry should skyrocket.

 

Morrison tried to create everything for himself and was much more undersized at 3 than Curry is at 1 (which he couldn't play all that well w/o a 2 like Roy). Curry knows the little things and spacing much better than Morrison ever did, who was an off the dribble effective chucker. Morrison just hasn't been able to adjust his shot (slow relase) and make it higher and quicker, Curry's is already lightning fast. As for D, I don't think Curry will be as bad, but I think our guards should play a more gambling style with our bigs to back them up, Oden will learn how to stay out of foul trouble better by next year and we should be getting more fast break points off of steals. Curry can play very pesky D.

 

Do you think kirk hinshit will put us over the top? Or are you more in favor of a 14 man rotation?

 

As is, we are a jump shooting team. It IS a big deal.. we need guys to get to the rim. Roy can't be the only one doing it, and he is already taking a pounding.

You have got to be kidding. There is much more to the NBA game than offense. Defense is half the game dude... no matter what, Bayless can always fall back on that and will continue to get better at the defensive end. He is already our best guard defender.

The personality thing isn't really an issue. You don't need 15 guys on a roster that are like Brandon. Just because you have a hunch Bayless will blow up and leave this team isn't really a good reason to dump him. (see Nik's post)

 

Look, you posed a question on here, "would Curry be a complement to Roy?" People have answered it, you don't like the answers and you clearly had already made up your mind that he is just the thing missing from this team to make it complete. We get it -- most of us don't agree with it, but we get it.

Regarding your understanding of defensive schemes, gambling on defense occasionally is just fine, but is not in and of itself a defensive scheme ... and no, that would not make Greg and our other bigs less foul prone, and no Curry does not appear to have the raw physical tools that will make him a "very pesky defender."

 

1. Way to take me out of context, truly high class move there. Brandon was the first of about many reasons why it's made into a bigger deal than it should be, here's a recap: we should have more cutters, we should go to the post more, Rudy and Batum will get better, Martell will come back, and Aldridge and Oden should improve inside.

a team of ball dominant slashers isn't gonna do shit

2. complimentary skills and schemes that put players in a position to use them are more important than individual offense or defense in the NBA. Parker, Ginobli, old age Finley and Barry are all bad defenders, yet the spurs play smart and stay at home and it works. BTW Curry averages 3 steals a game. Bayless is a pesky rookie with limited minutes, give him 30 a game and more of a scoring load and his "defense" will take a hit. Give Curry a complimentary role and his defense would get better (though Bayless still has a definite edge I'll give you that)

3. We're discussing the personality thing as a hypothetical, but I appreciate your opinion that it isn't an issue. I think it might end up one, remember, everyone is always forgiving of an enthusiastic rook, but if the shots continue fans turn pretty quickly.

 

When was the last time Pritchard drafted on "raw physical tools"? I bet we'd have Tyrus Thomas on our team right now if that was his strategy. You might be able to make a case with Oden, but that's a special circumstance and centers are different than dime a dozen athletic scorers.

 

heh, nice fake correlation to what I said there, it might fool an idiot, you should go into politics

 

OK, this is ridiculous. You can say the same thing about either one. Give Bayless a complimentary role where he concentrates on D to help the team and his defense will improve. Give Curry 30 a game and more of a scoring load and his "defense" will take a hit as well.

You are right, I did. I went a re-read it and while I don't agree, I took you out of context. We really need more than 1 player getting to the rim. We only have 1 slasher on the whole team w/o Bayless. Curry isn't going to slash... he is good in college...

1. He doesn't play very good competition
2. The gameplan is about giving him the ball and letting him put up a high volume of outside shots

he simply would not be great on our team.

And finally, we can't just fill our team with soft, good guys. Every team needs competitive guys with a swagger. Just because someone has confidence and is cocky doesn't mean we should get rid of them. We need that, we need his fire. KP really didn't want off the court problems, he has said various times Bayless' attitude is EXACTLY what we need. So I think it would qualify as a KP guy as well.

PS - Nik is right about you already having your mind made up, man. It is tough because it doesn't seem you are looking at it from an objective standpoint.

I think Nic Batum was drafted because he had the potential and all the tools to be a great perimeter defender, but was really raw.

 

Never. Because he drafts on both raw physical tools and talent as considerations. Aldridge had both, Brandon had both, and Bayless had both.

You clearly never watched Bayless play for UofA at all last year, and I'll admit I've probably only seen Curry play 5 times between last year and this year, but what I saw did not look like a very good NBA prospect -- if he was quicker laterally or taller or stronger I'd say he would have a decent shot. I suspect he'll find a role as a spot up shooter on some team, but will probably never be a starter.

 

My point was that if you think Greg gets into foul trouble now, just imagine a scheme which centers on our guard's gambling for steals all the time with the hope that our bigs will step into the lane and cut off dribble penetration.

 

I'm thinking Curry will end up similar to a Daniel Gibson type.

 

What's wrong with believing that our current players can put us over the top?

Why will two years of Nash win us a championship?

What has Curry done to show that he's a better prospect than Bayless?

You're a joke. You just latch on to a couple players and won't let go. I'm glad KP is the GM and not you.

 

you're right in that I got too involved and overly aggressive with the discussion. I guess I just find hypothetical discussions the most interesting thing on message boards because general observations about the team as is I talk about while watching the game...I could work on my tact, but I don't think it's too much to ask to talk about a player fitting or not hypothetically. I just get annoyed with people who've never seen a guy play and know nothing about his skill set look at a stat sheet and make judgement calls.

That's simply the point I'm making, players who play little's defense is overrated (because they want to amke a statement), this is why a lot of young guys "play good D" then develop offense and have "no D" (Iguodala, Deng, DHarris}, guys gotta find a balance but when players become scorers too much energy goes into that and specifically their D and off-ball movement suffers a lot (BRoy is guilty of this too).

I guess I simply disagree and that's all there is to it, which is fine. I just feel like next year Rudy will be a much more effective slasher and as Aldridge and Oden learn to play off a guy driving and get space/guys learning to lob it up to them all our guys will be better drivers. I also think this is an area Webster can help us with and Batum can develop.

As far as Curry just being a volume scorer I just don't agree. This year he's had to play point and create more for himself but if a guy is hot or open he consistently does try to get them the ball and last year (as a SG) he ran around picks like crazy, never holding it more than a second before firing. Sometimes he did take guys off the dribble but most of the time he just got set and fired. His shot selection is pretty good overall but I think sometimes he has to take bail-out shots when his team is outmatched in athleticism at every position it's hard to find guys to feed, this skews his stats and makes him seem more selfish IMO.

People said Rudy was a high volume scorer in Europe at times too (before his efficiency shot up last year) but he's shown that he can blend here effectively.

I'm not saying Bayless' on-court personality is a huge problem (though with his ultra competitiveness I think if someone beats him he would make dumb mistakes to get back at them, it's his off court arrogance and demeanor I'm more concerned about. I'm not sure Roy or Curry qualify as soft guys just because they're not bodybuilders, I saw Roy get up in David West's face, Pryzbilla doesn't take Shit, and Oden will come around as he gets more comfortable. They are young.

Batum was a stat filling young well-rounded machine (who was not a scorer) playing professionally two years ago. He was a projected top 5-10 pick for a while there on draftexpress and was noted for his very high IQ and ability to blend in as a complimentary piece who lets the game "come to him". I followed the dude for years. His team in France was very cheap and let all their scorers go to have the lowest salary in his league last year and expected him to be the scorer (against a bunch of 28 year olds) on a bad team. Nic struggled a lot because his scoring wasn't all there, but he was never just a raw high potential guy, he always showed a lot of flashes of knowing how to use his athleticism in a very coordinated way. Nic slipped because of a bad situation and we got the benefit of that, but we knew we didn't need another scorer right now, more guys that blend are nice and help us get the most out of Roy, Aldridge, and Oden (eventually).

 

Booby had Aldridge to feed as well as another good swingman (right?) at a top collegiate program with great athletes next to him. Instead he chucked all game long never getting double teamed because of the other good options on the floor.

 

why would you want curry over bayless? bayless is easily the better prospect

 

I agree with all of this for the most part, I'm just looking at it from a complimentary and playing style ideas (and meshing with Roy). I do think Bayless will be the "better" player, but I do think Curry will be a deadly shooter because of his very quick release, and I feel that his tear drop (and he'll never get doubled because he can turn that tear-drop into a lob to Oden or Aldridge) will make him more effective than most shooting specialists. However if a team picks him to be their "scorer" I think it'll be a bad situation, that's why I'd love him here, and we could provide that scorer (in Bayless) I guess.

I guess the real question is does the way Curry would benefit our other scorers (better passing and floor spacing) outweight the gap in scoring talent and defense between him and Bayless? Maybe, maybe not.

 

Bayless and Curry are worlds apart when it comes to playing off the ball, getting open, and knowing where to be on the floor. If you can't see that, you must have never watched him play. And teams are sagging off bayless like crazy, you watching the charlotte game right now?

 

Bayless had a much better supporting cast and Bayless' team didn't do anything in the tournament, unlike Curry who was incredible in the tourney with lots of pressure.