Personnaly I'm not convinced that playing DUrant at the two is something tat you should emulate.
Gay can definitely play the two, but you 're probably losing some value (not muchà

I don't think he's better than Josh Howard, Corey Maggette, etc. (That group of SF) Is he a productive player? Yes.

I understand PER isn't the end all be all, but last season was his first where it recognizes him as greater than average. And it isn't a usage fault, either - career wise he's right around average, whereas last year he carried slightly more than his fair share. It's because he cannot pass, turns it over too much for a guy who doesn't bring the ball up or dominate it much on offense, fouls too much, etc.

Here's the deal - he'll be 25 next year and he may get better. (He has gotten better every other season) He'll likely peak at 26 (like most SGs/SFs, especially not coming out of high school) so this is close to the best we'll get. And the best we'll get is not all star caliber.

Again, a Corey Maggette/Josh Howard best IS all star caliber.

Yeah, I realize today I made the mistake, sorry

1. J'OB does the best with what's around him. He made a Pacers team competitive when most felt it had the least talent in the NBA.

2. You're flatout wrong here; you have an argument 24 vs 24, but 24 vs 28 only you, seadood, Danny Granger's mom, and maybe Danny Granger's #3 fan believe that.

3. They're the worst in general. Doesn't mean there's no place in the NBA for them. Guys like Monta, Nash, a guy who hasn't been drafted yet, etc. are so good at it that although they would be better served in shooting 3s instead of those inside the arc 2s, they still do it fine. It's when guys who are NOT good at midrange (like Lebron) that start taking jumpshots is when they're in trouble.

4. No

5. I wanted Moncrief more than anyone - the two guys I wanted to trade up to take were Deron and Moncrief.

6. I got on Epi's case because he constantly throws his team in people's faces.

7. WTF does this even mean???

8. We'll just have to wait and see on him.

Yeah, I looked him up a while ago to double check my read of him, and Stackhouse was just never as good as his reputation.

GKA will have his pick up as soon as MEB picks, I guarantee that.

1/7. You allow players to play in a Jim O'Brien system too long and they become chuckers. Plain and simple. They develop no other basketball talents and camp and chuck. I acknowledged that his teams do well all things considered, but he does not do well with player development IMO.

2. Well 4 of us are right then. But you and I have gone on enough about this.

3. I like blanket statements. I understand the 2 point jump shot as having a place in the game. That said, you mention Monta as a guy who should take 3's instead of 2's? WTF?

4. This definitely looks like a wikipedia page that tdarko put up.

5. Yep. And they were two of the best picks in the draft.

6. No, I'm going to paraphrase but you said something like "Epipen, notice that (another poster) and I don't put our own teams in our rankings." (BTW I was the first person to start that trend, and still don't do it, despite my thinking my picks are wicked awesome.)

7. See 1/7.

8. Do you think Durant won't be good in IRL? Or is it just not a good fit for my team in your IMO?

Bobbo I take it all back, your new usage of multi-quote is hot stuff and I, indeed, wouldn't know what to do without your commentary.

Also, the holy trinity of this forum is Steve Nash, Brent MF'n Barry, and now, apparently Billy Paultz. Racism ftwwwwwwwwww

Edit: Did I read that right that Stack and Baron are on the same team? Holy ****.

Dude, this forum hates Nash, except for tup.

I love nash man

Let's compare the three at age 24. The thing we'll run into that might cause us trouble would be defense so I'll get it out of the way now. IMO:

Howard = Granger >>>>> Maggette (I'll never understand your defense of Maggette as a defender, he's below average on a team that has two very good defensive big men).

Now offensively speaking, each of them fills a roll. Maggette is the best at creating offense for himself (easily). He gets to the line at an insane rate which negates the fact that he's not super talented at scoring in other ways. Besides that though, he's not great. He averages more turnovers than he does assists for his career (and if you take it from 24+, it's still probably not good). This is bad considering A) he is very largely involved in the offense and B) he has Elton Brand, who is a very competent finisher. So in conclusion, if you have a team that can't do much offensively, and just want someone who can score by himself, then this is your guy.

Next we have Josh Howard. Howard is good in that he can do it both with and without the ball. But he's not very efficient. He's never been higher than a 54.8% TS%. Howard is the least turnover prone of the bunch, but he's also not a high assist guy (the past 4 seasons he's been anywhere between 1.3-1.8 TO/game while dishing out 1.4-2.2 (usually on the higher end) APG). So it's not like he's some insane playmaker. I know that Dallas runs a lot of Iso plays, but this is still a pretty low number when you have great shooters like Dirk and JET as the #1 and #3 (Howard was #2 in FGA) options, and nobody really close to them.

Finally, we have my boy Danny Granger. Howard was 27 last season. Maggette was 28. Granger was 24. Bobbo was right that he is turnover prone, considering how little he touches the ball. 2.1 turnovers a game. He only averaged 2.1 APG, so that's not good. But consider this, he plays on Indiana! They have very little talent and a decent proportion of their scoring comes on 3 pointers, which is a low % (although high yield) play. Granger is also a sick shooter. Averaged over 40% on 3's this season, while shooting 5.3 per game. His overall TS% is lower than Maggette's (and higher than Howard's) at 57.1%, but it's not that much lower.

So let's take all that we know. We've already got the defense assumption out of the way. Now let's consider the implications of each players games:

Maggette does a lot for himself, and scores at a high %, but does not create for his teammates well, which is no good considering how much he handles the ball.

Howard is good, but is not super efficient.

Granger scores a lot at a high %. He is good off the ball and allows others to set him up, but is not great at setting others up and is turnover prone, considering how little he handles the ball.

In our format I would go:
Granger > Howard >>>> Maggette

IRL I would go:
Granger = Howard (at 27!) >> Maggette (obviously team dependent, but just in general)

So I'm not just a huge ******ed Granger fanboi, I'm just a Granger fanboi.

<----world's biggest Nash fan (after tuq probs)

Pick is up, go go go GKA pick.

solid pick for your team IMO

GKA's pick will be up by 8 PM EST IMO

Maybe comparing players to Lebron James isn't a very good idea. First off LBJ didn't go to college, the highest level of play for Lebron prior to the NBA was against teams that had maybe 2 players who would end up starting for a D-1 team the next year. Often he played against teams that would have 0, his jump from year 1 to year 2 can be partially attributed to this huge increase in talent on both his team and in his competition. A better comparison (from an experience level) would be Carmelo Anthony who had very similar production in year 2 before making a sizable jump which he has maintained.

Lebron's rookie year > Durant's rookie year, likelihood of Durant matching Lebron's improvement = slim.

We aren't the same guy !

That wasn't my post you quoted, but I did use a LBJ number in my post so I just want to comment that I wasn't comparing the 2, but was just showing that 19 year olds don't play well in the NBA.

And again, the one exception to that was Kobe, and he only played 26 mpg on a team that featured Shaq in his prime.

Rick Mahorn is about as unspectacular as it comes. I guess he was pretty tough on D, so that may work on meb's squad.

I dig the Mahorn pick. I don't think he was BPA at that position and role, but he had to be up there.

I'd be a little worried about size on this team, though.

Wow, back from a long weekend/vacation in NYC, lots of picks made.

RE: Mahorn.

Eh... I'll echo fanmail's sentiment of "unspectacular."

The thing about MEB's team is that you have Kiki, who fell off @ 29 & Elton, who just had a big knee injury @ 28. I think in terms of filling out that roster, you should be looking at players stats between ages 24-29. So the fact that Mahorn played well into his 30's is really insignificant for this team.

Anyway, Mahorn is nice during ages 24-29 - 10/10 @ 50%FG per 36, but there are at least 5 guys that I can find that will match or better his production/36, especially because you're lining him up at center. And the guys I'm thinking of will give you more blocks. The fact that Mahorn turns the ball over so little is offset by the fact that he's a total foulbox - 5.0 per 36.

The real problem I have though, is that you could get Mahorn or someone close to him next round, so you really should of went PG here - there are some quality guys left, but I think they are much less likely to be around next round than a banger @ center. Someone is going to have to set up Jesus & Kiki and feed Brand in the post.

D

"Mahorn had a huge rear-end that he wasn't afraid to plow people over with."--Wikipedia

That has to count for extra points.

I just finished my writeup. Now I have to hope GKA doesn't take my guy.

QfFAIL

Yeah sorry. Just talked to GKA on the phone and he's debating between a couple players. Pick will be up soonish.