lol. exactly. Find me another player who sharply improves 3 years straight. This is exactly why I'm saying he's peaked or close to it.

I mean is Al Jefferson dropping 25/15/4 any time soon?

good post, but there' ssom recency bias here. Defenses weren't treating Rondo like they were in the playoffs. It was more like the Tony Parker treatment, not the nobody's-there-treatment.

is this discussion about whether ellis is better than rondo?

I think you get the line of thinking you're just ignoring it because it don't jive with what you're selling.

Could he improve? Of course. There's always a chance. It's just extremely unlikely. I mean, would you like to prob bet on 60% TS% next year? I'd say shooting is the most unlikely area for him to improve. If anything, I"d expect him to improve his court vision/passing/PG play. I could see that happening.

It means it's very unlikely. Is it such an unusual idea that I don't think Monta Ellis is going to become Michael Jordan?

Magic, Kiki, Woolridge, Worthy, Larry Bird. Hell, David Robinson was a 7 foot SF, and he came into the league... about 20 years ago.

Also, don't compare Monta and Lebron. You're going the wrong way here. Lebron is bigger than normal, while Monta is smaller than normal. But I've given you the history of guards of similar size to Monta, and the results are a lot worse than forwards of similar size to Lebron.

ESPN reporting that duhon has verbally agreed to a 2/12 with the knicks, better than the 3/10ish he was rumored to be offered by the magic.

Just xposting from the knicks thread I guess, but I like the move as they prepare to move on after scrubary next year, or whenever they get rid of him. Still, need to clear cap space...

What's good about this sighing at all? 6 mill/per for a scrub role player player when all you has is overpaid players?

At no point in David Robinson's NBA career was he ever a SF. He played in the post on O and D, he ran the court very well about as well as a SF, but he never played the wing on O, never.

I meant he was a face-up player who could drive and pass. He was like a hybrid player. Had he been 6-8 he probably would have been used as a wing player.

Also, isn't the biggest criticism of Lebron that he can't shoot? He takes 62% jumpshots at about a .399 eFG. That's pretty consistent with a wing player who can't shoot. Wade can't shoot either, and he's 65%/.391.

At this point Lebron is living on his ability to get to the rim. From an efficiency standpoint, Lebron is going to stagnate unless he either learns a jumpshot or learns how to post up so he can get more close shots. In fact, his TS% has been pretty even since he turned 20 (ranging from .554, .568, .552, .568). So unless Lebron's either learns how to make jumpshots, or take less jumpshots, he's not going to improve his shooting percentages.

joa, lebron is not gonna stagnate any time soon. realize hes still super young.

stagnating with regard to TS% doesn't mean you're going to stagnate as a whole.

An optimist would say that if LBJ is this good while being a ****ty shooter, there's nowhere to go but up. And he's already the best player in the league, so that says something about his ability to get to the rack.

He's a freak, basically. Any improvement in his shooting percentage is going to make him significantly better, but even if it doesn't happen, it's hard to care. He's big enough that he's completely unguardable, so it's highly unlikely that he'll lose that driving ability until at least 2020.

Yeah, this. While Lebron may have the same TS% as two years ago, his AST % jumped up 5 points. Last year he had the 6th highest ast% in the league, behind only Paul, Nash, Deron, Calderon, and Kidd. His TRB% was also higher than its ever been. Not monumentally so, but if Lebron still has room to improve that.

I mean, imagine - if Lebron played on a faster team with a bit more talent he could actually average something like 30/10/10. Wow.

Like I said - if Lebron can get a jumpshot, gg Jordan. Giving him another weapon will help against defenses and let him drive a little better. I mean, he already takes 5 3s a game. If he could become respectable at that (which will also help his ft%) teams will have to come out and guard him a lot closer, meaning he'll be able to get to the rim even easier.

Failing that, he could learn to post up guys. I mean, most of the time he's guarded by smaller guys anyway, and he's a very, very strong guy. There's no doubt in my mind he could punish most of the chumps who have to guard him.

i know this isn't sports betting, but i'm not a part of that community and am a part of this one. which bets do you guys like for the upcoming season?

i like boston at 3-to-1, cleveland at 15-to-1, and utah at 18-to-1 is printing money

I don't like any of those.

Boston is closest to true odds, but there are teams in the east that should get better, and Boston is gonna get older, and I think their bench will be suspect (Sam is done, Posey is gone). Yeah, the kids should improve. I'd take them at 4-1.

Cleveland I think is underrated, especially on this board, but until they get another legit "create for himself" scorer, they just don't have enough. Would require 40-1.

Utah I just don't think can win as currently constructed. Not enough defensive toughness to get through 4 rounds of playoffs. Would require 40-1.

If Utah could get rick of AK47/Okur and get a decent wing scorer and a good defensive big they would be perfect. Imagine if that team had Brand and Maggette.

harrington for hinrich is getting thrown around a lot with people assuming it's a perfect fit for the bulls

harrington is pretty much a 3/4 tweener floating between and getting playing time at both positions. looking at 3/4 players on the bulls roster there's

Deng
Noce
Thabo
Tyrus
Gooden

Unless harrington gets a ton of minutes at backup C then i don't understand how the mesh fits perfectly when the bulls' goal should just be giving a **** ton of minutes to the young players since they aren't going deep this year anyway.

edit: Hinrich was also ****ing awfffffffffffful last year

Bulls need Harrington like they need a hole in the head.

Imagine if the rockets got chauncey billups and rasheed wallace

imagine if the Celtics got KG and Pierce.. oh wait. carry on

Wait, you really think that one of the top five teams in a 30-team league is 40-1 to win the title?

I'm saying I'd want 40-1 in order to bet on them.

i haven't been keeping up with the SE forum lately, but are you guys talking about how good monta is going to be? it depends a lot on the make-up of the team next year and who they can sign.

i wouldn't look *too* much into his remarkable jump in numbers the past couple years because its hard for anybody to maintain a consistent level of improvement year in and year out. given that monta can't shoot outside of 15 feet how much higher can his TS% get when he pretty much shot as well as you possibly could from the inside? just speaking realistically, i don't think monta will develop that killer outside shot and his TS% has probably peaked.

if anything, with baron gone and that ellis will now be the man, i'd expect his shooting % to go way down as his usage increases. i'd expect his passing to improve a lot though as he gets more comfortable handling the ball, though s-jaxx will probably have an increased role as a playmaker as well.

i think something like 24/5/6 is a reasonable projection next year though he could actually score a lot more depending on how much of a load he's expected to carry.

also, monta is a terrible defender at this point in his career. sometimes he will show the enthusiasm, but a lot of the times he's just lost out there and despite his quickness has difficulty in keeping guys in front of him.

as far as beidrins goes, he's kind of weird in that you don't really know how he's going to improve and how much of his success is due to his role on the team as opposed to his actual skills. he does have very soft hands and catches everything thrown to him underneath, but with baron gone, who's going to throw it to him? he hasn't really developed any post moves at all and the warriors never run any post plays for him so all his chances are on the break or him cutting and slashing underneath. baron was amazing at finding him underneath, and jackson does a really good job at getting him the ball when he cuts to the rim, but monta to beidrins wasn't really something you saw very much last year so it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. the most important thing for beidrins really is just to stay out of foul trouble and stay on the court. all that said i don't really expect him to explode onto the scene like monta has. he's a great 3rd or 4th option but i worry a little if the warriors have to rely on him as a second option.

Exactly