Maybe the point guard...
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I know right? Haven't we been heralding Ray for his ability to set up the offense? What would be wrong with having a play maker in the first AND second units?
The only issue I would have with Diaw coming off the bench is his salary. Combined with Boozer, we'd have two highly paid PF's and we couldn't give them both starter's minutes
Well we tried that, see our 7-18 start...no offense. We have 2 pgs that aren't capable of doing what Diaw can, not in the least. He has so much better vision, its like hes seeing things in slow motion. Ray and Dj, not so much...theyre scorers and passers (around the horn style), not offense makers.
I'm comparing the offensive abilities of our team before and after the trade...before, with felton being "the guy" running the show, we sucked. we had no ball movement. we had no scoring...after, with Diaw, it was the complete opposite, except we were afraid to shoot when we got open looks, which probably cost us more than a few games. But that's something that can be fixed, putting Boris on the bench destroys all that we had worked for though. And it makes the PHX trade seem like a waste.
Before the trade, the TEAM sucked. Felton didn't have a shooters like Raja and Vlad to pass to, he didn't have another person like Diaw to run plays with, and they were still new to the system.
If we would've started the season with Diaw instead of Felton (with the same roster) we would've had about the same record.
I agree with this. It's not that Boris is such a better distributor than our PGs but the fact that we have more than one distributor in the lineup without liability. We also added a 3 ball threat who was an awesome defender.
The trade for us was huge in a lot of ways. Not only did we add another distributor we became a team that could match up player to player with almost any other team defensively without someone being outplayed. This allowed us to not be forced to "help" on D.
And do NOT discount Raja's leadership. An example of the last two points: I remember in some game it was nip and tuck, and near the end Felton sagged off his guy to "help" against Mek's guy. Felton's cover got the ball back and drained the shot...and Raja was on his ass about it. STAY WITH YOUR MAN.
After the trade they all could do that. Before, they had to help.
Sorry to go off on a tangent, but I really love that we got so much stronger after a trade where most thought we'd lost out on.
A couple of things...Diaw would still be on the team and the 6th man of the team. Just because he is coming off the bench doesn't mean he can't get plenty of minutes. We could maybe find some extra minutes by playing Wallace a little at the 2 spot and Diaw at the 3. There are plenty of possibilities.
Also, when you actually have a post game like Carlos Boozer brings, you just have to have a good post passer at PG. The last time Felton truly played with a back to the basket post up player was at Carolina with May when they won the national championship. Give him good option in the post like Boozer and watch him not only be successful in feeding the post but his ever talked about FG% will increase also.
You're not saying that we would be a worse team with Boozer in the lineup, are you?
Wasn't Diaw not happy as a 6th man at Phoenix?
Would we be a better team, with Zach Randolph in the line up?
As far as I am concerned both Boozer and Randolph bring the same thing on the court (off the court is a different matter of course).
And if you want a post player, look no further than Diaw. In fact, he has a MUCH more refined post up/back to the basket game than Boozer.