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Post by freshnthehouse on Jul 21, 2006 15:48:13 GMT -5
Secondly injuries are not acceptable or excuseable, especially if they would have been more easily prevented bu conditioning. You can not possibly praise a guy's endurance and work ethic (think Karl Malone) without critisizing guys who are hurt a lot and AL J has been hurt a lot considering how long he has been here. If injuries are inexcusable, how come Perk and his two shoulder injuries(the second one being severe enough to require surgery) have escaped your wrath? I def. wouldnt say that most fans had reasonable expectations of him. i remember say that Id be impress with an 11/7 season, and I defineatly was on the short end of the spectrum. Giving players out of high school more time to develop only makes sense. THis is something that happens in other professions as well. A friend of mine works for a pipe welding co. a lot of the workers are just dudes with high school diplomas. They get hired because they seem to be good workers and have an aptitude for the skill. These people are apprentices for a few years. My friend went to 2 years of trade school for welding. He had 6 months of apprenticeship before he became full-time. Why is that? Because he had much more practice and experience. He had two years of instructors showing him the proper way of doing things. So its ovious that he was much more prepared for the job than some random dude off the streets. I'd say this correlates to basketball almost perfectly. A player like Al came out of high school not having a sniff what real competitve basketball is like. A player like Gomes spent four year playing in a major program in a major conference. So of course the player with no tutoring is going to be given some leeway. Does this mean they cant be cut? Of course not. Leon Smith didnt even make it season. He got cut because he didnt show anything. Udi Ebi got cut because he didnt show anything.
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Post by DERRENMATTS on Jul 21, 2006 16:20:52 GMT -5
Dwight Howard is ahead of both Gomes and Al Jefferson because he is a better player than either of them. I view Dwight Howard as one of the top players in the league in a year or so. I certainly would trade for this guy. Al Jefferson and Dwight Howard are not on the same level. As much as I am a rooting for Jefferson, his upside is not nearly as high as Howard's. Howard is going to be a leading rebounder in the league who can score near 20 a game.
As for your comment that because Jefferson did not live up to the standards we set for him, that means he regressed just does not make sense. It just means that he disappointed us by not making the progress we hoped we'd see from him. By regress, it means that he did worse than he did previously. That is not the case with Jefferson.
Again, who knows what Jefferson would have done had he not been injured. When he played healthy last season and showed signs of putting things together, he was a double double guy. If he had been this player in the first half of the season, and continued to improve throughout the second half, he may have been a 15 and 9 guy by years end.
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Post by Roadrunner on Jul 21, 2006 22:36:03 GMT -5
I don't think you can compare the #1 overall draft pick to a player that didn't even get selected lottery.
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Post by mev17 on Jul 22, 2006 2:39:09 GMT -5
I voted for one of each -- you can't have two Perks on the court at the same time because we need to develop a low post scorer who can draw double teams. And Al would have trouble boxing out some of the stronger centers in the league, so having one of each is the best combo.
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Post by eja117 on Jul 22, 2006 9:28:37 GMT -5
Why can't you compare them? They are the same age. Play the same position. They both have tons of pword and talent. And someone here made a very good point when they said that AL J could have been the 1rst pick this year. That's a #1 to a #1. I would say it is at least fair to compare AL J this year to D Howard his first year.
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Post by ferbo on Jul 22, 2006 11:19:33 GMT -5
Comparison is inevitable. These guys are competitors and they envision themselves in comparison to others. That's how you tell the difference between McHale and Radja.
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Post by Roadrunner on Jul 22, 2006 21:53:50 GMT -5
I thought Radja smoked stogies?
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Post by DERRENMATTS on Jul 23, 2006 0:48:51 GMT -5
Dwight has All-NBA 1st team potential. Jefferson has All-Star potential.
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Post by freshnthehouse on Jul 23, 2006 2:41:43 GMT -5
They both have tons of pword and talent. If Al has tons of potential, DHoward has mega-tons. I wouldnt be suprised if Al can someday score as much as Howard will, but Howard is gonna be one of the greatest rebounders and defenders of all time. He's gonna be the next Moses Malone.
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Post by eja117 on Jul 23, 2006 13:48:05 GMT -5
So what? You guys are acting like bball is a game of chess or tennis or golf or an IQ test or something. BBall and really all good sports are much more like boxing. Direct conflict and confrontation. The best coaches are often the best psychologists and it's like Bill Parcells says, if the puupy doesn't nip he probably won't bite when he's a dog. Why do I get the feeling that Al never nipped, Howard did, and that Perk did all the gosh darn time as well as Gomes? This is why I said it's fair to compare Al J now to D Howard as a rookie. I was discounting all that p word even though I hate to even acknowledge p word. In the world of psychology today there is a new theory called multiple intelligences. Our multiple intelligences make us who we are. One intelligence is movement intelligence. This is basically how athletic you are. Another is emotional intelligence. basically Al J has very good movement intelligence. Perk is a genious with emotional intelligence. Howard is a genious with movement and fine with emotion. This is why it is fair to compare them. Perk vs Howard would be a more fair matchup than Howard vs Al. Perk has the better chance of winning even though he is not as "talented". Actually he is as talented, but he is more talented in the emotional/effort department, hence people consider him an enforcer. Basically movement intelligence is overratted and emotional intelligence is underratted and the people that rate them accurately do a better job of scouting. This is why Bellichek and DA and Parcells are masters of scouting. It's why guys who draft pword guys aren't. This is why Gomes was totally underrated. people are like "oh but there's no way to rate a guy's heart". Oh really?
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Post by freshnthehouse on Jul 23, 2006 15:17:44 GMT -5
So what? You guys are acting like bball is a game of chess or tennis or golf or an IQ test or something. How so? I never mentioned anything about Howard being smarter than AlJeff. Howard is much more talented than AlJeff, plain and simple. In every way. No amount of 'heart' is going to change that.
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Post by eja117 on Jul 23, 2006 15:33:06 GMT -5
Ah but it will. If Al had more "heart", especially if he had more than Howard, he would stand a better chance of beating Howard.
The perfect example would be Adam Morrison and Larry Bird. Both were and are considered less physically gifted than almost every other good player of their generation. But "heart" balanced the playing field (and other forms of intelligence). There are many other examples. Tom Brady. Joe Montana. Jerry Rice. Tedy Brushci. Babe Ruth. Jackie Robinson. if you measured these athletes abilities to run, lift, change direction, endure, fight, pull, spin, throw, etc they would lose to the thoroughbreds, and pedigrees like Donovan mcNabb, Drew bledsoe, Lebron, Randy moss, etc. But heart levels the playing field a lot. It's also why top picks are sometimes busts (Olowokandi, Tyson Chandler, Shuler, Steve Emtman, Ricky Williams, etc). 6 years ago one could have eeeeeaaasily said "Bledsoe is much more talented than Brady, plain and simple. In every way. No amount of 'heart' is going to change that. " So what changed? What evened it all. it wasn't a misdiagnosis of "talent". It was a misdiagnosis of heart and "intangibles".
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Post by FLCeltsFan on Jul 23, 2006 16:22:29 GMT -5
In discussing Dwight Howard and how much ahead he is, don't forget that Dwight's dad said that he credits his development to Clifford Ray. He said that he didn't think that Dwight would be near as good if it wasn't for Clifford working with him. He was very sad to see him go. Now we have Clifford Ray working with our bigs and I am hoping we will see a lot of progress because of it. I loved in the summer league games I watched he was right there coaching the bigs on the floor and when they would come over to the bench he would go to them and explain things and was always working and coaching.
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Post by eja117 on Jul 23, 2006 16:37:51 GMT -5
Interesting point. So basically now that I think about it the only high school bigs that ever showed any signs of being very good in their first two years were
Garnett Perk Amare D Howard Rashard Lewis
The ones that took forever were Jermaine ON Al Harrington (what did that take? Like 6 years?) Curry sort of
The ones we are still waiting on Chandler Kwame (finally did something last year) Jonathan Bender Cisse Al J Diop (he's ok defensively but can't justify waiting 4 years for for even a second) Darko (finally did something last year)
The ones we have yet to see, but Bynum and Blatche looked good this summer A Bynum Andre Blatche Martynas Andruskiveicus
Hmmm. That's actually a decent rate. So the point is it's ok to draft a big high schooler and respect results pretty much immediately. Also there is only one Jermaine Oneal that took more than 3 years and then got really good so there is no point waiting for a Jermaine Oneal type situation a lot of years on a high school big.
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Post by freshnthehouse on Jul 24, 2006 0:52:33 GMT -5
Interesting point. So basically now that I think about it the only high school bigs that ever showed any signs of being very good in their first two years were Garnett Perk Amare D Howard Rashard Lewis I def. wouldnt Perk in with these guys. And I wouldnt consider Rashard a big man. he's tall, but he plays small forward.
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