» July 21, 2009 5:52 PM | By Brandon Hoffman
- Kevin Pelton makes the case that the Suns will have to score at a historic pace in order to contend next season: “During the second half of last season, it was apparent that strategy was much more successful against bad teams than against good ones. Under Gentry, Phoenix went 12-2 against sub-.500 teams playing out the string, but just 6-11 against playoff teams. Therein lies the concern for the Suns.”
- Matt Moore of Hardwood Paroxysm: “The Evans v. Rubio is a curious debate, centered around two different spheres of hype. I tend to side with the 6-6 superfreak with length, athleticism, and the ability to get to the basket whenever he damn well chooses. But hey, lots of people like the Jonas Brother, too. To analyze the choice between the two, though, is to find that debate that anchors itself to basketball fanaticism, no matter how hard we try and shake free of it. Pure point vs. Combo guard. The argument usually presents itself as that Evans is a unique player, with tremendous physical ability, natural scorer’s instincts, and a terrific ability to attack the rim (and most importantly, finish there, something lacking in many rookies). He’s not even particularly dogged as a passer. He’s just not a pure point, able to see angles no one else can see, alley oops no one else can oop. And somehow that makes him less of a game-changer, despite his ability to score, rebound, and defend (in time). Last year, I pulled my hair out, trying to understand why people referred to Rose as a pure point. Did anyone watch his game this year? Did you come to that conclusion? In the playoffs, he attacked the basket, relentlessly. He wasn’t whipping full court bounce passes. He can pass, don’t get me wrong, and if Noah would keep trying that alley oop, they’d be a lot more successful. But a pure point he is not. And Evans? Not as fast or as purely talented, but what he lacks in skill, he makes up for in athletic prowess. So why try and force him to become a pure point? Why lament over his ability to run the offense. We’re not talking Ben Gordon here. So you’ve got Kevin Martin. So what? You don’t have a longterm plan, angling for a championship. You’re trying to not suck. Let the killer kill.”
- Jerry Reinsdorf on the perception that the Bulls lost out on Pau Gasol and Kevin Garnett, as reported by Brian Hanley: “I don’t think we move too slowly. Gasol, we didn’t move slowly, we said, ‘No.’ We were prepared to give [Memphis] players. What they wanted to do was to basically dump stuff on us and we’d be immobilized; we wouldn’t have been able to improve our team. Gasol made sense for the Lakers because he is their third-best player, probably. He would have been, at that time, our best player. It would have been a wrong role for him. John and Gar decided they didn’t want Gasol under those circumstances, where he would have been the last piece and we would have been immobilized because of the [salary] cap.”
Category: Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, Points in the Paint, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Utah Jazz
Tags: Allen Iverson, Carlos Boozer, Ed O'Bannon, Jerry Reinsdorf, Kevin Garnett, Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol, Ricky Rubio, Steve Nash, Tyreke Evans
Discuss in Forum
