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somebody said it before i could.
this is the thread i wuz goin to put
Patty Mills should be Spurs backup PG.
check it out.
Pop should end the Neal as backup PG experiment and go with Mills for a a simple reason: Neal is horrible at defending point guards.
When Neal is playing PG, the opposite PG averaged 27.3 points per 48min with a .563 eFG% and a 22.1 PER.
For people not familiar with these kind of stats, it's awful. I haven't checked but Neal should be the worst defensive PG in the league by a significant margin. Some complementary stats to show how bad it is:
- With Parker at PG, the opposite PG, who is most of the time the starter, average 21.5 points per 48min with a .478 eFG% and a 16.4 PER.
- Parker production is 27.3 points per 48 min with a 21.3 PER. So, when Neal is playing PG, his opponent play at Parker's level. Neal turns the average backup PG into a top3 NBA PG.
Neal at PG hasn't been an all negative experiment. Spurs offense has been very well with him but it's now less needed with Ginobili back. In the playoffs, Neal could do fine in some matchups but he will be killed in other ones. Pop should grow Mills as backup PG for defensive purposes. Mills isn't known as a defensive specialist but his numbers were good when he was Blazers backup PG last year. His opponent scored 18.6 points per 48min with a .441 eFG% and a 12.2 PER.
somebody said it before i could.
this is the thread i wuz goin to put
Patty Mills should be Spurs backup PG.
check it out.
Last edited by jrodriguez.Nb.Tx; 04-02-2012 at 03:02 PM.
But neal fits pops chunker back up PG mentality perfectly. And neal has been hitting shots.
If neal were slumping I'd agree.
And mills is not known for being a defender
i just put the same frkin thread up..
Neal sucks at PG hes so concentrated on not gettin the ball stolen frm the other teams PG
and so concentrated on doing a good job that he cant concentrate on that pretty ass
shot he has.
put him at the 2 where all he has to do is shoot it.
so patty mills can get some minutes and does what he does.
I like Neal as the backup point for this season. He's bad defensively but i don't think Mills would be a huge upgrade.
Plus i don't see any backup PGs that can give us much trouble in the playoffs. Neal is a big time shooter and should have a permanent spot in the playoff rotation. I'd much rather Green or Mills be used for matchup purposes than Gary, tbh.
Those backup PG minutes are Neal's best claim to a spot in the playoff rotation. He'd have to be terrible as a PG to lose those minutes and he's not.
Bruno delivering and me agreeing with this
Take away Neal minutes as backup PG and you drop either Danny Green or Neal almost completely out of the rotation. Gotta pick your poison. I'd have to look further into advanced stats to have a firm opinion on the matter.
I reserve the right to change my opinion based on chazley's inevitably horrible basketball take on the matter.
Popovich has had a problem with back-up point guards essentially since Parker has taken over.
And when he stopped having this problem -TJ Ford- this lasted for about two weeks.
It's highly unlikely that Mills will have time to be incorporated as the back-up PG before the Playoffs.
Among other things, he's missed training camp.
Popovich is a military.
Militaries don't change the stategy of a winning campaign.
Oh, and stats don't win championships.
That's funny, because looking at my track record I am rarely wrong on these forums.
Solid, yet not unexpected, rebuttal.
I disagree for a variety of reasons:
1. Mills isn't a good defender. He's probably as bad of a defender as Neal.
2011 Blazers Points Allowed Per 100 Possessions
Aldridge: 105.52
Fernandez: 105.64
Wallace: 106.17
Miller: 106.39
Roy: 106.48
Matthews: 106.52
Camby: 107.08
Batum: 108.11
Mills: 109.07
Mills is quicker but he's smaller, weaker and his fundamentals are just as shaky. Benching Neal for bad defense makes some sense. But there's no way you can play Mills for defensive reasons.
2. As bad as Neal is at individual defense, the team defense isn't totally destroyed. Per 100 possessions, the Spurs allow 106.80 points per 100 possessions that Neal is on the court. That's below the team's rate (103.50) but not horribly out of line.
Let's do the math: The Spurs allow 3.3 more points per 100 possessions with Neal on the court. In the playoffs, the Spurs will probably play at a pace of about 93 possessions per game, so Neal would allow about 3.1 more points per 48 minutes. Considering that Neal will probably play about 12 minutes per game at point guard per game in the playoffs at most, that means that having Neal on the court will cause the Spurs to allow 0.77 points more points per playoff game.
So is it worth removing Neal to save one point per game on the defensive end? I don't believe so. I believe he an make it up on the offensive end.
3. The Spurs have been ridiculously good on offense with Neal at point guard, averaging 114.3 points per 100 possessions. Since this team relies so much on offense to win nowadays, it'd be risky to remove such an offensive weapon.
4. Neal and Ginobili already have good chemistry. Neal knows how to help Ginobili (mostly by handling the ball) but also realizes that Ginobili is the main playmaker in the halfcourt setting. There's no guarantee that Mills will understand that unique dynamic.
5. If you take away Neal's minutes at backup point guard, you are basically removing him from the playoff rotation. The shooting guard spot is just too deep now to expect Neal to crack the rotation via the 2. And since Neal has flashed the ability to be a game-changer on the offensive end, especially in clutch situations, I'm against removing Neal from the equation.
6. The teams as I view as the three biggest obstacles in the playoffs -- the Heat, Thunder and Lakers -- all have horrible backup point guard. As poorly as Neal defense, even he should be able to guard Norris Cole, Derek Fisher and Steve Blake.
With so many facilitators on this team, and a lot of guys capable of bringing the ball up the court, the backup point guard really is just in name only.
In the playoffs, Manu will be the lead facilitator, when Tony's not in the game. I doubt if Mills will see much time. He's just insurance.
Goods here
Good work, timvp.
If you're saying you want Mills to be the backup PG, then what you're simultaneously saying is, you either want Neal to be the backup SG or dropped from the rotation entirely. If you're saying the former, then you're looking at Neal and Mills playing together, which would make the team far worse off defensively than just one being in the rotation. Unless you want Pop to manipulate the rotation so as to split them up. But then that further limits the amount of time Parker and Ginobili play together.
Also, keep in mind that PG is the least important position defensively. timvp has already alluded to the likely 2nd, 3rd and 4th round opponents. Looking at potential 1st round ones, Miller, Dragic, Watson and Telfair, aren't exactly known for their athleticism and explosiveness. Telfair is the only one who's got above average speed/quickness, but he's also the worst player of the bunch.
Yeah I agree with timvp here
i don't think we would be better defensively with Mills as our primary PG. If we had a guy like Armon Johson as our backup yeah, but not with Mills.
Plus, i think Neal can be our backup PG, as long as we have Manu in the 2nd unit controlling the ball and calling the plays. His crap ball-handling skills don't allow him to be our primary PG without Manu. Neal should be on the floor only worried about what he does best, shooting.
Last edited by elemento; 04-02-2012 at 06:46 PM.
Agree 100%. For this particular roster spot, I like the old adage: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
I see Mills as an exclusively regular season player. He'll be another guy to spell Parker and Ginobili when the schedule gets really hectic around mid April. As far as playoffs are concerned, if Mills is playing, then we're not in good shape.
I actually agree with this.
LOL at the notion of playing Patty Mills to improve your defense.
I do agree that Neal has earned the right to suck on defense if he does. He has played well at a position it´s not his and earned the minutes.
But the truth is that both his shooting and PG abilities fit a different second unit, a second unit without Ginobili. If Manu is to be the sixth man of the Spurs then Mills is an option that will make the most sense, as his only dutty would be to defend the other teams backup PG and take the occasionally spot up 3.
You can count come playoff time that if Neal is bringing the ball up he is going to get pressure. It will take away from his game and after a couple of turnovers there goes his confidence and shooting......Play Mills at PG>
I'm kind of surprised that Batum is so ineffective defensively since that was supposed to be his strength coming into the league.
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