Well said. I completely concur.
I love Mason's dead-eye, 3-pt shooting too. Unless there's a deal on the table for a significant key piece, I'd rather the see him remain on the squad.
Mason's defense is bad and he didn't show up for the playoffs going from 12ppg to 6. Guys who don't show up when it matters are easy to replace, Mason has to prove he can contribute when it matters. Until then i'd trade him for the right deal otherwise hold on to him and see if he can at least be a factor in the playoffs.
Adding Jefferson, who will penetrate and create much more than Finley or Bowen did, will make Mason more valuable as a spot up three option... plus, with McDyess, Blair, Haislip, and Mahinmi on the team it's a safe assumption that Bonner will get significantly fewer minutes, meaning Mason could be the #1 three point shooter on the Spurs. Any trade would probably have to include a SG coming back, since the Spurs don't want Manu playing extended minutes, and I don't think Hairston is ready yet to play 25 mpg.
c'mon, let's be honest. Before the PG experiment, RMJ was playing his heart out and continuted hitting clutch shots.
whott bait
I think this is a classic case of the grass being greener on the other side...we automatically assume that other players playing similar roles on other teams will be better than the guys we already have. This is due in large part to only seeing the good that other team's players produce, and seeing both the good and the bad that your own guys produce. Yes, Mason had a bad 5 games in the playoffs, and the second half of the year was not as great as the first half. But that was the case for the entire team, and I am willing to bet that the slide of the team had a lot more to do with Mason's slide than the other way around.
The answer to the question is easy...no, you don't trade him, unless you have to include him in a deal that significantly improves the team and you have someone who can replace his shooting. He is a great fit on this team as a shooting specialist...was anyone interested in trading him on Christmas Day last year?
probably not, mason would be great off the bench
i wouldnt pay too much money for him, esp. now that we got mcclinton to develop. he's a shooter, but he's not on michael redd's level. other than hitting open kick-out shots, he doesnt have any strengths that really stand out
let's see him hustle some more for the ball with off-ball screens, then we can talk more money
It's also funny that so many of you are forgetting that Mason is a bench player..he only starts by name..clearly Manu is the "starter"..knock him if you want, but Mason will be one of the better bench players in the NBA this season..
we need to keep mason, every season, to win a ring, you need guys to hit big spot up three pointers, and mason will be that guy. Same with finley, i dont know why so many people want to trade him, every team needs a steve kerr 2003 on their team for that big shot. The spurs still rely on good outside shooters to knock down shots, not sure why people want to get rid of the spurs best shooter in mason. Mason's only flaw, is he cannot create his own shot by taking it to the rack, which he had to do with no manu...but with a healthy manu and jefferson, he can do what he does best, knock down open shots....sounds good to me.
i think mason will play better next year without the kinda pressure that was put on him in the post season to be a big time scorer.
he can't be our 3rd best scorer, and that won't be the case if a healthy manu and rj are shouldering the load.
i can see him flourishing in this role / line up. same with bonner. these guys will come in and hit big shots, but these shots need to be the icing on the cake from what the big 4 are already giving you night in and night out.
If Pop tries to play Mason at the PG position again this year, it's not going to be pretty.
Parker/Hill - PG
Manu/Mason - SG
That's it, no experiments Pop, you're just gonna mess it up.
A lot of posters in here are forgetting Mason played lights out at the beginning of last season. He along with G Hill and Duncan carried this team. We easily would have had a losing record by the time Parker and Manu came back if he didn't step up his game, but he did. You don 't trade guys like that.
And the argument that Finley is better than Mason is a weak one at best. Finley may be a pure shooter, but his defense is WORST than Mason's!!! What I can't comprehend is the astounding number of Finley supporters in this forum? If anyone needs to be traded it is Finley, not Mason!!!
No way you trade Mason - great shooter on a cheap contract, and now in his second year in the Spurs' system (which means he'll improve at both ends).
As for the guff about his playoff performance - please name me a player who played WELL in that series. There was no Manu, and Tim was not well, not to mention Pop's benching of Hill, odd rotations and playing Mason out of position. Give the guy an incomplete on last year.
Contrast that with the lineup now - the addition of RJ and return of Manu means that Mason doesn't have to create at all, he just has to shoot, which is what he does best. I think he'll hit over 200 3s this year if he's uninjured.
Raja Bell!
Noone played spectacular, but guys still showed up and did what they could...Mason on the other hand completely dissapeared. Seeing him as a 12th man by the end of the series was pathetic.
The guy had a nice reg season no doubt, I was all up on his nuts as well...remember that rumored VC trade that included Mason? I was hesitant because I didnt want him gone. But his dissapearance in the playoffs completely exposed him as an average player with no balls. Ive seen this enough already with guys like Hedo, Barry, Udoka doing good in the reg season and playing like es in the playoffs. They dont have the balls to shoot themselves out of slumps, thats why I like Finley. He doesnt give a if he's struggling, he keeps shooting until he gets out of the slump. If we can get a good player by trading Mason and his expiring contract, I'd jump at it.
The regular season and post-season are two different animals homie.
As for the comparison with Finley...the defense argument is pretty stupid considering both of them are below-average defenders. And why would u trade Fin instead of Mason? Last time I checked it was Mason, not Finley, that played like a against the Mavs. It was Mason not Finley who ended up as a 12th man by the end of the series. And u know all those clutch shots Mason has made? Fin has made his fair amount of clutch shots for us too, including huge ones in the playoffs.
5 game winners says he's got some balls.
Our team was so beaten up and out of sorts by the time the playoffs rolled around, due mostly to bad decisions by Pop like playing Mo Money at PG, that I don't think you can judge Mason for that. He's no 2004 Turkoglu.
Mason has balls in spades, and if Pop plays it right and just uses him to shoot, the guy will win us 10 games this year, and a few in the playoffs.
Barry hit a couple of reg season gamewinners for us, as did Hedo (still remember that Pacers double OT game)....the playoffs are a whole different animal. Bottom line is Mason dissapeared, I dont blame him for not playing well as a PG. That obviously isnt his natural position, but like Ive been saying he played that role maybe 5-10 mpg while Tony was resting. The rest of the time he was playing alongside Tony in his normal position and role.
He played like a . If Finley ended up doing that we wouldnt be hearing the end of it, I dont understand why Mason gets a pass.
I wouldn't have a problem moving him if it brings us a Raja Bell, or a perimeter defender of that kind.
I like Roger, and I think he can have a successful career, be it with us or somewhere else. I also think he has a TON to improve on his game. You simply can't be a one trick pony on a contending team. His defense is also very suspect. He's young though, so he's got the time to improve.
Also, real players are made in the playoffs. I don't care if he hit every game winner in the regular season, if the trend of not showing up in the playoffs continues, then I'm afraid his stay with the Spurs is going to be short.
I'm aware that Barry and Turk hit regular season winners for us, and I think you'll find Barry hit some playoff winners for us too (Turk, I agree, choked like a in the playoffs - I still blame him for 04). I'm also aware that the playoffs are completely different to the regular season.
Pop destroyed Mason's confidence, and in fact the whole team's confidence, over the last month of the season to the point that none of them knew whether they were coming or going. The team was so out of sorts it affected everyone. Mason was one of the most affected because he was being asked to play PG and also create. Those are not his stregnths.
I have faith in him to be an even better Spur this year because he'll now be very comfortable in our system and, with the players the team has picked up, he won't be asked to do much more than shoot the lights out, what he does best.
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
I have to say I did subscribe to this sentiment late last season. That said, considering Hill didn't come back until the last game of the season, we never really knew if it was really that, or something else.
The signs were there, but I think this season is the time for Roger to show his stuff, and prove that it really was playing out of position what made him ineffective and got him out of his game.
I dont buy that excuse.
Mason was asked to do that for 5-10 minutes per game to simply give Tony a rest, if u let that affect u than youre pretty weak mentally. There's also Hill, whom Pop basically had no confidence in and refused to play early in the series...that shouldve killed his confidence especially considering the fact that he's a rookie yet when he was given a chance late in the series he was one of our best players. Simply put, Mason dissapeared and Pop had little if anything to with it.
I hope youre right, and that he proves me wrong and has a great post-season next year for us if he's still in a Spurs uniform...his perfomance against the Mavs really makes me doubt that though.
In my mind I have completely deleted last year's performance against the Mavs from all of the player's records - the team was incomplete, beaten-up, had no SPAM chemistry, and was always going to flame out in the first round. I, and a few others around here, said as much a fortnight before the playoffs and got ripped for it. I don't think there was much to learn from that flameout at all, it was just a flameout like 2000 after Tim's injury - sad, inevitable and depressing.
Last year was a forgettable one for every Spur bar Tony.
i agree with you 100%. mason was terrible. he was a puss and i wouldn't be sad to see him go.
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