Nazr to the Pistons

[clubalien]

can somone please answer why kmart was in town?

it is not like we attract all these nba ballas all the time to our town

[ShoogarBear]

He has the potential for big games so why are they so infrequent?
He doesn't get the minutes, only 17 a game and his turnovers aren't bad at just a little over 1 a game which doesn't seem to bad but I rarely get to see him play so stats don't always tell the story. He does seem to be foul prone with 2.8 in limited playing time so that's not good.
Is he lazy? Does he have motivation problems? Did it bother him to come off the bench behind Rasho?

I don't care what the numbers say, he has horrible hands, both catching simple passes and fumbling rebounds. He also isn't a great leaper or athlete and spends way too much time gathering himself and pump-faking (unsuccesfully) under the basket. He was also out of position a lot, on offense and especially on defense.

The effort is there, he has a good nose for the offensive boards and has a reasonable 10-15 foot jumper. He should have better numbers given consistent minutes and a set role in the offense. Also, I doubt Flip will yank him for defensive faux-pas the way Pop did. But OMG, Detroit is going to miss Ben.

[ShoogarBear]

I put more stock in a direct quote from R.C. than I would from Ludden.

So would I. But I have to assume Ludden didn't just make that up because he felt like it.

[spurschick]

So would I. But I have to assume Ludden didn't just make that up because he felt like it.

He was sitting and talking with R.C. at the FIBA tourney on Friday for a little while.

[jochhejaam]

I don't care what the numbers say, he has horrible hands, both catching simple passes and fumbling rebounds. He also isn't a great leaper or athlete and spends way too much time gathering himself and pump-faking (unsuccesfully) under the basket. He was also out of position a lot, on offense and especially on defense.

The effort is there, he has a good nose for the offensive boards and has a reasonable 10-15 foot jumper. He should have better numbers given consistent minutes and a set role in the offense. Also, I doubt Flip will yank him for defensive faux-pas the way Pop did. But OMG, Detroit is going to miss Ben.

Thanks SBear. I was looking for some insight from Spurs fans on him and that's helpful.

[Kori Ellis]

He has the potential for big games so why are they so infrequent?
He doesn't get the minutes, only 17 a game and his turnovers aren't bad at just a little over 1 a game which doesn't seem to bad but I rarely get to see him play so stats don't always tell the story. He does seem to be foul prone with 2.8 in limited playing time so that's not good.
Is he lazy? Does he have motivation problems? Did it bother him to come off the bench behind Rasho?

He is a decent rebounder. He can score garbage points around the rim and will throw in an awesome game every few months.

But he has really, really, really bad hands. Manu and Tony would toss him passes a 3-year-old could catch and he'd bobble them out of bounds. Spurs fans thought Malik had stone hands (with his bad thumbs) and Nazr surpassed Malik by a long shot. It's crazy how bad his hands are.

That's not really the thing that is the most frustrating though. He doesn't understand the basics. For example, Tony or Manu would be scoring at will driving down the lane and then Nazr would come in and stand exactly where they need to go to get to the rim. Tony and Manu would be wildly waving him out of their way and he wouldn't move. Or Tim would get on the block and Nazr would be in his space. Then on defense, the same thing ... he missed rotation after rotation and he'd always, always be in the wrong place.

Spurs tried to bring him along slowly but you could see the coaches and players heads almost exploding with frustration.

I don't know what to conclude other than his basketball IQ must be sub-moron.

[JamStone]

I'm not happy with the Nazr signing, but for one-third the price of Ben Wallace, I wouldn't expect to be. While Nazr will not provide the defensive rebounding, blocked-shots, steals, and overall defensive presence that Ben Wallace brought, I don't think Nazr will be horrible. Well, at least I hope he's not horrible.

Ben fumbled a lot of passes himself. And, he was generally good for at least one missed wide open dunk a game. Nazr will bring a tad more offense and Pistons fans won't shriek in horror when he's at the free throw line. If he can just provide about 30 serviceable minutes a game and get anywhere from 7-8 rebound per game in those 30 minutes, I think Pistons fans won't be too disappointed.

The Pistons don't have the offensive talent that the Spurs' starting line-up has, but they're by no mean bums. Nazr will be asked once again to complement, not be asked to be counted on as a primary guy at either end of the floor.

Hopefully, his summer workout buddy, Tayshaun, can really spark a fire in him and motivate him to play up to his potential.

[FreshPrince22]

He is a decent rebounder. He can score garbage points around the rim and will throw in an awesome game every few months.

But he has really, really, really bad hands. Manu and Tony would toss him passes a 3-year-old could catch and he'd bobble them out of bounds. Spurs fans thought Malik had stone hands (with his bad thumbs) and Nazr surpassed Malik by a long shot. It's crazy how bad his hands are.

That's not really the thing that is the most frustrating though. He doesn't understand the basics. For example, Tony or Manu would be scoring at will driving down the lane and then Nazr would come in and stand exactly where they need to go to get to the rim. Tony and Manu would be wildly waving him out of their way and he wouldn't move. Or Tim would get on the block and Nazr would be in his space. Then on defense, the same thing ... he missed rotation after rotation and he'd always, always be in the wrong place.

Spurs tried to bring him along slowly but you could see the coaches and players heads almost exploding with frustration.

I don't know what to conclude other than his basketball IQ must be sub-moron.

Sounds like we got a winner

[ShoogarBear]

Man, I'm already griinning thinking about Piston Fan posts on Nazr next year . . .

[Kori Ellis]

Sounds like we got a winner

Sorry.

I dislike Nazr more than most Spurs fans do though.

Maybe someone else can tell you more about his upside

[himat]

Do you think he has worse hands than Ben Wallace offensively? If Nazr can give us 1 block, 7-8 boards, 10 points, and work hard it will make the best out of a very bad situation.

[ShoogarBear]

I think Nazr will do a lot better under Flip because Flip will nuture his offense and won't yank him for bad defense, so his minutes will be more consistent. Also, Nazr will be the only guy trying to play on the blocks now.

[Buddy Holly]

Flip will nuture his offense

Because he did that with Ben Wallace?

[himat]

Man, I'm already griinning thinking about Piston Fan posts on Nazr next year . . .

. Maybe Joe D. sees something in him that we don't just like Ben, Cb, Rip, Tay, and Sheed

[jochhejaam]

He is a decent rebounder. He can score garbage points around the rim and will throw in an awesome game every few months.

But he has really, really, really bad hands. Manu and Tony would toss him passes a 3-year-old could catch and he'd bobble them out of bounds. Spurs fans thought Malik had stone hands (with his bad thumbs) and Nazr surpassed Malik by a long shot. It's crazy how bad his hands are.

That's not really the thing that is the most frustrating though. He doesn't understand the basics. For example, Tony or Manu would be scoring at will driving down the lane and then Nazr would come in and stand exactly where they need to go to get to the rim. Tony and Manu would be wildly waving him out of their way and he wouldn't move. Or Tim would get on the block and Nazr would be in his space. Then on defense, the same thing ... he missed rotation after rotation and he'd always, always be in the wrong place.

Spurs tried to bring him along slowly but you could see the coaches and players heads almost exploding with frustration.

I don't know what to conclude other than his basketball IQ must be sub-moron.

Thanks for the insight Kori. Not a very good report card for Nazr. Hopefully the Piston's coaches can come up with a plan to maximize his strong points and minimize his weaknesses.
Although if Pop wasn't able to...<sigh>

[Kori Ellis]

I think Nazr will do a lot better under Flip because Flip will nuture his offense and won't yank him for bad defense, so his minutes will be more consistent.

I can agree with that.

[Please_dont_ban_me]

Nazr did have bad hands. He was constintently out of place.

But he was also our toughest defender. He was the one man'ing up against the Wallace brothers, he was the one banging with Kenyon Martin. He did more for this team than we really appreciate.

[Pistons < Spurs]

I don't really know if he can get close to 30 minutes a game. Conditioning will be part of it ... in 8 NBA years, he's averaged 18.8 minutes. His highest output was probably in 2001 in which he received 26.4.

The other factor is foul trouble. Maybe you Spur fans can add to this, but in the games I've seen of him while in SA, he picks up fouls left and right as soon as he gets in the game.

As mentioned, his hands are like the rock of gibraltar ... and Piston fans thought Ben had bad hands

Kori probably said best what I've noticed about him. He cannot ever figure out where in the he is supposed to be on the court. He defends his own players better than the opposition because of his ignorance.

But he is better than nothing. He can hit his FT's a whole heck of a lot better than Ben. And if can become somewhat of a consistent threat scoring the ball, perhaps that will open up for the other guys on the team. We don't need him to score 20 points a game ... but if other teams think he can go off for 15-20, they will have to defend him.

[Bob Lanier]

Because he did that with Ben Wallace?

No kidding. If Flip doesn't see a player making jumpshots consistently, he will freeze that player out of the offense.

Which, in this case, could be a good thing - less Nazr means more Maxiell or Dice, or even DD.

[MannyIsGod]

Nazr did have bad hands. He was constintently out of place.

But he was also our toughest defender. He was the one man'ing up against the Wallace brothers, he was the one banging with Kenyon Martin. He did more for this team than we really appreciate.

Man, no offense, but the more you post about basketball the more I wonder what you watch.

[jochhejaam]

Man, I'm already griinning thinking about Piston Fan posts on Nazr next year . . .

We'll definitely keep you in the know.

[ShoogarBear]

Because he did that with Ben Wallace?

Um, look at Rasho's numbers under Flip.

Ben has no offesnive game to nuture.

[MannyIsGod]

I wonder what Pistons fans will do when they look at Nazr and then look down at the bigman in Orlando.

[Buddy Holly]

Um, look at Rasho's numbers under Flip.

Umm, pretty much the same as with SA except for his contract year.

[Quadzilla99]

We'll definitely keep you in the know.

Barring some new rule interpretation that permits applying Lester Hayes amounts of Stickum to Nazr's prone to ball dropping hands expect to be plenty frustrated for the next 5 or so years.