technomaster
Posts: 23348
Alba Posts: 0
Joined: 6/30/2003
Member: #426 USA
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Well... I was thinking about this last night. It's pretty clear that I haven't been a big fan of this trade--- trading a more talented player for 2 "solid, but less talented" players.
I realize that when comparing stats, one thing that doesn't show up in stats:
Keith Van Horn, for his career, has been the most part a top-2 scoring option on his teams. Tim Thomas, during most of his tenure on the Bucks, was the #4 (or even lower) scoring option.
What's missing in this is that KVH's production has come with opponents gearing their defense to stop him. On any given night (if left open), he can do a lot of damage. He makes defenses change the way they play.
While Tim Thomas's playoff numbers are marginally superior to KVH's, his success has come with him as a 3-5 scoring option, meaning teams were too worried about stopping Ray Allen, Sam Cassell, and Glenn Robinson, so he probably saw a lot of open shots or was guarded by a mismatched defender. As a player coming off the bench, he was given opportunities against bench players. Teams didn't go into Milwaukee thinking, "we need to stop TT if we're gonna win this..." They had other things on their minds.
One loss against Utah is really not a good way to judge these players, however a couple of things crossed my mind:
KVH & Doleac could really shoot the ball. Unguarded, they were fairly automatic. KVH, in particular, often took shots with a defender nearby and still had a decent FG%.
Tim Thomas is a lot like Penny--- for the most part, they only shoot when they're wide open. The arc on their shots tend to be a little inconsistent, so in spite of their open shots, they also miss a fair number of them. You could argue that while they have decent FG percentages, since they're shooting high percentage shots they should be making MORE.
IMHO, while others argue we're a better team because of this, I'd have to disagree. In this age of the NBA when teams have the option of playing zone, filling your team with good shooters is a priority. We were moving the ball well and getting open shots--- AND HITTING THEM. That to me is a good formula for victory.
Tim Thomas is a clear downgrade offensively IMO, and the trade is a wash defensively. Nazr Mohammed might be a good long term PF/C option, however, so long as he's only playing 15mpg he's no better than Doleac--- and arguably worse since he can't hit the medium range jumper and spread the defense.
“That was two, two from the heart.” - John Starks
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