Posted by BlueSeats:

Rembee, I have no intention of defending Layden, but if you'd read what I responded to it would all make sense.

Posted by RemBee76:

Posted by BlueSeats:
Killa, you're not wrong per se, but you have to admit that Ward, Houston, Spree, McDyess, KT and Motumbo is a far more realistic team than what we have going on now.

Ward, Houston, KVH (Layden's one decent trade numbers wise) McDyess, KT and Motumbo were 9-19.

And it’s academic anyway, as mid-way into the season Houston gets injured. The team above probably finishes the season with about 25 wins without Houston. If that.

I wish we would have just finished that season with 25 wins instead of trading for Marbury.

If Nichols gets cut for Fred Jones I will really really be disappointed in Isiah. I've been rooting for this team and this coach/president the last 3 years but all the patience in the world has run out. Produce this season, make the playoffs or leave without any excuses. Fred Jones is a liability on offense. His man can float away from him and create havoc for our cutters and double team our interior guys without having to pay for it as the guy can only do one thing... drive to the basket and try to produce from blank range. As far as I'm concerned he is a Jeffries clone for the 2 spot. An idiot that you hope at least contributes some kind of positivity for the team. Both are lost on offense and in reality also lost on D. The illustion that they are defensive stoppers because of their sever limitations on offense is just infuriating. Jeffries takes minutes away from Balkman, Q, Chandler, and to some extent Lee. Jones takes minutes away from Crawford, Nate, Q, and worst of all a roster spot for Nichols.

If we got rid of both Jeffries and Jones it would be addition by subtraction. And if IT cannot recognize what is actually hindering this team then he needs to go to. I'll wait at least until we have 20 games of regular season games under our belt before I call for his head.... but the season as it stands is looking dimmer and dimmer the more playing time Jones and Jeffries get.

Posted by BlueSeats:
If there were an award for being more tricky than clever you might give Isiah quite a fight for it.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by nyvector16:

I think the greatest problem we have is we are relying too much on the mediocre talent of Jeffries and Jones to be the glue for our defensive sets when in reality they are as much a liability as anyone else on the floor and probably more so as their man does not have to expend any energy on defense. I wrote something in another thread that I think applies here...

If Nichols gets cut for Fred Jones I will really really be disappointed in Isiah. I've been rooting for this team and this coach/president the last 3 years but all the patience in the world has run out. Produce this season, make the playoffs or leave without any excuses. Fred Jones is a liability on offense. His man can float away from him and create havoc for our cutters and double team our interior guys without having to pay for it as the guy can only do one thing... drive to the basket and try to produce from blank range. As far as I'm concerned he is a Jeffries clone for the 2 spot. An idiot that you hope at least contributes some kind of positivity for the team. Both are lost on offense and in reality also lost on D. The illustion that they are defensive stoppers because of their sever limitations on offense is just infuriating. Jeffries takes minutes away from Balkman, Q, Chandler, and to some extent Lee. Jones takes minutes away from Crawford, Nate, Q, and worst of all a roster spot for Nichols.

If we got rid of both Jeffries and Jones it would be addition by subtraction. And if IT cannot recognize what is actually hindering this team then he needs to go to. I'll wait at least until we have 20 games of regular season games under our belt before I call for his head.... but the season as it stands is looking dimmer and dimmer the more playing time Jones and Jeffries get.

Until we stop covering for these guy's deficiencies we will not be able to move forward as a team. The Chemistry is beeing affected by their deficiencies. I'm not saying that we would be winning these games without them. What I am saying is if we had Chandler or Nichols in there getting their minuites we would be in a much better position going forward. Not to mention Jones is 6'2" with no offense and suspect defense and Nichols is 6'8", plays the same position and has shown promise at becoming a decent defender. I really hope this situation gets settled soon.

You know, among some coaches in the league there is this desire to have a bunch of 6'9 tweener guys with multiple skill sets who can be used at various positions as mix-n-match interchangeable parts. Scottie Pippin as the point forward is probably the prototypical example. Amare Stoudamire at center is another. Lebron and Kobe are guys capable of playing 3 or 4 different positions for stretches of a game.

The thought is if you can put enough of these guys on the floor at once you will confound the opposItion with mismatches as multiple positions. Your "SG" might be oversized and to tall for them while at the same time your "PF" is undersized but too fast and athletic.

I think this is the direction Isiah would like to go with guys like Chandler, Jeffries, Balkman, Lee, etc. and to a lesser extent smaller combo-tweeners like Crawford and Q. The problem is that you need guys with multiple intelligences out there to carry it off. Simply having the right size and athleticism isn't sufficient. You need two-way players with high bball IQ who are very fundamentally sound, otherwise you just have a lot of misdirected energy, and you become the team who is mismatched by superior skills and/or execution.

So who are the heads out there and who has the fundamentally sound skill sets? If your interchangeable parts don't provide it then your "pure" players certainly better. I don't really see the smarts or the fundamentals from any position or player on the floor (unless it's a rookie who I'm just not up to speed with as yet.)

Posted by RemBee76:

Posted by BlueSeats:
If there were an award for being more tricky than clever you might give Isiah quite a fight for it.

And no one, blue, is better at the non sequitur ad hominem reply. There is an award for your doubtless already over-stuffed trophy cabinet.

So if Houston in his prime played alongside the 1997 Charlie Ward, the 1999 Latrell Sprewell, the 2000 Dice, and the 1995 Deke that would be one heck of a line-up.

The rear-view mirror is rosey. That team had chemistry problems too. Spree and Houston rarely played well together while Spree was undersized while guarding most other 3s. Charlie Ward was an East-West pointguard whose game didn't mesh with Spree and probably would not have suited Dice very well, not to mention he was as routinely abused by other guards in his later years as Craw is now. And like I said before, I'd take Camby over Deke.

I won't try to wrap this up as evidently I've missed the entire point of this conversation.

I apologize.

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by RemBee76:

Posted by BlueSeats:
If there were an award for being more tricky than clever you might give Isiah quite a fight for it.

And no one, blue, is better at the non sequitur ad hominem reply. There is an award for your doubtless already over-stuffed trophy cabinet.

So if Houston in his prime played alongside the 1997 Charlie Ward, the 1999 Latrell Sprewell, the 2000 Dice, and the 1995 Deke that would be one heck of a line-up.

The rear-view mirror is rosey. That team had chemistry problems too. Spree and Houston rarely played well together while Spree was undersized while guarding most other 3s. Charlie Ward was an East-West pointguard whose game didn't mesh with Spree and probably would not have suited Dice very well, not to mention he was as routinely abused by other guards in his later years as Craw is now. And like I said before, I'd take Camby over Deke.

I won't try to wrap this up as evidently I've missed the entire point of this conversation.

I apologize.

Rembee, it's not that complicated. If we take the fallacious hypothetical that Ward, Houston, Spree, McDyess and Motumbo were at full health (for McDyess that means the health he demonstrated for us in preseason when he first arrived), I believe that relative to this squad, given the same hypothetical of full health, would have been more balanced, tougher minded, more professional, better defensively, better offensively, and generally would have outclassed these guys on the floor.

To that you can either agree, disagree, or ybe unwilling or unable to even participate in the hypothetical on some high falluttin' grounds of who knows what.

It seems to be a case of the latter, so go on back to whatever important other things you'd rather be doing.

Posted by PresIke:

Posted by BlueSeats:

Posted by RemBee76:

Posted by BlueSeats:
If there were an award for being more tricky than clever you might give Isiah quite a fight for it.

And no one, blue, is better at the non sequitur ad hominem reply. There is an award for your doubtless already over-stuffed trophy cabinet.

So if Houston in his prime played alongside the 1997 Charlie Ward, the 1999 Latrell Sprewell, the 2000 Dice, and the 1995 Deke that would be one heck of a line-up.

The rear-view mirror is rosey. That team had chemistry problems too. Spree and Houston rarely played well together while Spree was undersized while guarding most other 3s. Charlie Ward was an East-West pointguard whose game didn't mesh with Spree and probably would not have suited Dice very well, not to mention he was as routinely abused by other guards in his later years as Craw is now. And like I said before, I'd take Camby over Deke.

I won't try to wrap this up as evidently I've missed the entire point of this conversation.

I apologize.

Rembee, it's not that complicated. If we take the fallacious hypothetical that Ward, Houston, Spree, McDyess and Motumbo were at full health (for McDyess that means the health he demonstrated for us in preseason when he first arrived), I believe that relative to this squad, given the same hypothetical of full health, would have been more balanced, tougher minded, more professional, better defensively, better offensively, and generally would have outclassed these guys on the floor.

To that you can either agree, disagree, or ybe unwilling or unable to even participate in the hypothetical on some high falluttin' grounds of who knows what.

It seems to be a case of the latter, so go on back to whatever important other things you'd rather be doing.

But Blue, the point Rembee is making (I believe) is that this hypothetical wasn't even likely to exist so it makes little sense to ponder it. To propose the idea of McDeyess at "full health" is erroneous because his knees were FAR more vulnerable to re-injury due to the nature of his surgery. He may have shown some ability in the pre-season, but he did exactly that.

To selectively choose parts of the equation that fit your argument, but neglect those that make it flawed is what Rembee referred to as a non sequitor.