Rookie year, Amare: 14 and 9.
Rookie year, Yao: 14 and 8.
Last edited by Obstructed_View; 07-11-2010 at 12:45 AM. Reason: NBA.com's stats are shit
His biggest asset defensively will be his ability to guard the pick and roll , he has excellent defensive foot work, and always seems to be in the right spot on time. yeah he wont block many shots , but if the series against the Suns is any indication he will really be of great help defensivly covering the pick and roll
If the Spurs could get by with not playing Duncan and Dice until the ASB, I'd be all for that. Since they can't do that, I'd like to see them play him 25 mins/game (10 mins for Dice), no back to back, and take off a game when they do 5 games in 7 nights.
Duncan played really well in the first half of the season until he wore down. He also played well the first 3 games of the playoffs (after 5 days rest) and lots of days off between games. When the games were every other day, he played poorly.
What??? Dude Mookie is saying that we should play Duncan as much as possible because he is an amazing once-in-a-lifetime player. Why save his legs for five more years for us to suck ass when we can play him all we need and try to get that elusive fifth ring for this next year.....that's his reasoning.
Noone ever mentioned Duncan coming off the bench.
O_V was making reference to Pop bringing TD off the bench last season against Toronto (IIRC)
Not only he had to end up playing TD, he ended up playing more minutes than usual and we also lost the game.
In either case it is obvious Duncan is a Manu when it comes to playoff legs. So do we save those legs and get a ty seed or do we use those legs and get a better seed?
This was one of the biggest problems last season and every time Pop tried to play it right, it backfired and we lost anyway and lost ground. I'd like to see a real spurs depth the way spurs championship ball used to work.....
Thanks Timvp for the analysis. I think the other factor is how will Splitter do defensively against Aldridge, Gasol, Bynum, Nowitski etc.
let the man play
We aint tryin to hop in and on hop out right quick are we?
we're out for the GUSTO
Well, undeniably both the performance of the surrounding cast and how the rest of the west shapes up is going to have a big impact on how the minutes are going to be distributed for our older players. I just don't see the coaching staff actively burning our core guys to 'win' the #1 or #2 seed.
You're certainly en led to watch the Spurs for whatever floats your boat. There's no rights or wrongs there.
I'm with Mookie on this one, with a catch. I absolutely think minutes are not so much important as getting the right players to help Tim Duncan defend the paint and finally getting a cohesive group/rotation which has eluded the spurs the past 3 years. It won't matter if Tim Duncan plays 30 minutes a game if he has people helping him defend the paint so he is not stuck doing it alone for major stretches of the game. Which basically means Matt Bonner should really not be getting minutes, period.
The big rotation would have been perfect if not for Bonner getting resigned at such a high price, which basically gaurantees him getting 15-20 minutes a game. He should have been a guy who was resigned at most maybe 2m a year if not vet minimum to take some minutes early in the year but be firmly planted on the bench by March.
If he really is as good as advertised, Splitter could have quickly garnered a starting role alongside TD, effectively moving McDyess to the 2nd unit where I think he best fits with Blair. From what I saw last year, McDyess and Blair were a very good combination offensively and defensively. The TD-Splitter & McDyess-Blair combos would have been perfect.
But now by having Bonner rotating in and out with his 15-20 minutes and watering everyone else's minutes down there will be little cohesion and continuity amongst the bigs... much like what unnecessarily adding Bogans did last year to the guard rotation. Splitter's minutes will be watered down to the point where it will take all year for him to even learn the system. Won't be long before he becomes frustrated and upset. McDyess will have to play as starter for most of the year because of this and won't be happy in this role. Blair's minutes will be cut to make room for Bonner and he isn't going to be effective with so few minutes and unhappy. All because ing Pop is stuck on this idea he absolutely needs a 3point shooting big in the rotation.
I think it goes for many of us...great analysisthe main reason why I became so addicted to this site is timvp's takes
My daily overview of the forum starts by searching for timvp's posts and lately of one another poster. Sometimes I also check out Kori's or Bruno's posts (depending on what is happening in the Spurs world).
Varejao and defense in the same sentence = flop
Well at this point.. only the trolls are arguing that the Bonner signing was a great one... hopefully Splitter get enough minutes to learn and develop.
IMO theres no reason to play guys with no upside/incapable on contributing consistently because even if they play well were not a championship team. Some arguments out there that keeping Bonner is a good idea because he knows the system... so what? is that supposed to make our team better? With Splitter and Blair's upside - if they can really develop we may be good enough in the future. I just hope that Splitter and Blair get a lot of playing time next year..
Great analysis, timvp. Thanks.
Thanks for the analysis, gives us a great basis for discussion. Between Preview #1 and #2 I see a HUGE red flag: fouls.
In Preview #1 you explained he is used to do what the NBA would call moving screens. He's been used to that for years and I don't how fast one can "unlearn" that, but I'd bet not overnight.
In Preview #2 you show us that he is consistently projected above 4.5 fouls per 40 minutes. He seems to be an aggressive defender around the basket.
I'm sure Pop is coming in with the best intentions re: a guy who is getting paid around $5 million and has a proven history overseas, so my comparison doesn't fully apply, but think of the last big man prospect we had and what happened to him because he racked up a few fouls, especially on moving screens. Now think about the next big guy prospect we had who also got his minutes limited because of fouling and aggressivity (one might call that passion) in his rookie year.
In short:
Pop + big man prospect likely to be a foul machine at first = FAIL
If Splitter fouls as much as your reports indicate, his PT will be ~10 minutes by December.
Very likely. I can already see a typical game for Tiago: Two quick fouls, and POop pulls him out (cuz we all know how much POop hates when players commit fouls)
BTW, on the moving screen thing - does the NBA really call that many moving screens? I see veteran players getting away with moving screens all the time. I think it's something rookies get called for a lot, but otherwise I think the NBA is pretty lax on moving screens, especially on the perimeter.
Thank you timvp, great analysis as always.
I don't expect Splitter to be a stat guy and that's ok. 10/7 with some good d and passing and intangibles would be fine. I don't think he will be a great shot blocker or rebounder. He could score more but that's more about plays run for him or not. I hope to see better than Rasho numbers and a team player having fun and making plays.
Maybe but his moving screens in europe was so obvious they would get called. He is smart and should adjust so should not be a dig problem.
Varejao's is a much better defender at the moment. To catch up, Splitter needs to increase his hustle and energy -- especially when he is away from the ball. Splitter has better length but Varejao is much more technically sound.
But then again, being a worse defender than Varejao isn't uncommon. I'd rank Varejao as a top five defensive bigman.
I'd have to agree. No way will Splitter be as good as Varejao.. at least initially. I'd even be surprised if Splitter's offensive game was on par with AV's.
It's funny cause Varejao was never that good in Europe. I did not expect him to have a good nba career. He was mostly running around like crazy, not touching the ball and looking lost.
Splitter > Varejao in my honest opinion after seing them play for several years.
Duncan needs to be able to play ~40 MPG in order for the Spurs to win. Therefore, if Duncan isn't relatively fresh and injury-free by the playoffs, the Spurs have no chance.
If the Spurs don't develop their young players to contribute during the regular season, Duncan can't be fresh by the playoffs because he has to work too hard to carry the team against the Clippers and the Pacers and the Spurs still end up with a low seed. Again, it wasn't resting Duncan that caused the Spurs to struggle in the regular season, it was having Bonner defend all-stars in the post, putting RJ in as a center and starting Keith Bogans for half the season.
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