I could't be more tired of the organizational kowtowing to this kid and all the feel good stories about D'Antoni and his dad.
I just don't know what he's supposed to be. Right now, he's a chuck and duck guy who goes 8-10 some nights and so his percentages end up looking decent, but when you're trying to put together a team that wins 50% of their games, you can't have a guy who puts up 3-13 numbers 2/3 of the time.
Chandler is far and away the better player at this point. He shoots a lower overall percentage, but he's consistent and based on the preseason he looks to have improved his shooting. Gallo's always made out to be this super intelligent player who "knows the game" which is total BS. How often have you seen Gallo pump fake his man and drive to the basket to draw a foul when the other team is right at the bonus? How often does he try to get a 2 for 1 at the end of quarters? Have you seen him use our pick and roll offense to get onto a guard and post him up? He never does that sheet. "He knows the game" is code for, "he's white and made it to the NBA" to me. Rautins "knows the game" and happens to be white. There's a difference.
I'm Italian. I'd love for this guy to be dominant, but he's just not. He doesn't even really stretch the defense.
This team looks like a disaster right now. I was pumped about Felton because of what he's done to us as an opponent, but he really doesn't seem to be able to initiate pick and roll. TD has looked better initiating offense and everyone knows my opinion on him as a point guard.
You know what really bothers me? This team always has some wierd assortment of players that have a major flaw. With Lee as the best player there was basically no back line defense. These guys have defense down to a point, but are all so skinny that they can't board and get pushed around. Felton can't run pick and roll. Duhon could run pcik and roll, but wasn't dynamic on offense. ZBo and Crawford were dominant scorers but had bad shot selection and couldn't play defense. Steph was a local legend but ate vasoline on occasion. Curry could dominate the low block but couldn't receive the ball and was terrible at everything else.
It always seemed like D'Antoni won with various groupings of players in Phoenix. I guess Nash was the constant, but this has been a little crazy here. He's going to get booted if he doesn't perform this season and I have always defended him as a coach. I mean, if having that Nash type of PG is so vital, why hasn't that been the priority? You'd think they would have jumped on Jennings or Teague or Beaubois or Maynor or Holiday if they knew that was the major issue to making this system go.
I can just smell that this season is going to be a constant stream of "if we only had a rebounder" and "what happened to Amar'e's pick and roll play?" Gallo would probably be perfect on OKC. I wonder if you could get back Maynor and Harden for Gallo and TD? That would give us a real pick and roll partner for Amar'e, AR and Mozgov while filling our glaring need for a shooting guard.
Walker and Chandler are more consistent shooters than Gallo anyway, so what are you losing?
I don't know what the answer is, but its frustrating as hell that we're playing this poorly after rebuilding again.
Alan Hahn:
Nate Robinson has been on a ridonkulous scoring tear lately (remember when he couldn't hit Jerome James with a Big Mac in early January?)
