What?? This is nonsense, most big men who block shots and rebound well don't shoot 3s. This is like saying you don't like Chris Mullin because he couldn't defend Shaq in the post.

And the fact that he had an aging reggie doesn't mean his team was efficient offensively. The bottom line is that he led his team in scoring with a consistently higher than team-average efficiency.

Can anyone tell me more about Mullin's defense?

I still think Bynum is by far the worst pick in this draft....yes - that means worse than Starbury...I dont like Steph - but he did have some really good seasons early on....and not just half of a good season like Bynum. And to be honest - Bynum, though he has a lot of potential....he hasnt really even done anything really that remarkable in that one Half-season he played well. He played solid - showed glimpses of potential - but thats it...if he had at least finished off the season maybe we could have a better idea of what to expect from him...but half of a decent season is nothing to drool over.

I'm pretty "meh" on this pick. Great defense, inefficient on offense despite not having a high volue, only 6 years peak.

I'm curious to this as well to be honest. When I happily made the pick I was expecting it to be considered below average-average, maybe even bad. So anything above that is just an added bonus for me. Its hard to tell on BBall Reference because his defensive stats jump around a lot.

2 steals a game though fwiw.

what does "pure talent" mean?

Flying Moose,

While I think we all find it intuitively right that people with poor teams shoot worse than they would if they had good teammates, I'm really not sure it's the case. Looking at some of the big men who've been drafted that went from good to bad or bad to good teams.

Elton Brand shoots .024 higher the year the Clips make the playoffs than he had the year before, but the year after when they miss he shoots .006 better.

Garnett shoots .003 worse the year the Wolves go the western conference finals the year before and .003 lower than the year after (I know .003 means nothing, just showing what the stats say)

Gasol shoots .510 when the Grizz are awful and .503 when they're a 49 win team

Larry Nance shoots .581 when the suns win 32 games (damn the more I look at this guy the more it's clear how Clark had the steal of the draft so far) and shoots .539 when the Cavs win 57 games.

I don't really feel like going much further and I only looked at the numbers briefly to try and find situations where there were teams a few seasons apart with big win differences. I'm not saying this is definitive, and that nobody big man would get better with different teammates around him, but I think overall the effect is pretty small.


Also, while Jack touched on this briefly while talking about JO and Reggie Miller, it's really unfair to compare a big man who shoots exclusively 2's to the a whole team which has a lot of three point shots taken as for example about a 5th of the 03-04 Pacers' shots were 3's and they made them at .350 clip.

Agreed completely. Mullin made the Peja pick look very bad.

from what I can remember he was not a good defensive player...but wasnt all that terrible either. He didnt take any chances and just played solid positionial defense for the most part...the problem was that he was regularly defending much more athletic guys at the 2 or 3 spot.

Seriously, you guys post a **** load in this thread, so much that it really baffles me. This thread needs to be turned into a book.

If Moncrief was available I can assure you that I would not have even looked at a PM offering a trade. Moncrief is the steal of the draft BY FAR imo at where he was taken. If he lasted to my pick, it was a sure thing I would've taken him.

Honestly thinking about what I would've taken to trade down if he was there....I don't even know if giving me your 3rd rounder(for my 10th) would've done it.

question about Sid...isnt he ineligable?...he was drafted in 79 and played in the 1979-1980 season.

I thought it was 1980 and above?

Did you even see Moncrief play? And if so, how much? Just wondering.

79 is good, 78 is bad

Apparently you missed the part where I said I had to run but was going to make two quick comments. As you can tell, I'm discussing it much more in depth now that I have the time.

I always though Mullin's defense was underrated, so average to above average. Analysts got on him for playing bad D, but I thought they were a bit harsh. If he had a weakness, it was against lights out three point shooters who could drive. Mullin never really got up on guys because he didn't have a lot of quickness.

so was Magic. That's the cutoff

I have someone in mind too. Someone who I don't think should even be drafted, but I'm certain he will be and maybe even relatively early.

seriously Assani can you fix your coach/player bomb post the hypocrisy is tilting me hard

I dunno that Moncrief is the steal of the draft and if he is I doubt that will last, 3rd round should have some sick value the way things are going. Maybe I just overrate some players.

FWIW my pick is ready to go.. I just spent 30 minutes on the write-up, and I will go nuclear if alex picks him.

FWIW guys, I know Jermaine wasn't the most efficient 20/10 big man left, but all the bigs I had in mind along with him were revolving doors on defense and had never played on winning teams. I wanted his shot blocking and defensive rebounding, both of which he excels at.

Yeah because 50 wins is monumentally greater than 45wins , and obviously the five more wins were undeniably due to Marbury leaving. Obviously if Marbury had stayed they only would have won exactly 45 wins again amirite?

Okay, so you have provided evidence that Kidd is a better point guard than Marbury. Great. Nice strawman.

Wow could you really be this blatantly biased? The Suns got killed by injuries that year and started 3-15, they basically tanked the season halfway through. Before that they were 44-38 and made the playoffs.

Yeah and the Knicks record ha absolutely nothing to do with Isiah Thomas and Larry Brown and Isiah Thomas being the biggest jokes of a coach and GM respectively in the "modern era", it's all on Stephon I'm sure. Just put Kidd on the Knicks and they would get 50 wins right?

Great, he was playing on lower seeded and clearly overmatched teams each time, and two of those years were at age 19 and 20, plus we're talking about a ****ing 18-game sample size, you're really going to hold it against him that he didn't have an epic playoff career based on all of this?

Maybe now he is, but like I said in the write-up, at age 24 he was definitely salvageable. Age 24 was right before he got traded to Phoenix.

My argument is that Marbury's low efficiency is a result of him being screwed over by being on dysfunctional teams, assclown coaches, and that if I get him at age 24 and surround him with a strong team as I plan to do, and a taskmaster coach, I'm going to get a significantly improved version of what you currently see with the Knicks.

Like many other people said earlier, an offensive zero is a major liability, because you basically have five guys guarding four. With Marbury I have a multi-dimensional thread that many other point guards don't provide: he's a threat to shoot, penetrate, cross-over, break fools' ankles, and what have you. Defenses will have to respects him as a threat to dribble, pass, or score, and that will make it easier for the other players on my team to get open for easy shots. I'm not accepting as inevitable that he is going to take 20 shots a game regardless of what kind of team I have. A lot of players in history changed their game to suit their team's needs. Look at Dennis Rodman, he was a high scorer in college, but in the NBA he shot less and became a rebounding beast and pretty clearly a better overall player. Your rules were that we get an exact copy of the player at age 24. As far as I know there's nothing in Marbury's DNA that says "20-shots-per-game".

OKAY, I GET IT, YOU ARE IN LOVE WITH DEFENSE, you trumpet all the defense cliches, fine. Playing "follow the leader" isn't my idea of building the best team.

IT'S THE KNICKS. ISIAH THOMAS WAS THE COACH. NEED I SAY MORE?

Yes, but most big men who block shots and rebound well shot better than 45%.

FG% doesn't tell the whole story. You have to account for 3-pointers and free throws. So when Reggie Miller shoots .441, he's way more efficient than Jermaine O'Neal who's shoooting .475 or whatever. This is because Miller score more points per shot by hitting 3s and getting to the line. O'Neal doesn't do much other than make x% of his shots. When you have a guy who makes his living off of 2 pointers alone, he has to be very efficient (in the 53% range).

I'm guessing something along the lines of "raw talent" meaning "talent that needs to be coached" meaning that the player has to be coachable. Not sure how this is a plus for Marbury.

FWIW, googling "Stephon Marbury sucks" has been pretty entertaining.