Quote:
Originally Posted by BobboFitos
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.
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.