Originally Posted by
cd98
I know the notion that Bonner is a scrub player is forever branded in casual Spur fan minds, but despite his deficiencies, he had one elite skill, his shooting, that allowed him to stretch the floor and allowed the Spurs to have great offensive efficiency during his tenure. No one is advocating him as an all-star, but there was a basketball reason for him starting and being a key player for years on one of the best teams in NBA history.
Early in his career though, Bonner was a timid shooter. He passed up open shots and when he established himself as a shooter, teams just chased him off the line and that was the extent of what he could do. But he because a more effective player when he learned what good shots were and stopped passing them up and he learned what to do when he was chased off the line. That didn't make him some kind of a superstar, but it made him effective enough to stay in the league for years and earn a starting job on the Spurs.
Betrans is mostly riding the Spurs bench. So it's obvious that he has some issues that need to be addressed for him to get on the court. He has size like Bonner and he can shoot like Bonner. And yes, he's more athletic than Bonner, but he is also painfully thin to play the 4/5, he passes up good shots, and he was a turnover machine on close outs in the Bucks game, one of the games where he got the most playing time. His role right now is a stretch 4 or 5, and his problem is passing up good shots. He should watch tapes of Bonner in learning what is and is not a good shot to take at the stretch 4 so he stops passing up open shots. And he needs to learn what to do on close outs, be it learn to drive and hit a runner a la Bonner or drive and hit a pull up on the backboard a la Bowen, or at least not turn the ball over like he did against the Bucks in the third quarter that surrendered the Spurs lead and then eventually the game. But because the word "Bonner" is mentioned, some people are programmed to automatically run into "Bonner Scrub" talk and ignore the substance of the points being made.
