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Ah. It's only been 1 day, but the possibilities of this acquisition keep getting better and better.
Finally! The athletic SF that we've needed since Jack left the building.
It's impossible to tell right now because the Spurs will make more moves. No one knows what the team will look like in two weeks. But as it currently stands, I would guess:
TP - 22.5 ppg
TD - 19.8 ppg
RJ - 16.0 ppg
Manu - 15.5 ppg
Mason - 12.0 ppg
Manu's minutes will be limited. The Spurs will protect him during the season.
Ah. It's only been 1 day, but the possibilities of this acquisition keep getting better and better.
Finally! The athletic SF that we've needed since Jack left the building.
Impossible but fun to speculate.
TP 23
RJ 19
TD 17.5
Manu 15.5
Mason 11 ? If we have him?
Finally the drop off from the 3rd best player to the 4th best player won't be so great.
I think Mason will thrive on a team with the current top four, provided Pop plays him as a 2 and doesn't try to make him into a backup point.
RJ had more FTA than anyone on Spurs roster last season
RJ - 518
TD - 483
After watching what he did with Hill last season(sticking him in the corner and leaving him there)...this is something that went through my mind when I was thinking about all the things that RJ could do to help this team. The opposite side of that coin is that Bruce started to use the fake more and more which led to a pretty easy drive to the basket. I see RJ doing the same except with much better results.
I just hope Pop wont mess him up like what he did to Mason. As the poster above said, he will thrive in the system because the Spurs love to pass on corners and he can pump fake and get to the rim like what Bowen has been recently doing.
Do you have a link to the article, ShoogaBear? I'd like to read it. I'm not questioning you at all, but I think they missed with their numbers. Your point is well taken, though, that his role as a slasher is where he is most valuable.
The big change in his numbers really happened last season. He took more 3P attempts, as a percentage of total shots - but then again, he also hit a much higher percentage of his 3P shots. His career 3P% had been .337, and last year he shot .397 from outside the arc. (Raised his career 3P% to .353 in the process.) He shot more 3's and he hit more - both of those will skew the point distribution.
On the surface, shooting more 3's might look like a good thing when he is hitting almost 40% of his attempts. But everything he gained by hitting 3-pointers, he lost because of a lower overall shooting percentage, and because he got fewer FTA's. In fact, his career Points/FGA had been 1.377; last season it was 1.315. That's a pretty sizable change. His career FG% had been .475, and last year it dipped to .439 - also because of shooting more 3-pointers. That's also a very sizable change.
For most players, shooting 40% from the 3P line would be an improvement. For Jefferson, it decreased his overall scoring proficiency. Bottom line - he makes a high percentage of his shots when driving, and gets a lot of FTA's in the process. To use him as a perimeter shooter would be a serious waste.
One interesting side-note: Jefferson has always been good about getting to the FT line. For his career, his FTA/FGA percentage has been .489 (about 1 FTA for every two shots taken). Last season it dipped to .423, because of all the extra 3P attempts - but still a very good rate of getting to the line. Tony Parker's career FTA/FGA has been .297 (less than 1 FTA for ever 3 shots taken). Last season it actually dipped to .287, even though he took it to the rim so often. Remember that stat, once the season starts, and Jefferson's drops to below .400, even though it's never been below .420 in his career (even in his rookie year). Mark my words, he won't get the same amount of whistles in a Spurs jersey.
Oh man, can't wait to see him play for us... He'll have more dunks in the first game than Oberto and Thomas had the whole Spurs carrer.
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