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From the water is wet department...
Jefferson Gets A Failing Grade
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com Daily Dime
http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/p...418/daily-dime
DALLAS -- Publicly unloading on his players already? After a six-point road loss in Game 1 of the first round?
That seems early even for the famously volcanic Gregg Popovich.
Yet when it comes to the struggles of Richard Jefferson -- who sits at the forefront of the San Antonio supporting casters who so enraged their coach in Sunday's 100-94 loss to the Dallas Mavericks -- what we heard from Pop at the postgame podium was almost certainly a season's worth of frustration spilling out.
This series with their familiar in-state rivals is only just starting, but the Spurs have been waiting more than six months for their expensive trade gamble on Jefferson to pay off with a reasonable degree of frequency. The onset of the playoffs, however, did not spawn a new Jefferson, who regressed to a virtual nonen y in his Spurs postseason debut.
While his old New Jersey pal Jason Kidd was threatening to record a triple-double (13 points, 11 assists and 8 rebounds) in support of Dirk Nowitzki's ridiculously efficient 36 points on 14 shots, Jefferson managed just four points (on a layup and a couple free of throws) in 32 quiet minutes.
"I think we've got to have a few more people step up and play worth a damn," Popovich said. "I thought we had a lot of guys that played like dogs."
It was the sort of biting commentary that only a few coaches in this league -- Phil Jackson and Jerry Sloan might be the only others -- can deliver without repercussions. It also couldn't have helped Pop's mood that George Hill tried to play on his injured ankle and lasted only 18 scoreless minutes before it became clear that he's not yet ready to go.
But there was little doubt on this night that Jefferson was one of the main targets of Pop's ire, along with the 17 turnovers the Spurs committed as a team and what he deemed to be a substandard group effort on the boards.
You could actually rationalize the sloppiness on both sides -- "It was a lot of turnovers for Mavs-Spurs," Nowitzki conceded -- because the teams know each so well and are so good at disrupting each other's offenses. It's harder for the Spurs to accept that a player making just over $14 million who nudged their payroll to nearly $80 million for the season can't find more ways to make an impact. Dallas' Caron Butler was the newcomer to the rivalry you noticed most, with his 22 points and considerable aggression.
The reality, though, is that Jefferson has always done his best work in transition but now plays in a system that favors spot-up shooters and doesn't allow for much creativity unless you're named Parker or Ginobili. The Spurs also won't generate the open looks on the perimeter in this matchup as often as they once did because Tim Duncan doesn't command double-teams against Dallas.
The Spurs are the last team in the NBA tournament field that's going to overreact to 1-0 series deficit, but it's likewise clear that they've got multiple issues to address -- on top of their long-standing problem defending Nowitzki -- to manufacture four wins in the next six games over the surging-in-confidence Mavs.
While Erick Dampier and Brendan Haywood were taking turns making Duncan work for his 27 points, Manu Ginobili (26 points) and Tony Parker (18) continue to get reacquainted after not playing together regularly since early January. That resulted in the strange sight of Parker's spotting up on the weak side for much of Sunday's fourth quarter while Ginobili dominated the ball.
So ...
Two things to watch for from here from the Spurs' perspective:
1. How Jefferson responds to Pop's call-out.
2. How Parker handles his new sixth-man role as he continues his recovery from a broken hand ... and whether he stays in that role.
Parker insisted after the defeat that he expects to keep coming off the bench because Popovich always wants a potential game-changing scorer to send in behind the starters. "I'm Manu Junior now," Parker keeps saying.
But we'll see whether Popovich can resist re-instating Parker to the starting lineup and keep using him as a Ginobili-style wild card. Although he surely doesn't want to start both Parker and Ginobili, Pop might find that easier to stomach than waiting for Jefferson to find a niche.
From the water is wet department...
Though I hate to be thinking about the offseason already, I look forward to being able to dump Jefferson's expiring contract off on somebody this offseason. Assuming of course RJ doesn't screw us by opting out.
Then again, if he opts out that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world either.
$15 million dollar Udoka.
Jefferson opting out actually helps out slightly with respect to how much we'll be able to spend. As it stands we'll have the MLE (which will be roughly equivalent to a starting salary of $4-5M). If RJ opts out then we'd be at 51M, $5M under the 56.1M salary cap. We could also not pick up the team options on Hairston/Gee which would give us an additional $1.5M. That way we could maybe land someone else like Mo Evans in addition to Tiago.
The Spurs could have just kept Finley and gotten 4 points and an ass-raping from Butler. At least his ass is gone no later than next year, so this trade doesn't quite reach the level of failure of the Charles Smith deal 15 years ago.
RJ opting out would not be terrible and it would then give us more options when it comes to tiago (who would be a player that could at least stay with dirk laterally and be as tall) but then we would be at a loss for a slasher and 4th option scorer again, and i doubt we would find such a player with what money we would have. but then again, who could be worse than jefferson ?
Considering how the Spurs were clueless in defending Dirk in that epic WCSF series in 2006, and considering how the Fakers upgraded and "lengthened" their frontline in 2008, it's obvious that the Spurs have needed to add length to their frontline for some time now. That said, it's inexcusable to me how the FO has failed to directly address this deficiency all this time. For this post, I'm electing to ignore Splitter because he's not here, which makes him the proverbial "bird in the bush". He doesn't count, since he's not here - meaning he can't help.The Spurs are the last team in the NBA tournament field that's going to overreact to 1-0 series deficit, but it's likewise clear that they've got multiple issues to address -- on top of their long-standing problem defending Nowitzki -- to manufacture four wins in the next six games over the surging-in-confidence Mavs.
There has been ample time to either draft, acquire, develop or trade for a big that could provide adequate help to, not only help defend a player like Dirk, but also provide some relief Duncan. Many of us ask the question, "where's Ian?" Pop hasn't done himself, his team, or this kid any favors by stunting the development of this kid, by icing him to the bench for most of the season.
Meanwhile, Pop insists on countering with his usual series of small-ball lineups featuring a collection of inferior PFs and SFs, who masquerade as 5's.
Back to the point of the thread, I hold out absolutely no hope for RJ. By now, if we've not seen a pulse from him before, we're not going to see one now. Chalk that acquisition up as a failure.
The Spurs will be better off being over the cap than they would being just under it. Between the MLE, BAE and the 1st round exception the Spurs would need to be about $8 mil under the cap to have potential cap room worth getting excited about. The benefit to Jefferson opting out would be on the luxury tax front, with another potential benefit of being able to sign and trade RJ somewhere.
So why the you traded for him???????????????????The reality, though, is that Jefferson has always done his best work in transition but now plays in a system that favors spot-up shooters and doesn't allow for much creativity unless you're named Parker or Ginobili.
If you know a player doesn't work on a certain system why try. Maybe we could get something better with those expiring contracts
That is the 15 million dollar question.
Boy, do I wish the FO would've acquired SJax instead?
For RJ to break out he will need more minutes with Manu rather than TP. He played with TP way too much IMO for his style of BB to be implemented. Though I give some credit to TP for trying to work with RJ those two just don't seem to complement one another.
RJ's numbers improved when he played mostly with Manu. HIll's injury and Pop's tinkering with how to use TP has been thrown RJ out of sync. Now I'm a firm believer that RJ needs to get over this and get into the game. Be more agressive on the boards and man up on D.
We'll see what adjustments Pop makes for game 2.
the other option is that you hope he breaks out in his second season after having one under his belt. there have been spurs before who struggled in their first year here.
^
More like 30 million but at this point it really doesn't matter. What matters is that in order to get him going he will need more of his style of play. More fast breaks lead by Manu but that means rebounds and they are at a premium aaginst the Mavs.
Yeah, what would SJax be able to do palying for the Spurs. He would fit right in that's for sure.
But apart from that Stein has a very impertant point - why did our FO trade for a player that didn't play our brand of BB? In hindsight it seems that they were trying to conjure up a player that didn't exist. The cracks in the FO are showing more these days than they ever did.
All obvious stuff for Spurs fans. I was hoping the other scrubs would get mentioned too. At least Udoka was tough.
Hindsight. At the time all the Spurs, as well as all of us fans, saw was the proverbial athletic small forward who could score that we had been desparate for since Sean left. There was no way to know that he'd be such a bad fit here.
Jefferson picked up two quick, ticky-tack calls in the first two minutes, and never recovered. It looked like he was trying to come out and be aggressive. But once he came back of the bench, that was all gone. Typical RJ.
TBH, I see no RJ in the last 2 or 3 season but Spurs should do a better research of what they were getting. Since he only played for uptempo teams this trade was a huge gamble
To tell the true when this trade happened I got very excited because, as you said, I thought we got the athletic 3 that we're searching for. But after see him for 15 games you already see he's a bad fit.
R.C and his guys are paid to see those things and they fail. There were other players who should be better fit for the Spurs system.
I disagree. I bit my tongue after the deal and hoped for the best, but there was a post from exstatic that I remember encapsulating my concerns:
The Spurs had to see some, if not all, the potential problems we and others foresaw. But the desperation to upgrade their talent immediately (the window was closing), combined with the financial climate, had them believing (IMO) they basically had two options: Carter or Jefferson.
Their first choice was Carter but when they couldn't put together a package they liked, they made the RJ deal; the guy was talented and given Pop's time with him during '04 (where RJ displayed admirable professionalism and a good personality that would seemingly fit in the locker room) they thought they might be able to make it work.
Not so much . . . (Props, ex)
We all saw RJ pick up his game in the 2nd half of the season, last night was just the fact that maybe he picked up 2 quick fouls and it threw him off his game, and add to the fact that it was his 1st Playoff game with a new team. And I don't buy the whole "Hill clearly wasnt ready to go yet" comment by Stein. To me it just looked like Hill was playing it too damn safe and was probably hesitant to do anything that would re-injure his ankle, therefore passing the ball off to Manu every chance he got..
Jefferson could have easily had 6 or 8 more points if he had hustled a little more on a few fast break opportunities. It was like he didn't want the open court dunk.
Again, hindsight. No doubt, the trade didn't work out and the Spurs are paying a heavy price for that. I just take issue with the notion that the Spurs should be faulted for not knowing how this would work out ahead of time, especially considering how everyone, including all the experts and fellow GMs, coaches and other insiders were universally agreeing how great a deal the Spurs had made.
As for the whole "system" arguement, I think that's another point that's being overblown. Yeah, RJ is at his best in transition. Still, I don't think it's smart to just not trade for a guy because he's played his whole career in a different system. I sure as wouldn't let the fact that David Lee played for Mike Antoni stop me from getting him just because the knicks don't play the same style as the Spurs do. If you look at the numbers at the time of the trade RJ was still a guy who shot the 3 well and had the ability to get to the free throw line.
Obviously things didn't work out and I'm 100% for cutting ties with him this offseason. I just take issue with saying the Spurs should have known this would happen.
wasn't RJ a a 39% 3-point shooter last year? i bought into the trade on that basis. if he hits the three at the clip, this team is fine. i guess in that respect he was just a flash in the pan. his inability to directly benefit of off penetration by Parker and Manu is what is killing this team. Bowen was a sure 2-3 3 point guy a game it seemed, esp in the playoffs. not having that, and maybe even more important the threat of that, and not mention his defense, is killing this team. so he basically doesn't compliment our 2 best players (when they are both in the game) because he can't space things out. the team has always needed spot up shooter at the 3. going back to Bruce, Barry, Jaren Jackson/Mario Elie, Stephen Jackson. it's been a staple in the offense. Hubie Brown has actually pointed this out in his commentary that they are lacking in that area. i think that is more of a problem than anything this year. more than lack of size, specifically.
I agree with all that, and if the Spurs were acquiring RJ with the intention of making him their #2 or #3 guy I'd have had a big problem with it. But they weren't. They were looking for a #4 guy. Yes, the contract was ridiculous, but that ridiculous contract was the only reason the asking price was so low.I disagree. I bit my tongue after the deal and hoped for the best, but there was a post from exstatic that I remember encapsulating my concerns:
The Spurs had to see some, if not all, the potential problems we and others foresaw. But the desperation to upgrade their talent immediately (the window was closing), combined with the financial climate, had them believing (IMO) they basically had two options: Carter or Jefferson.
Their first choice was Carter but when they couldn't put together a package they liked, they made the RJ deal; the guy was talented and given Pop's time with him during '04 (where RJ displayed admirable professionalism and a good personality that would seemingly fit in the locker room) they thought they might be able to make it work.
Not so much . . . (Props, ex
i'm sure the Spurs will find a place to dump him this summer. it'll be, hopefully, priority number 1b (next to Splitter of course).
they'll basically need to get a sf that can hit the three at 39% + and play defense.
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