Posted by joec32033:

Posted by Solace:

Posted by oohah:

Posted by s3231:

Posted by Solace:

Posted by s3231:

Posted by oohah:

Pheonix named the players they liked. The coach said straight out they didnt like guys who couldnt shoot because of the system they play. Name ONE 1 player on Phoenix who plays in the core who doesnt have a huge offensive arsenal? none.

Raja Bell
Kurt Thomas
Amare Stoudamire
Shawn Marion

None of these guys can be accused of having huge offensive arsenals.

oohah

Dude, come on, you did not just put Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion on that list.

[Edited by - s3231 on 06-29-2006 4:46 PM]

I'm going to assume he was joking.

You were joking, right?

I hope he was

No, I was not kidding. They don't have huge offensive repertoires. Marion is a decent shooter and he has a nice flip shot. He gets most of his offense off of transition plays and layup/dunk opportunities created by defensive imbalances or by scrapping. That is why Marion is most noted for rebounding and scoring with no plays run for him.

Amare Stoudamire get the bulk of his points by going over and through the other guys. He has an okay shot. He reportedly added some polish to his offensive game over the summer, but he could not play this year so who knows?

Solace, s32332, let me ask you this: Shaq has scored a lot of points, does he have a huge offensive arsenal?

oohah

I think you're taking "huge offensive arsenal" to mean "creative scorer", which I don't think was the intent of the statement. I think Marion, Shaq and Amare are very good scorers who can do a lot of things. Maybe not the most creative things, but they can certainly put up a lot of points.

Ooha...Marion scores in a variety if ways without a single play being called for him, There was talk that Amare had extended his aresenal to include a 3 point shot(I posted the artcle way back and it is too late for me to find it...take my word, he was working on that) and he was extremely quick. KT is not a great scorer but he can score and I bet his scoring average goes up a few points from the time he was here because picking and popping with Nash, all he needs is that 15 footer...Bell is not a "scorer" but he can score especially in PHX's offense.

PHX's offense is tailor made for limited, but competent, offensive guys to score. Balkman may or may not be able to dribble, has no outside shot and no post game....he sounds like he has defensive specialist all over him. If we picked this guy at 35, I am happy. We picked the guy at 20 over guys with infinately more talent(even putting WIlliams aside.....PJ Tucker? Shannon Brown? Ager?-even if you just wanted to concentrate on defense...Boone? Bobby Jones? Noel? alot of guys with comparable defensive abilities and better offensive upside.)

Joe, check my post. Your words echoe mine about Stoudamire. I too read he added a lot to his offensive game but I don't consider it added until it is unveiled.

Without getrting into the specifics of each player, Briggs was saying that there is no way that Phoenix would pick Balkman because everyone onPhoenix' core has a "huge offensive arsenal". That is the biggest amount of BS I ever heard. As you pointed out in this post, Phoenix guys have certain areas they are each proficient in, and Steve Nash makes sure that they get their shots doing what they do well.

The only guys who can be described as having offensive "arsenals" are Nash, Diaw, and Tim Thomas. We'll see about Stoudamire when he returns, if his knee is not the same, he may need an arsenal.

Marion takes all the scraps, whether they be outside shots, layups, dunks. He scores from everywhere. They don't have to run a play for him and that is a large portion of what makes him special. But, they never give him the ball and say "score". No, you need a player that has an "arsenal" or a "bag of tricks", whatever you want to call it.

Nalod, s3231, and Solace seem to have taken it that I am diminsihing players that don't have tons of offensive moves, but nothing could be further from the truth, and I really don't see how they interpreted it that way.

Briggs on the other hand is just in rant mode today. I can understand how he feels, I nearly broke my TV when Weiss was picked (I am a St. Johns fan), the only difference is that Artest was worth getting worked up over.

oohah

I think you're taking "huge offensive arsenal" to mean "creative scorer", which I don't think was the intent of the statement. I think Marion, Shaq and Amare are very good scorers who can do a lot of things. Maybe not the most creative things, but they can certainly put up a lot of points.

Posted by oohah:

I think you're taking "huge offensive arsenal" to mean "creative scorer", which I don't think was the intent of the statement. I think Marion, Shaq and Amare are very good scorers who can do a lot of things. Maybe not the most creative things, but they can certainly put up a lot of points.

No, having a "huge arsenal" literally means you have a lot of weapons. I don't care if you score a hundred points a game, if your only shot is the finger roll you don't have a huge arsenal, even though you may have the only weapon you'll ever need.

And it is not about creativity. Tim Duncan has a huge arsenal, but he is rarely "creative" in the same sense of Vince Carter, who also has a huge arsenal. Different things.

Now if you want to get into the offensive effectiveness of a player that is another conversation entirely. But again, "huge arsenal" quite literally means that you have many, many weapons to go to.

oohah

huge arsenal meaning they all have the ability to put up huge numbers in a variety of ways collectively/individually at any given time. each player in that core has aggresive offensive skill sets. Shaq has a huge arsenal but he just shoots his guns at close range. pretty easy reading.
balkman's game doesnt fit the Phoenix model because he has no offensive game and thats why its an absurd and fabricated comment.

Posted by oohah:

To me this Isiah act of saying "well another team was gonna take him if we didn't" is getting old. He did it with Nate last year. He did it with Renaldo this year. I have NEVER heard a GM justify a pick like this. It's almost like he is implying the logic of "well, if they want him he must be good, therefore I should take him".

I don't know if Phoenix wanted him, and I don't care. My feeling is that Isiah should just have said "this is the guy we wanted" and left it thre. No excuses. People were dissing Tony Parker when he was drafted. A lot of people booed Dirk Nowitzki when he was drafted. That is because they did not know him.

I think the whole, "we could have picked him later" point doesnt make much sense. (I'm not saying this is your position.) Pick the player you want when you can, or be prepared to lose him. As you mentioned before Joe, plenty of guys have fallen way down and ended up being pretty good players. If many of those guys were picked earlier, there would be a lot of head scratching.

oohah

Point taken ...my whole argument is not that we should not have taken Balkman at all...just not at 20. If that is who we wanted, and he could have been had in the 2nd round trade the 20 and get 2 2nd round picks and end up with any 3 player combination out of Tucker, Balkman, Collins, Johnson, Bobby Jones, Denham Brown, Davis Noel, Hassan Adams.....I jus feel it is not a wise use of the 20th pick...

On a side not, I was talking to my brother while Marcus was sliding, and a thought that came to me was-Even if Marcus does slide to us, Isiah may have painted himself into a corner of not being able to draft him even if he wanted to. IMO he would have had to tade Francs or Nate or whoever almost immediatley because once you take Williams the price on Francis or whoever goes down because now we NEED to get rid of them.

Posted by oohah:

Even if Williams is the best player available, which I believe is highly debateable, haven't so many pointed out that Isiah should not amass so much talent, but instead players who fit? And the minute he does that, he's decried.

No, instead we should take a redundant player, with a poorer personal history than anyone on this team with the possible exception of Q2.

oohah

Posted by joec32033:

Ooha...Marion scores in a variety if ways without a single play being called for him, There was talk that Amare had extended his aresenal to include a 3 point shot(I posted the artcle way back and it is too late for me to find it...take my word, he was working on that) and he was extremely quick. KT is not a great scorer but he can score and I bet his scoring average goes up a few points from the time he was here because picking and popping with Nash, all he needs is that 15 footer...Bell is not a "scorer" but he can score especially in PHX's offense.

PHX's offense is tailor made for limited, but competent, offensive guys to score. Balkman may or may not be able to dribble, has no outside shot and no post game....he sounds like he has defensive specialist all over him. If we picked this guy at 35, I am happy. We picked the guy at 20 over guys with infinately more talent(even putting WIlliams aside.....PJ Tucker? Shannon Brown? Ager?-even if you just wanted to concentrate on defense...Boone? Bobby Jones? Noel? alot of guys with comparable defensive abilities and better offensive upside.)

Posted by joec32033:

Joe, check my post. Your words echoe mine about Stoudamire. I too read he added a lot to his offensive game but I don't consider it added until it is unveiled.

Without getrting into the specifics of each player, Briggs was saying that there is no way that Phoenix would pick Balkman because everyone onPhoenix' core has a "huge offensive arsenal". That is the biggest amount of BS I ever heard. As you pointed out in this post, Phoenix guys have certain areas they are each proficient in, and Steve Nash makes sure that they get their shots doing what they do well.

The only guys who can be described as having offensive "arsenals" are Nash, Diaw, and Tim Thomas. We'll see about Stoudamire when he returns, if his knee is not the same, he may need an arsenal.

Marion takes all the scraps, whether they be outside shots, layups, dunks. He scores from everywhere. They don't have to run a play for him and that is a large portion of what makes him special. But, they never give him the ball and say "score". No, you need a player that has an "arsenal" or a "bag of tricks", whatever you want to call it.

Point taken. Maybe "huge" wasn;t the way to phrase it, but I still find it HIGHLY unlikely that PHX wanted him.

To me this Isiah act of saying "well another team was gonna take him if we didn't" is getting old. He did it with Nate last year. He did it with Renaldo this year. I have NEVER heard a GM justify a pick like this. It's almost like he is implying the logic of "well, if they want him he must be good, therefore I should take him".

Posted by rvhoss:

For those that missed it...


Posted by Killa4luv:

This point seems to have been totally missed. We should have drafted for talent because ? Didn't we get Steve Francis for Penny and Trevor? We see hoew that worked out, but lets do it again with a player playing the same position as 4 other guys on the team, who has red flags all over him? Isn't this what guys were crying about.

One thing about the Brownites (because although this has nothing to do with LB, these are the same people) logic escapes them. Contradictions abound. The arguments they use to discredit Isiah for things he has done, is the exact same argument they use to discredit him for things he has not done.

Criticize him for getting too many pgs, and then criticize him for not drafting another pg.

Criticize him for not getting any defensive players than criticize him for drafting 2 defensive players.

Criticize him for making trades that improve team talent but make us lopsided and create logjams at positions and then criticize him for not making drafting a guy who would have increased the talent but would have added to the logjam at a position.

Marcus Williams was a good summer league away from being a monster asset for us.

Posted by nyk4ever:

Posted by Bonn1997:

Marcus Williams was a good summer league away from being a monster asset for us.

You always think about only the best case scenario for players the team passes on. Perhaps he struggles when he doesn't have 4 of the top players in the nation to play with. Perhaps he steals something worse than computers and winds up in prison!

Thats the chance you take with every single pick. Marcus Williams is worth that chance, much more then anyone the Knicks drafted.