Honestly, Jimmer was maybe the worst defender I'd seen when he came into the league. But that's not a full indictment on him. At BYU, he played with a great defensive backcourt mate, Jackson Emery, and they wanted him to be an offensive juggernaut; so, he was never had to work on defense. He only ever played pre-safety out there. Rajon Rondo found himself in a similar predicament with the Mavs; and it ultimately cost him his cache as a top five to seven PG. He had been playing with the great defender Avery Bradley for a few years and when he suddenly was stuck with Monta Ellis who is not a good defender, he was exposed; and his defensive skills had greatly diminished. Defense is something you have to work on just like offense (maybe not as much is all).
But Jimmer's one v. one defense is vastly improved. He stays in front of most PGs most of the time now (something he's not getting credit for in cyber space and the media). He still needs to improve on rotations and angles though.
The fact that McCallum is only a slightly better defender statistically than Jimmer is not good. Because when you're not a great shooter, you're suppose to work on things like defense to create some sort of other value. I think McCallum's defensive numbers are more troubling than Jimmer's at this point.
I got the same intuition about McCallum's defense. I didn't look at the numbers, but considering his size and lack of wingspan, I would consider it average at best.
In fact, I'm willing to go out on the limb and say that its not noticeably better than Parker's. In fact, maybe Parker is a better defensive player, but that's still a low bar!
Jimmer is a guy who has traditionally needed the ball in his hands to be most effective as a scorer. That's why he was a PG at BYU. He could get two to five touches per possession with the extended shot clock until he found a shot for himself or a teammate that he liked. Of course, in the NBA, that system (even an abridged system) is rarely something that a rookie can't expect to play in. So, naturally there was going to be an adjustment period. Jimmer had to learn how to drive and kick more as a PG and learn how to come off of screens better as an SG. The latter, his dysfunctional teams didn't really do much of a job of working on getting him shots off of screens at all. Instead, it was mostly go stand in a corner and drift higher on PG drives.That's pretty sad when you think about it. The Magic and the Clippers didn't do that with Red . The Pacers certainly didn't do that with Reggie Miller. Now, I'm not saying Jimmer is on their level on coming off screens; but maybe he could be by now if his teams had worked on him with that. The Spurs offense isn't exactly based on excessive screens for the SG as much as it is spacing; but even they'll do more of that for Green than Jimmer's teams did for him.
I think that Jimmer's 3's will rise above 40 this year. He was just in a slump last season from deep. It looked like he was just aiming the ball more than shooting with confidence from three (ironically he looked great on his tear drops). I think Jimmer's threes were more rushed last year too. He'll be in a make the extra pass system that the Pels frankly don't have. So, he'll be taking quality threes or make the next pass rather than trying to do too much.
McCallum did play on a bad defensive team though. So, maybe there's hope that his defense sharply improves. I have my doubts though.
Just to add, I don't believe Mills is a good defender at all. He really struggles hard to get around the picks. He is very small and light and get's bullied by a lot of pg's out there. However, he can be a pest if the opposition takes him lightly. Stealing inbound passes, full court press, things like that. In other words, Mills is good when it comes to regular season but his weakeness becomes obvious in the playoffs when the game becomes more half court offense. Fredette doesn't do the full court or half court defense very well (from what I have seen). So if he isn't shooting well, he wont get a run.
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-...ardens-defense
Perhaps, some hope for McCallum and Fredette.Bowen: Defense is something you have to practice very day, especially rotations. We went over our rotations every day in all my eight years in San Antonio.
In defense of Mills, his defense is really kind of chaotic. He doesn't have the size to defend straight up, so he's out there pestering the opponent looking for him to make just a small mistake. I guess he tries to make best use of his quickness. It isn't great and he's out there gambling a lot. However, they've been plenty of occasions where he got lucky in the backcourt and made the opponent pay big time!
With all these old guys and bad defender, how do we play great defense?
Spurs were 3rd in Opp pts per game last year and 2nd in defensive rating last year. Jimmer and Ray will have to play in the defensive scheme or they'll find themselves in street clothes more often than not.
They'll have a lot of opportunity to play with the old big 3 taking a lot of time off this season.
I wouldn't even be surprised if both Jimmer and Ray are the two guys in suits most of the time.
The three players most likely to be in suites are Jimmer, Ray and Bonner. Boban you need for backup, Simmons you need to for defensive duties.
Some have argued that this will be Jimmer in the upcoming season...
I wonder if Manu should have retired and the Spurs could have kept Belinelli.
I guess not, Beli got $6.3 per season with the Kings.
Manu took 2.5 I think. I don't think Beli was gonna give em that type of hometown discount. And even an old Manu is still a better player than Beli is he not? He creates for other players. Beli is just a better version of Gary Neal.
Just speculating here.
But it is hard to tell if Manu is on his lasts legs. I just hated it in 2013 that he was making a ton of turnovers. I tend to forget if he made a lot of errors in 2014. So many what-ifs about that 2013 series, what if Pop kept Duncan in the game. What if Leonard made his free throws. What if Manu played a more controlled game. Enough to drive you mad, Spurs were totally devastated for good reason.
Also, you never know if Belineli would have taken a discount to stay with the Spurs.
Belly was not better than Gary 'balls of steel' Neal.
Spurtacular I'm going to you up if you keep this Jimmer shtick going.
Statistically about the same; maybe, a slight edge to Belli.
Keep it up .
Solid take, R2D2.
http://airalamo.com/2015/07/25/spurs...athon-simmons/
Not a very well written article; but it raises the point of Jimmer vs. Simmons for perhaps that 13th dress spot.
PG - Parker; Mills; McCallum; Fredette
SG - Green; Ginobili; Simmons
SF - Leonard; Anderson
PF - Aldridge; West
C - Duncan; Diaw; Bobo; Bonner
If I'm not missing anything, why not just keep the 15 we have? I don't see why it's Simmons vs. Jimmer. Both players could be beneficial for the team but neither are similar or the same position. Jimmer's a 1-2 and Simmons is a 2-3.
The most popular thinking on here as of now is that Simmons and Jimmer do make the 15. But only 13 can dress. This article throws out the possibility of Simmons spending some time in the d-league rather than spend time in a suit. I know that's probably not going to be a popular notion for posters here; but it's a possibility whether Jimmer makes the squad or not.
Bobo = Diaw.
Bobi = Marjanovic.
But to your point, teams often times like to keep that 15th spot open for a potential player down the road, whether it be via trad, FA, or the waiver wire.
One of the bigs and McCallum or Fredette would be the ones not dressing. Simmons could play sg,sf, and some pg. It doesn't make sense to not dress him.
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