Comments on: Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey fuel crazy comeback to cap bad game

By: Rodney stuckey | Ezfortz

Rodney stuckey | Ezfortz — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:11:59 +0000

[...] Brandon Knight and Rodney Stuckey fuel crazy comeback to cap … [...]

By: tarsier

tarsier — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:30:32 +0000

Obviously I recognize that Dumars didn’t have his choice of those 4. But it was just a hypothetical anyway.

By: 2Tough

2Tough — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:31:13 +0000

This wasn’t the FIRST game Stuckey’s closed out. Come on, we haven’t forgotten that Lakers game from a few weeks ago have we?

By: oats

oats — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 00:24:28 +0000

He also misses the point that once you get those really good players your team becomes more desirable. Yep, the Heat didn’t draft Lebron, but they did draft Wade who attracted Lebron and Bosh. The Clippers had prospects from drafting high and moved them to trade for Chris Paul, who was more likely to stay because they had recently drafted Blake Griffin. Boston tanked and moved their draft pick for Ray Allen, making them a place KG would accept a trade to. None of these scenarios are being looked at in this piece either.

By: oats

oats — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:18:48 +0000

I guess if you ignore the fact that I said Knight isn’t the primary facilitator, then yes I am making your point. Stuckey leads the team in assists and percentage of teammate’s field goals that are assisted. How is Knight the primary facilitator exactly? Besides, when he is playing the point, his primary goal is not to facilitate, and never really has been. He’s a scoring point guard when he plays that position, not a facilitator. Claiming his position change changed his role seems strange when you are imagining his role was ever different. If he was playing the point he’d still be fine, he just was not a good fit next to Rip. If the team added someone like Eric Gordon he’d still be the point guard, and he’d still be the same player.

By: Vince

Vince — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:18:49 +0000

Hmmm. Well on draft day I was really rooting for Biymobo or Leonard. Considering Biyombo went off the board at 7, I’d take Leonard over Knight. Maybe then Joe D wouldn’t have resigned Prince. I don’t know tough call but its either Leonard or Knight….

By: frankie d

frankie d — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:30:47 +0000

you keep making my point for me.
if you read what i always say about stuckey and his role, i say that he is no longer the PRIMARY facilitator. PRIMARY….PRIMARY….get it?
that does not imply that he never acts as a point guard or that he doesn’t do point guard-ee type things. it simply means that he is no longer primarily responsible for running the offense.
i think the answer to that question is clear.
brandon knight, for better or worse, has assumed that role.
tayshaun prince acts as a facilitator at times. that does not mean he acts as the team’s point guard.
greg monroes does the same thing. that does not mean that he acts as the team’s point guard.
stuckey, finally, has been freed of the responsibility of acting as the team’s point guard, so he can now do what he does best and focus on scoring.
now, in the process of doing his scoring thing, and in the flow of the game, he will certainly function as a facilitator, a point guard, but that is not his PRIMARY role.
is stuckey a combo guard? of course. in the same way that vinnie johnson and zeke and joe d were combo guards. but there was no question about the fact that the team had and needed a point guard. and there is no question about the fact that any successful team needs a point guard.
now point guards come in all shapes, sizes and styles, but the common denominator is that they are primarily responsible for running a team’s offense.
that is not stuckey’s job now.
the player stuckey most resembles, imho, is dwayne wade. if one recalls, miami actually tried wade at the point for short periods during his first couple of years in the league, largely because he presents a lot of the same skills and talents that stuckey presents.
fortunately, for wade and miami, they quickly saw the error of going in that direction. joe d was a lot slower coming to the correct decision.
like wade, stuckey plays with a point guard who is not a chris paul type maestro, and very often assumes the role of facilitator, even though that is not his PRIMARY role.
it is somewhat ironic, actually, that what so many had envisioned when stuckey was drafted has actually come to pass: stuckey has become, in fact a poor man’s dwayne wade. (their advanced stat line looks eerily similar, though wade’s numbers are generally better, all around.) it’s just too bad it took joe so long to realize how to use him correctly and that he almost wasted 3 years of his career trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:25:46 +0000

There are certainly valid points there, but it misses some serious stuff too. Most importantly, the fact that virtually every excellent team has at least one player that it obtained by being terrible and getting a high draft pick. And that is because it is irrelevant how many of the teams were bad one year ago or two years ago or whatever. What is relevant is how many total teams were bad enough to draft a player that really helped them within the last four or five years. So that would be the sum of those bad teams over that course of time (minus the repeats), not the number in any particular year. Also, it really skews players like Duncan, who only required his team to be bad one year and then carried them to being really good for over a decade. So yeah, they weren’t bad in the last five years. But that’s because they tanked 14 years ago or whatever. This would be a case for tanking (although hardly a complete argument) but with the data selected, it appears to make a case against tanking. The numbers used to make the case were simply poorly chosen.

I’d agree on the overall premise that the Blazers’ move was perhaps not the greatest. That is for a number of reasons, but most notable that if you take their approach, you have to go all in. That would mean trying to move Aldridge and Batum for picks and prospects too. That way you get to be properly bad for a couple seasons, get your own high picks plus those collected from others, and then build up for a long run of contention because your core is all more or less the same age. As it is, they will just get one high draft pick. If he turns out to be a superstar, great. But if not, they hurt themselves.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:07:21 +0000

That would be a nice off season, but I don’t think I would have the rotation like that. I’d rather have Smoove at PF and JJ at SF.

By: tarsier

tarsier — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 15:05:09 +0000

If you could now have your choice of Knight, Biyombo, Thompson, and Leonard, which would you take? I say those four because they seemed like the three most likely draft targets for the Pistons prior to the draft (well it may be wishful thinking to suggest Dumars would have taken Leonard over Vesely/Walker, but I was hoping he was higher on the draft board) plus the guy they actually got.