Folks may want to GIVE his job away, but....

[110oldeast]

Raymond Felton is once again playing serious basketball as a LEGIT starting POINT guard. I'll say it again. The limited amount of success this franchise has had including the few 4 game win streaks, the 5 game win streak, the 3 game road winning streak, the 13 out of 25 during the tough part of last year's schedule including 8-4 without Gerald Wallace, has come with Felton playing pg and predominantly pg. As with the other situations, it seems to have required an injury to the other main pg option (BK, now DJ) or a cut (McInnis) for the coaches to actually let him play this role. However, as before, the team results have been better.

He is controlling the game and for the first time since being in the league, he has a LEGIT PF to play with and strong coaching at the pg slot. Name one elite pg in the current NBA who has flourished without these 2. He is not a combo, 6th man, or whatever else. The kid is a pg. Is he perfect? Nope. But who on our team is? He is durable, tough, and does whatever the team needs. He is a leader and a career winner, who has often gone through adversity before winning. He is on his 5th coach in 7 years (2 college, 3 NBA) in a position that DEMANDS continuity, but you don't hear him bitch one bit or make excuses.

He may not be the guy who is getting marketed or chosen face of the franchise, but he certainly is the pg leading this team. I really hope the Cats find a way to keep him and develop him along with this group of players.

If you look at our team, there are some similarities to that 2004 Pistons team LB had. Billups was a journeyman pg who had not found his niche when LB got him and was no more successful than Felton (and more shoot first w/ no better fg%; better 3 pt shooter). Bell is similar to Rip, but a better defender. Wallace is similar to Tayshaun (not quite as good an outside shooter), while being more explosive, even if not quite the same individual defender. Diaw has a different game than Wallace, but is a mismatch for many and was in need of a fresh start as Wallace was. With DJ back, you have a solid bench behind this set of starters (DJ, Shannon, Ammo, Juwan, Diop). While I am not anywhere near saying we are going for a title, I do feel we have something we could build off of without making any silly trades.

Something to think about, IMO.

[teej]

Raymond Felton is once again playing serious basketball as a LEGIT starting POINT guard. I'll say it again. The limited amount of success this franchise has had including the few 4 game win streaks, the 5 game win streak, the 3 game road winning streak, the 13 out of 25 during the tough part of last year's schedule including 8-4 without Gerald Wallace, has come with Felton playing pg and predominantly pg. As with the other situations, it seems to have required an injury to the other main pg option (BK, now DJ) or a cut (McInnis) for the coaches to actually let him play this role. However, as before, the team results have been better.

He is controlling the game and for the first time since being in the league, he has a LEGIT PF to play with and strong coaching at the pg slot. Name one elite pg in the current NBA who has flourished without these 2. He is not a combo, 6th man, or whatever else. The kid is a pg. Is he perfect? Nope. But who on our team is? He is durable, tough, and does whatever the team needs. He is a leader and a career winner, who has often gone through adversity before winning. He is on his 5th coach in 7 years (2 college, 3 NBA) in a position that DEMANDS continuity, but you don't hear him bitch one bit or make excuses.

He may not be the guy who is getting marketed or chosen face of the franchise, but he certainly is the pg leading this team. I really hope the Cats find a way to keep him and develop him along with this group of players.

If you look at our team, there are some similarities to that 2004 Pistons team LB had. Billups was a journeyman pg who had not found his niche when LB got him and was no more successful than Felton (and more shoot first w/ no better fg%; better 3 pt shooter). Bell is similar to Rip, but a better defender. Wallace is similar to Tayshaun (not quite as good an outside shooter), while being more explosive, even if not quite the same individual defender. Diaw has a different game than Wallace, but is a mismatch for many and was in need of a fresh start as Wallace was. With DJ back, you have a solid bench behind this set of starters (DJ, Shannon, Ammo, Juwan, Diop). While I am not anywhere near saying we are going for a title, I do feel we have something we could build off of without making any silly trades.

Something to think about, IMO.

Very, very good points.

But with LB I think he wants Crash to get more outside touch, modle himself after Tayshaun, and that will keep him healthy...if it works, LB is a genius, if not, GW could face the same fate as JRICH...jmho and i could be totally wrong....it happens a lot

[110oldeast]

I think Gerald has made shooting strides since he joined the Cats. I think he should continue to be agressive, but mastering that Corner shot a la Bruce Bowen would work wonders for him and the team.

[teej]

Well he has improved at least in my eyes, IDK about stats, with the corner shot since LB arrived...he can hit the corner and Diaw the straight up 3

[110oldeast]

Yep and it makes this team really tough to guard. This starting lineup is EASILY the most balanced lineup the Bobcats have put on the floor offensively AND defensively. They are above average at all 5 spots on both ends of the floor. Despite liking Felton, I had moved into the camp of him being moved for financial purposes and for change of scenery purposes (for him considering backlash he receives), but I think that would be silly unless your SOLE goal is creating cap space. It's one thing if you have KNOWN commodities to pull it off. But in reality, the Cats don't. They have young potential at pg in DJ and Singletary, but at this point, that is it.

This team is rolling right now and DEPTH, specifically at pg is the only thing that has hurt them (cost them the Indy game despite the rebounding and FT situation). To me, it would make more sense to have DJ come back and be the straight up back up to Felton (unless you want the short stints of 2 guard offense with DJ off the ball as the shooter) than to blindly put faith in him being able to handle the grind of the NBA and heavy minutes that he might have to play as Bobcats pg.

[teej]

Yep and it makes this team really tough to guard. This starting lineup is EASILY the most balanced lineup the Bobcats have put on the floor offensively AND defensively. They are above average at all 5 spots on both ends of the floor. Despite liking Felton, I had moved into the camp of him being moved for financial purposes and for change of scenery purposes (for him considering backlash he receives), but I think that would be silly unless your SOLE goal is creating cap space. It's one thing if you have KNOWN commodities to pull it off. But in reality, the Cats don't. They have young potential at pg in DJ and Singletary, but at this point, that is it.

This team is rolling right now and DEPTH, specifically at pg is the only thing that has hurt them (cost them the Indy game despite the rebounding and FT situation). To me, it would make more sense to have DJ come back and be the straight up back up to Felton (unless you want the short stints of 2 guard offense with DJ off the ball as the shooter) than to blindly put faith in him being able to handle the grind of the NBA and heavy minutes that he might have to play as Bobcats pg.

Exactly...the only trades with Ray in them that I would do are ones that bring back someone at the point a la Steve Blake or Jordan Farmar

Raymond also brings "The Presence" much like Juwan and Gerald, you know they will get after it all night until htey drop - sometimes literally

As long as his agent isnt like Scott Boras in baseball, we should resign him and let him and dj split time and run a 2 pg system at sometimes spelling raja

jmho

[110oldeast]

Well said. I agree.

[bobcats_express]

Felton is a fantastic player.

We should all hope he stays with us

[Chef]

the serious question is still this...If we don't trade Ray we need to decide what to do come contract time. If we commit to Ray 5 or 6 years 5+ mil per he is not tradeable for at least 3 years, thus impeding the development of DJ for 3-5 years. If we do this we are basically saying we wasted the #8 pick in a very talented draft. I am love Ray's game now that LB has given him rules and he plays with discipline. I think he is a fine point guard, so what do we do with either Ray or DJ?

[TattoodCats4life]

Felton is a fantastic player, playing in a "contract year." I don't know if we're going to resign him, and the team has a few more weeks to figure out what they want to do with the deadline situation.

I think of it like this: Excellent PGs in this league make 10+mil, Great-almost-excellent PGs make 8-9mil/year. Felton is in that Great-almost-excellent class in this good games, and even on a rough night he still plays. DJ im sure is Great, almost "great-almost-excellent" which i figure by end of the year he'll be. DJ is on rookie scale, so cheap now, but lets say we sign felton to a nice 7 mil escalating contract and when DJ is ready for resigning we can sign him to something similar. I'd much rather our team spend our "point guard money" on 2 great-almost-excellent pgs instead of 1 super duper point guard and 2 "junk" point guards. It helps is be a deeper team. I mean we'll never be the lakers, their entire second unit could start anywhere else, but if we have a second unit with at least some "starter quality" guys we'll be killer.