Dwight Howard

yes, he's been showing his age. but he's still kobe bryant. i mean, if you're saying he's lost a step, sure. but since he's probably 10 or 15 steps above most other players, he's still quite elite. 27 points, 5.6 rebounds and 6.0 assist per game last season. you know how many players would kill for one season like that? the achilles injury is definitely a concern. and no doubt the lakers look to be out of it next season -- unless they do a sign-and-trade for dwight...

 

I saw that on twitter earlier. Seems logical due to Dwight Howards resume.
I wouldn't give Kobe more than 2 years. Fuck "thanks for the service" contracts since he is already making 30 mil a year. Either that or get him one of those contracts that pays him 10 million a year and then some faux position in the front office that pays him XX for 5 years. Same for Gasol. They ought to be able to do some serious shopping next year.

 

Yeah, people who don't know any better think he's still great but he absolutely isn't. He and Carmelo were the only two players to average over 20 attempts per game (the next highest were Westbrook at 18.7 and Irving at 18.1). Unlike Carmelo, Kobe does it while being a horrid three point shooter. He had the lowest 3 point shooting percentage among qualified shooting guards (while taking the 19th most 3 point shots in the NBA), and makes about the same percentage as Kemba Walker. Then again, Kobe has always been terrible in that respect, as his career 3 point percentage is only 33.6%. Now add in that he had the second most turnovers in the NBA behind only James Harden, is a terrible defender at this point in his career, and only scores a lot because refs give him tons of calls.

Someone has to take shots, but the idea that ball-hogging wings need to do it is a myth that keeps GMs acquiring players like Rudy Gay. A good NBA offense needs a reliable low-post scorer, several quality three point shooters to create spacing, and then a penetrating ball-handler who can either finish at the rim or find one of his teammates.

 

you're saying kobe's 33.3% career 3pt shooting is "horrid" unlike melo's 33.4% career mark? for reals?

the reality is that most guys who shoot a lot of 3's are specialists. they are catch and shoot players who would shoot absolutely miserably from range if they had to create their own shot. if your whole role on offense is to stand behind the 3pt line to space the floor, you better shoot a high percentage. kobe is far from a marksman, but given how he gets his shots, 33% isn't horrible.

holy shit. did you just say a good offense needs a reliable low-post scorer? i got the impression you felt a good offense only needed the penetrating ball-handler who could finish at the rim, given your acclaim for derrick rose, but i digress.

whatever works is what works. statistically speaking, the triangle offense has been the most successful at winning championships for the last 20 years. it doesn't rely on dribble penetration hardly at all and instead focuses on passing and utilizing wing players to initiate offense.

the spurs have exactly what you said was needed for a good offense -- a skilled penetrating pg (tony parker, perhaps the best penetrating/finishing pg in the league last year), reliable low post scoring (duncan), and great 3pt scoring to space the floor (green, neal, leonard). how'd that turn out? they got beat by the team built around its wing players.

i don't see the era of high scoring wings to end anytime soon. not the way the nba game works.

 

That one freak show of the perfect storm game put Miami on the crown. I still don`t see how SA lost that shit.

 

well, it's not like the spurs didn't have a little freakish magic of their own. danny green led them in scoring thru the first 5 games with his insane 3pt shooting.

 

Yeah, but that was a 5 game stretch and not a 2 minute clusterfuck of events.

 

Curse dig-it for quoting your typical stupidity. If you had even the slightest awareness of basketball or the wisdom to spend thirty seconds looking up stats you would have noticed that Carmelo's career mark is misleading because he was a ~26% three point shooter when he came into the league. The last three seasons he made 42.4%, 33.5%, and 37.9%. Each of Kobe's percentages during those years were substantially worse: 32.3%, 30.3%, and 32.4%. I would ask that you be less of an idiot except we all know by now that you're incapable of anything else.

The top ten in 3 point field goals this past season were Stephen Curry, Ryan Anderson, Klay Thompson, Kyle Korver, Damian Lillard, James Harden, Randy Foye, Danny Green, Brandon Jennings, and Paul George. Only four of those (Anderson, Korver, Foye, and Green) would be considered specialists. Surprise, surprise, you yet again know less than shit about the NBA despite pretending to be an expert on basketball.

What part of "He had the lowest 3 point shooting percentage among qualified shooting guards (while taking the 19th most 3 point shots in the NBA)" did you have such enormous difficulty understanding? He was last among qualified shooting guards. Dead last.

Oh cool, you actually brought up the thread where you completely obliterated any hope you ever had of any credibility and made yourself a complete laughingstock. Let's all reminisce about the time that S_Nut said that Thibodeau and Boozer were more important to the Bulls' improvement than Derrick Rose: http://www.thisboardrocks.com/forum...n-jackson-gone-178471/index9.html#post2647161

What? You're actually telling me that Michael Jordan wasn't known for driving to the basket? Kobe Bryant isn't either? Good lord. "Dribble penetration" doesn't always have to come from a point guard. When a wing player does it, it's still "dribble penetration." Please stop posting about basketball. It is too excruciating to watch you constantly humiliate yourself.

Jesus Christ. You're acknowledging that the Spurs made the NBA Finals and arguably should have won by exemplifying exactly the kind of offense I'm talking about, then try to turn that into proof against that kind of offense? I cannot begin to comprehend how your diseased mind functions. It is nothing even resembling rationality, because someone with even the most tenuous grip on reality would realize that using an NBA Finals team that nearly won the championship to say that their style of play wasn't great is completely idiotic. And for the record, Miami also plays exactly that same style of play, just with a more unconventional application. Wade & LeBron do most of the low-post work as opposed to their bigs, but the offense is still built primarily around dribble-penetration and three point shooters. Practically everything you post is not only wrong, but hysterically and unbelievably so.

 

substantially worse? so like melo goes 7 for 18 and kobe goes 6 for 18. not a strikingly different number. certainly not enough to put one is the "good" 3pt% and the other in the "horid" 3pt%.

that's nice. you should look at the 3pt% since that's what we're talking about and probably go a little deeper than 10.

calderon, korver, curry, ilyasova, nash, battier, danny green, dunleavy, willie green, martin, novak, webster, copeland, blake, allen, sefolosha, miller, freddette, durant, mason jr....

if your 3pa is approaching your 2pa, i'd say you're out there to spread the floor.

i guess the enormous difficulty i'm having is understand what your point is. yes, among qualified shooting guards, he is among the lowest 3p%. but it's still 33%. 33% isn't horrible for a guy making his own shot. it's horrible for a guy who's out there to shoot 3's.

it's amusing that for somebody so fixated on that particular thread, you STILL don't even know what it was about. i never discounted derrick rose, i pointed out that bringing on both boozer and thibodeau was instrumental to the bulls becoming the elite team that they were. because i neglected to mention rose's improvement, you took that to mean that i thought derrick rose was not a factor to the bulls winning games.

the comical thing about it all is that even your twisted interpretation of my statement is actually an arguable point as evidenced by the fact that even completely without rose, the bulls are still a decent team.

what i'm saying is that the triangle offense doesn't rely on dribble penetration. it doesn't. sure, jordan and kobe both are good at driving and finishing, but most of that comes in break situations and not against a set defense. in a set offense, jordan and kobe are both more likely to take jump shots.

it's funny. you're so hung up on trying to argue against me that you're actually shitting on your own post. so are you saying now that kobe and jordan both fit the role of penetrator in your "three keys a good nba offense"? cuz i coulda sworn you just got thru saying that high volume shooting wings are fools gold.

again, you fail to understand simple english. i'm not saying the spurs offense sucks or can't win, i'm saying what works is what works. you stated 3 things needed to have a good offense. my point is that there are all kinds of ways to put together a good offense. obviously this is basketball, so things like being able to dribble and shoot and pass are going to exist in any offense. the question is what is emphasized in the particular offense.

the spurs epitomized the three key elements you mentioned -- reliable post offense, three point shooting, and dribble penetration to finish or pass. the heat, much less so.

 

Yes, substantially worse. 5% worse over the course of a full season is a massive difference. Only someone with no understanding of basketball or statistics would think otherwise, which is where you obviously come in.

No, it actually isn't. You said: "the reality is that most guys who shoot a lot of 3's are specialists. " "Shoot a lot of 3s" and make the highest percentage of 3s are two very, very different things. Because you're a coward and a liar who doesn't admit to mistakes when busted, this is the part where you'll make up some bullshit excuse about how what you wrote doesn't really mean exactly what it clearly means in the English language.

See, this is why absolutely everyone thinks you're a worthless clown. And by everyone, I don't just mean TBR. I mean everyone that is in any way involved with you on a regular basis. You make up nonsensical bullshit to cover for your many mistakes because you always want to pretend that you're smart even though you possess average intelligence at absolute best. Being last at your position does indeed make you horrible. Trying to argue that Kobe is a solid three point shooter because he makes them more often than centers only makes you look like a dishonest idiot. 33% is bad. Michael Jordan was considered a bad three point shooter and his career average is ... you guessed it ... 33%.

Because we'll never have a more perfect example both of your astonishing ignorance and the depths you'll go to lie your way out of a screw-up. I keep quoting you because your own words tell the story. You're embarrassed about those words and know how stupid they were, so you keep insisting that those words mean something other than what everyone else thinks they mean.

Kobe and Jordan weren't known for driving against set defenses? Holy shit, that is so utterly wrong that it's hysterical. Like I said, every post you make shows some stunning level of ignorance about basketball. You really do know less than shit about the NBA. Please go watch some Youtubes of Jordan and see his "dribble penetration" against set defenses.

Kobe isn't nearly the player Jordan was for a variety of reasons, but one of them is his ball-hogging. Jordan was adept at breaking down defenses and then either finishing or finding teammates. LeBron is similar, although Jordan was a much better finisher. When Kobe, Carmelo, or Wade hold the ball in isolation and then jack up contested mid-range shots, that's one of the worst things you can do offensively.

Oh really, because I'm pretty sure that's exactly what you said here: "the spurs have exactly what you said was needed for a good offense -- a skilled penetrating pg (tony parker, perhaps the best penetrating/finishing pg in the league last year), reliable low post scoring (duncan), and great 3pt scoring to space the floor (green, neal, leonard). how'd that turn out? they got beat by the team built around its wing players."

S_Nut, you're a joke as a human being. You have no value to anyone on this planet because you don't have the ability to self-reflect. You can't analyze your own statements and recognize mistakes, which means that you can't correct them or learn. I have you on ignore and I get annoyed when people quote you precisely because your existence has absolutely no value. You're not just someone I disagree with, you're someone with whom it is entirely pointless to interact with at all. You're someone prone to moronic statements who nevertheless expends great effort pretending to be knowledgeable, all while making one absurd excuse after another for all the many embarrassing mistakes you make.