In this case, athleticism = leaping ability. You may not think that speed and leaping ability matter all that much, but can you name a single starting 5 that has less of those two traits? Yao - no need to explain Scola - same as above Battier - same as above Artest - strong as a bull but not fast and below average leaping ability for his position McGrady - even when healthy, he has lost his relative quickness, esp. compared to other SGs (I don't think it's just the knee, it's been this way for a few years, imo) Alston - surprisingly, Alston is probably closest to league average relative to his position out of our starting 5... he has other issues If you agree that our starting lineup is missing these traits but don't think it matters, why? Do Brooks and Landry coming off the bench provide enough speed and hops to make up for those missing elements in our starters? If you think this is an issue, what do we do about it, if anything? Start Brooks and/or Landry, look to make a trade, etc... I'm not sure what to make of it but I definitely see it... interested to hear your thoughts.
it doesn't matter. we may not have high flyers, but our lack of athleticism is outweighed by our talent and skills. look at the spurs. they started Parker, Finley, Bowen, Duncan, and Oberto. None of them are high flyers yet they won the chip. the Celtics dont have high flyers in their starting lineup either.
The Celts are athletic just look at their bench, and Pierce/Garnett tandem still has a some left in the tank.
Starting 5 = 5 players that get the most minutes I thought about the Spurs but the guy that handles the ball the most, Parker, is one of the quickest PGs in the league. Ginobili has good speed and gets starter minutes. Bowen, although he is getting older now, has always had good foot speed and lateral quickness. Overall, you are right though, they are a slower, less athletic team that has had great success. However, they are still quicker than us with Ginobili getting his minutes. They also execute much better. Regarding the Celtics, each of their big 3 is as fast or faster than our big 3. Allen faster than McGrady, Pierce = Artest, Garnett much faster than Yao or Scola. Beyond that, Rondo is faster than Alston.
I wouldn't say McGrady is missing athleticism or speed, 1 v1 McGrady is not an easy player to guard. As for Artest, I think you need to take into account that he is too strong for small players and too fast for bigger players. His strength also makes him a monster rebounder. If Yao can grab a rebound, then athleticism is not a concern. He just needs to learn to bully, not be bullied. I don't think athleticism is too much of a concern. The Boston big 3 aren't amazingly athletic. Pierce is not more athletic than McGrady, Ray Allen is certainly not a high flyer, Garnett is tall and has long limps, quite athletic for his position, but not Landry like. IMO, size always > athleticism. Taller players do not need to time their jumping as much, nor do they need to worry about positioning compared to shorter players. Athletic players like Landry, rely on their strength and hops to grab rebound. In some cases, it will own against slower players, but against very tough players with height, Landry's rebounding abilities will go down. As for now I don't think we need a trade yet. Our second unit matches RA's playing style (probably the reason why our second unit always seem so damn efficient). Our first unit is probably just too.... skilled, not sickly athletic of course. It is hard to put our team together RA style, not impossible, but hard. Since whenever there is a 1v1 situation, its easy food for our big 3, they will always aim to solo any 1v1 situation. So RA cannot expect as fast a game pace as it would be with our second unit, which is not as versatile.
A lot of good points. However, I definitely think McGrady has lost a lot of his quickness and hops, beyond the injuries. He is so gifted and long that he still impacts the game. As far as "size > athleticism". I think that can be true when you execute well. If we can start executing well and continue limiting TOs, I think this could hold true. I still see us getting burned too often because of our lack of athleticism, especially on the interior.
For a team that won 22 in a row and clinching the 4th seed and then acquiring Ron Artest. I think we'll be alright.
Ye, I wonder what McGrady would be as a player if he was without back spasm throughout his whole life. If he could put up 62 points with a hurting back, I wonder what kinda magic he can do with a normal back. As of now, McGrady's vertical leap seems to be returning to it's form, his lateral movement is still in question, and I do hope his defense is due to his knee not his mentality. I agree with the execution part. Our team is just horrible at executing, reminds me of the time we nearly lost to the Sonics last year because we can't grab a damn defensive rebound. I think our team is not focused enough, and it's times like these that Rudy T does his magic.
I don't think the speed and athleticism play such an important role on our team, some times experiences matter more. Do the spurs have athleticism and speed? but they won championships in the years 03 05 07. as a conclusion, it doesn't matter.
well 1st of all i think its way to early to talk about trades.the rockets just need more time on the court and in practice together and build that chemisrty that they had last season.Im sure once we get Battier back we would be a lot better off and if we can get Deke back somewhere around the all-star break that would help us a lot defensively and on the boards man were we beaten up down low by boston. athleticism, i think TMAC lost some of his flight capabilities but he still can move around and w/ his talent and skill makes up for the lost athleticism.He just needs to get fully healthy. overall rockets athleticism was never an issue for the rockets..when you talk rockets ball its all about "D",basketball IQ,skill,talent,unselfisheness and ball movement thats how we won 22 straight last season. athleticism would help,but i believe w/ the group of guys that we have it would only be a matter of time before they all gel together as one fine tuned machine.
Parker and Ginobili are fast. They use that speed to beat defenders and get to the rim. Bowen, especially in his prime, has very quick feet and his lateral quickness is among the best in the league. He has used that quickness to shut down some of the top perimeter players throughout his career. I agree that the Spurs are a relatively unathletic team but their starting 5 (the guys that get the most minutes) are still quicker than ours when Ginobili is healthy. So far, I haven't seen anybody list a team that has a slower starting 5. I don't agree about the healthy Spurs. I have seen some decent arguments as to why it may not matter that we have the slowest starting lineup in the NBA.
Compared to the Spurs in athleticism Rafer < Parker T-Mac >= Ginobili Artest > Bowen Scola >= anyone they play alongside Duncan Yao < Duncan
Interesting thought, but the other measure, how about our starting line's board statistic comparing with other team, less atheletic players can still get more boards than more athelecit ones
Rox is slow and nonathletic. Thats why when AB and Landry join, there are such fan favorite here. But as morey said, they take skill set over height. I take skill set over jumping ability.(hint hint-- G.Green, but still hope he join thou.)
I see it this way if we are talking about "speed": Parker >>> Alston Ginobili >> McGrady Bowen >= Artest (only because of his age otherwise it's Bowen > Artest) Duncan/Oberto = Scola Oberto/Duncan > Yao (there isn't a slower center in the league than Yao) The Spurs starters are relatively slow, overall, but still quicker than us. In my opinion, the reason they are able to overcome this is that 1) Parker is incredibly quick and does most of the ballhandling and 2) they execute as well as any team in the league (pick n roll w/ Parker, setting screens, few TOs, etc...). We aren't even close to them in terms of execution. If we want to succeed with our slow, unathletic starters, we have to somehow start executing like we've never done before in the Yao/T-Mac era.
I agree to a certain extent. But when you are talking extreme slowness, i.e., the slowest starting 5 in the entire league, than I see a certain payoff to be gained by complimenting that skill with more speed, athleticism. No matter how you twist it, athleticism matters in basketball. You need skill, you need athleticism, you need desire, you need discipline, etc... It's hard to be successful when you are totally lacking in any of those areas.
I definitely agree here and have been proposing Landry to start over Scola for quite sometime now. Before everyone gets upset, hear me out: First, the obvious reason, all 5 starters are slow and Landry will inject some athleticism and speed to the lineup. Second, he is a much better rebounder and Yao needs that. He will help secure the ball. Third Scola has a better postup game which is not feasible with Yao, Artest and TMac all good post up players. Finally and most importantly, Scola needs the ball in his hands to be effective, Landry is now a spot up mid range shooter and plays much better with TMac who feeds him easy dunks while Scola either misses Mac's sharp passes or messes up the layups since he can't dunk. Having Scola come off the bench also gives us a more potent scorer who can operate indepedently without our starters. Once we get Battier back, our second lineup of him, Scola, Brooks, Barry and Dorsey (?!) or possibly sign Mutombo, our second lineup would also give us similar to the Starters, a good combination of defensive/offensive AND athletic/not so athletic players. In other words, personally think starting Landry is a no brainer.
Interesting thoughts. If we can't trade for more speed, athleticism, I do kind of like the lineups you proposed. I think it would be great to send Dorsey to the D League so he can get some burn and possibly be ready to contribute down the stretch. Starting 5: Alston (24-28 min) McGrady Artest Landry (24-30 min) Yao Reserves: Brooks (20-24 min) Barry Battier Scola/Hayes (18-24 min) Dorsey/Deke (or another big) Increase Brooks' minutes and swap Scola with Landry in the starting 5. Landry may struggle with foul trouble early on but he'll learn. Redistributing minutes this way would definitely improve our overall team speed and athleticism without making any trades. Scola supporters will hate this idea.
I think the question is, are our starters too slow for other starters? Versatility wise, Artest and McGrady's way of exploiting defense is similar to KGs. Too fast for big players, too big for small players. Artest isn't insanely fast, but I think he has respectable speed if coaches decide to throw a PF at him, and he will most likely lose his man when dribbling through strength (pushing away the defender) and speed (the defender can't catch up afterwards). McGrady exploits his height advantage and long arms as well as his speed. At times, I wonder why McGrady isn't exploiting his long arms on defense, but in the preseason and our reg season so far, McGrady has averaged quite a high amount of steals. At least 2 per game if I'm correct, and a lot of them cannot be done by a player with shorter wingspan and height and speed. He seems to be stealing by intersecting plays. However, despite our starter's abilities, we still seem too slow. We can't expect McGrady to run around like Hamilton on offense, and you can't expect Artest to run around like Battier. They can, but they .... can't. Most superstars don't earn points by running around screens off-ball and waiting for the ball to come to them, they get it through exploitation of their own skill, which is where double team comes in. This is exactly why Ginobli is off the bench. Superstar caliber players take it 1 v 1, and during times of 1 v 2 you get an open player. However, it would appear, that when superstars go against superstars, our stars are just too slow. But the the thing is, 2 of our big 3 can counter these things. McGrady don't always lose his man off the dribble, but he will still draw double team because he is still driving in. Therefore he will still find an open player. Artest doesn't need the speed, he has the strength. He can post up, he can shoot over you. He is an undersized PF with several SG properties. He will still bring double team against weaker superstars. Which leads to my point, Yao only has his height to counter anything. He is tough, but not strong enough to be unstoppable. He is tall, but slow, and like what we've seen before, he gets exploited at both ends. When he is double teamed, he is always in trouble, which is why despite Yao playing better out of him and McGrady, McGrady will still be more valuable. Yao is not a terrific passer, so when double teamed and forced to make a tough pass, he will most likely turn it over. However, if Yao can be left alone, then it will be a repeat of our 20 point blow out on the Hornets. Tyson Chandler was left alone with Yao, and Yao destroyed him. So what we need now is not speed and athleticism, but a way to suit all our players playing style. When our players are in their comfort zone, momentum swings to our side, leading to better defense and rebounding.
