Otis' Big Mistake '09

[My 6th Rebuild 6]

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

Forget the PG situation....

 

I hold Dwight accountable for not developing an offensive game in 5 seasons in the league. I am getting sick of this slam dunk, and Olympic crap. He needs to not do s*** this summer and work on a d*** offensive game .

 

The two bolded statements are mutually exclusive.

 

As for the rest of your post, it's not worth the bother. If you honestly think Dwight's offensive game hasn't improved, then you need to start watching something else. I've heard Badminton is nice.

 

Improved? Of course, but can he carry the Magic on his back? No!! I want Hakeem, Ewing, Shaq offensive game. All three have different games, all 3 affective.

 

Shaq won his first title in his 7th season. Olajuwon in his 10th. Ewing never won a title. So this point is nonexistent.

 

Hakeem and Shaq carried their teams to the championship. Ewing had the bad luck of playing in the Jordan days and John Starks going 0-12 in game 7 of the '93/'94 season.

 

Those guys had way better offensive games then D12 has in their 5th seasons and he needs to work on more low post moves.

 

It's always really cute when morons talk about Hakeem in the 80s, because they never know what the hell they're talking about.

 

Hakeem in the 80s was an athletic freak who relied on said athleticism to score, despite having little to no established fundamental skills. He didn't become the Hakeem everyone seems to think he always was until he gave his athleticism a fundamental skillset to work off of, which he didn't really complete until the mid-90s.

 

But perhaps the better issue here is how much of an idiot you're acting like. You rattle off the names of 3 top 50 players of all time, 2 of whom are arguably top 10 players of all time, and act like because Dwight isn't on their level, he must be this huge liability, and you're bashing Dwight as a result based off one game, which is the kind of thing I'd expect from someone who wrote their posts by repeatedly bashing their face into a keyboard until they went unconscious. And before you say: "No, DoM, I'm totally not doing that thing you said I'm doing," it's worth noting that in the previous 2 games before last night, Dwight had 21/20 and 30/16, so your point really is kind of retarded.

 

Then you bring up Starks in game 7 of the Finals(though you're 0 for 12 isn't close to how bad he really was in that trainwreck of a game), yet you evidently give Ewing a free ride for his own 7 for 17 with 5 turnovers night, while allowing Hakeem to go off for 25/10/7/3/1.

 

And to make it even more, well, hilarious, is the fact that you're blaming this loss on Dwight's inability to carry the team during one regular season in which, amazingly, Dwight was the only player on the team who shot above 50% from the field, and was one of just two players who shot above 34%. That's embarrassing. Combine that with the fact that Dwight was the only guy playing any defense, and I'm not even sure how you formed this argument, beyond the "A truly great center can overcome anything without anyone helping him at all", which is completely retarded and ignores completely almost the entire history of the NBA. And I haven't even addressed the rule changes meant to promote perimeter play(such as no double teaming without the ball), which Dwight has to deal with and the players you mentioned, except Shaq now,in his twilight years, didn't.

 

And yet you sit there at some computer, bravely spouting out complete gibberish about how Dwight, the best center in the world, isn't good enough on offense to your liking because he "doesn't have more low post moves", which means nothing really and ignores everything I've said previously. Anyone can have "more" low post moves, so that means nothing. How many more do you want? 5? 10? Eleventy Billion?

 

Here's what you should do: make a list of all the post moves you think Dwight should have(make sure to include the one where dribbles behind his back in the post and then spins 12 times before shooting a fadeaway. Seriously, that one wouldn't EVER miss), and then put the list into a letter and send it to Dwight. I'm sure the entire idea of someone with no sense of basketball history and no idea what constitutes a post move(I'll give you a free hint on that: the sky hook is a Post Shot. The Dream Shake was a post move. Think about it) sending a letter with improvement suggestions to someone who's infinitely more skilled and better trained than they are will be good for an incredible belly laugh.

 

Given how this board reacts to, oh, every loss, I am beginning to wonder how half of you don't end up committing suicide every time someone cuts you off in traffic, and how the other half don't end up running down the person who cut you off out of a complete inability to control your emotions. Good lord.

 

Since your a stats guy, lets compare PPG in each center's 5th year in the league...

 

Hakeem 88/89 24.8ppg (Didn't you say Hakeem sucked in the 80s?)

 

Shaq 96/97 26.2 (The two previous seasons he averaged 29ppg)

 

Ewing 89/90 28.6ppg

 

D12 20.5ppg (so far down from last season)

 

Shaq, Ewing, and Hakeem carried their teams on their back. D12 is unable to.

 

But, I do hope he D12 proves me wrong after the all-star break.

 

As far as post up moves, I would start with a 10 foot J and work from there.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

In general, I hate having the quote in the middle like this, but felt it was necessary. Nothing you've said in this thread(and postulating off that, will ever say) has had any bearing in reality, and you've now resorted to both deliberately misquoting me and attacking the misquotes and to acting as though you can quote individual facts outside the realm of context, and hope no one notices. So I'm going to, on a point by point basis, refute your latest episode of post-based nonsense.

 

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

Since your Your means it's something that belongs to me. You meant "you are" or "you're". a stats guy No, I'm not. But I do pay attention to them, and I can do basic math, so I suppose that's something., lets compare PPG in each center's 5th year in the league...

 

Hakeem 88/89 24.8ppg (Didn't you say Hakeem sucked in the 80s?) No, I said he was an athletic freak who relied on his athleticism in the 80s, rather than the incredible array of interior post moves he had in the 90s. I neither said nor implied Hakeem was a bad player during that time frame.

 

Shaq 96/97 26.2 (The two previous seasons he averaged 29ppg)

 

Ewing 89/90 28.6ppg

 

D12 20.5ppg (so far down from last season Last year Dwight averaged 20.67 ppg. This year, he's averaging 20.53, in 2 fewer minutes per game. How is that "So much less than last year". Per36, he's averaging more points this year than he did last year.)

 

And here, your complete ignorance to how the game of basketball actually works is demonstrated yet again.

 

Points per game is one stat, and it doesn't display anything in and of itself, except how many points per game a player is scoring, but that scoring average doesn't mean, on its own, that one player is better on offense than another. Jerry Stackhouse averaged 29.6ppg at one point in his career(second in the league that season), and at no one in their right mind would call Jerry Stackhouse, even in his prime, a great scorer. He was a guy who shot the ball a lot, and scored a lot of very inefficient points as a result.

 

Similarly, you're attacking Dwight because he scores fewer points than 3 players, yet you refuse to even list FGAs to give those numbers even an inkling of context.

 

Since I'm tired of the stupid "Dwight shoots a bunch of FTs so his FGA numbers are lower than they really should be" argument, which ignores the fact that all great bigmen shoot lots of foul shots, lets set up a formula: we'll say that 1 FT is equal to .44 FGAs, or 2.27 FTAs=1 FGA, so a player's adjusted FGA per game will =FGAs + (FTAs/2.27).

 

So for Dwight, this is straight forward. Plug that into the formula, and you get the following:

aFGA=12.6 + (10.8/2.27) so Dwight's aFGA per game is 17.36.

 

Hakeem's fifth season numbers look like this:

aFGA= 19 + (8/2.27), so Hakeem's aFGA = 22.52

 

Shaq's numbers:

aFGA = 19.4 + (9.4/2.27), so Shaq's aFGA = 23.5

 

Ewing's numbers:

aFGA = 20.4 + (7.9/2.27), so Ewing's aFGA= 23.9

 

So the three players you listed averaged 6 more points in their fifth seasons than Dwight is currently averaging in his fifth season, but they needed an average of an additional 5.95 aFGAs to do so. Given Dwight has a true shooting percentage(version of FG% that's adjusted to include FT shooting) of .593 this year, we could postulate that if Dwight shot an additional 5.95 aFGA a game while holding at his current percentages, Dwight would be averaging 27.6 points per game.

 

Shaq, Ewing, and Hakeem carried their teams on their back. D12 is unable to.

Ewing didn't make it out of the second round until his 8th year in the league.

 

As for Olajuwon, after Sampson's knees went to hell, he couldn't get out of the first round for 5 years, until he had developed that post game he had in the early 90s, which coincided with the arrival of shooters like Kenny Smith, Cassel, and Vernon Maxwell to space the floor.

 

The only argument you could really make here, in terms of carrying a team on your back in the playoffs early in their career, is for Shaq, but even he was a second round exit for 4 consecutive years, starting with his last year in Orlando. Yes, he was the best player on a team that went to the Finals in his 3rd season, but he also had a an all-NBA 1st team point guard who wasn't exactly a slouch.

But, I do hope he D12 proves me wrong after the all-star break.

 

As far as post up moves, I would start with a 10 foot J and work from there. A 10 foot jumper isn't a post move. It's a shot. And given that you probably meant a faceup 10' jump shot, it's not even a post shot.

 

A post move is a move that gets you open and leads to a shot, it's not the shot itself. It's for that reason alone that a rational basketball fan can tell you don't know what you're talking about, even if you said nothing else. A post move that ends in a dunk is the most effective post move in existence because, on a fundamental level, it is a post move that leads to the highest percentage shot in the game.

 

Had you said something to the effect of: "I'd like to see Dwight further develop his drop-step" or "I'd like to see Dwight make more moves and/or counters when he initially gets the ball in the post, before he tries to cut into the lane," those would have been suggestions that are both post moves and have actual merit. Instead, you've done nothing but further demonstrate your ignorance.

 

Now, do you want to continue this? Or would you rather just let it go?

[Captain Hi-Top 791]

Continue! Please, Baby Jesus, let him choose to continue.

[NameLess Scrub 6]

I view Dwight as a Shaq, very dependable and critical, generally until clutch comes. That's when a jumper becomes more useful.

 

Can Dwight take over a game? It looks like Jameer and Hedo can.

 

Maybe those things are the things that bring some trouble, so to speak. Can't we expect Dwight to bring the team back when needed?

[Svanxx 30]

Another piece to add to the argument for Dwight. His 5th year is after he came out of High School.

 

Ewing - came out as a Senior in College.

Hakeem - Junior.

Shaq - Junior.

 

So comparing him to their 5th years is a joke. He's already a better rebounder and blocker than all of them except Hakeem (where he's about on the same level.)

[My 6th Rebuild 6]

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

In general, I hate having the quote in the middle like this, but felt it was necessary. Nothing you've said in this thread(and postulating off that, will ever say) has had any bearing in reality, and you've now resorted to both deliberately misquoting me and attacking the misquotes and to acting as though you can quote individual facts outside the realm of context, and hope no one notices. So I'm going to, on a point by point basis, refute your latest episode of post-based nonsense.

 

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

Since your Your means it's something that belongs to me. You meant "you are" or "you're". a stats guy No, I'm not. But I do pay attention to them, and I can do basic math, so I suppose that's something., lets compare PPG in each center's 5th year in the league...

 

Hakeem 88/89 24.8ppg (Didn't you say Hakeem sucked in the 80s?) No, I said he was an athletic freak who relied on his athleticism in the 80s, rather than the incredible array of interior post moves he had in the 90s. I neither said nor implied Hakeem was a bad player during that time frame.

 

Shaq 96/97 26.2 (The two previous seasons he averaged 29ppg)

 

Ewing 89/90 28.6ppg

 

D12 20.5ppg (so far down from last season Last year Dwight averaged 20.67 ppg. This year, he's averaging 20.53, in 2 fewer minutes per game. How is that "So much less than last year". Per36, he's averaging more points this year than he did last year.)

 

And here, your complete ignorance to how the game of basketball actually works is demonstrated yet again.

 

Points per game is one stat, and it doesn't display anything in and of itself, except how many points per game a player is scoring, but that scoring average doesn't mean, on its own, that one player is better on offense than another. Jerry Stackhouse averaged 29.6ppg at one point in his career(second in the league that season), and at no one in their right mind would call Jerry Stackhouse, even in his prime, a great scorer. He was a guy who shot the ball a lot, and scored a lot of very inefficient points as a result.

 

Similarly, you're attacking Dwight because he scores fewer points than 3 players, yet you refuse to even list FGAs to give those numbers even an inkling of context.

 

Since I'm tired of the stupid "Dwight shoots a bunch of FTs so his FGA numbers are lower than they really should be" argument, which ignores the fact that all great bigmen shoot lots of foul shots, lets set up a formula: we'll say that 1 FT is equal to .44 FGAs, or 2.27 FTAs=1 FGA, so a player's adjusted FGA per game will =FGAs + (FTAs/2.27).

 

So for Dwight, this is straight forward. Plug that into the formula, and you get the following:

aFGA=12.6 + (10.8/2.27) so Dwight's aFGA per game is 17.36.

 

Hakeem's fifth season numbers look like this:

aFGA= 19 + (8/2.27), so Hakeem's aFGA = 22.52

 

Shaq's numbers:

aFGA = 19.4 + (9.4/2.27), so Shaq's aFGA = 23.5

 

Ewing's numbers:

aFGA = 20.4 + (7.9/2.27), so Ewing's aFGA= 23.9

 

So the three players you listed averaged 6 more points in their fifth seasons than Dwight is currently averaging in his fifth season, but they needed an average of an additional 5.95 aFGAs to do so. Given Dwight has a true shooting percentage(version of FG% that's adjusted to include FT shooting) of .593 this year, we could postulate that if Dwight shot an additional 5.95 aFGA a game while holding at his current percentages, Dwight would be averaging 27.6 points per game.

 

Shaq, Ewing, and Hakeem carried their teams on their back. D12 is unable to.

Ewing didn't make it out of the second round until his 8th year in the league.

 

As for Olajuwon, after Sampson's knees went to hell, he couldn't get out of the first round for 5 years, until he had developed that post game he had in the early 90s, which coincided with the arrival of shooters like Kenny Smith, Cassel, and Vernon Maxwell to space the floor.

 

The only argument you could really make here, in terms of carrying a team on your back in the playoffs early in their career, is for Shaq, but even he was a second round exit for 4 consecutive years, starting with his last year in Orlando. Yes, he was the best player on a team that went to the Finals in his 3rd season, but he also had a an all-NBA 1st team point guard who wasn't exactly a slouch.

But, I do hope he D12 proves me wrong after the all-star break.

 

As far as post up moves, I would start with a 10 foot J and work from there. A 10 foot jumper isn't a post move. It's a shot. And given that you probably meant a faceup 10' jump shot, it's not even a post shot.

 

A post move is a move that gets you open and leads to a shot, it's not the shot itself. It's for that reason alone that a rational basketball fan can tell you don't know what you're talking about, even if you said nothing else. A post move that ends in a dunk is the most effective post move in existence because, on a fundamental level, it is a post move that leads to the highest percentage shot in the game.

 

Had you said something to the effect of: "I'd like to see Dwight further develop his drop-step" or "I'd like to see Dwight make more moves and/or counters when he initially gets the ball in the post, before he tries to cut into the lane," those would have been suggestions that are both post moves and have actual merit. Instead, you've done nothing but further demonstrate your ignorance.

 

Now, do you want to continue this? Or would you rather just let it go?

 

 

I await your NEGATIVE response because you think you know it all.....

 

Pay close attention to the J's.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

 

I await your NEGATIVE response because you think you know it all.....

 

Pay close attention to the J's.

 

Considering a solid 65% of those clips appear to be from the early 90s(FYI: if Tomjanovich is on the bench for Houston, it's the 90s), with the remainder being clips from the 80s of Hakeem getting steals, blocks, and Hakeem using his quickness to blow past people and then dunking, I don't see what aspect of my point this is supposed to disprove(since all those things fall pretty squarely in line with what I've been saying). But if it makes you feel better about...whatever...I'm happy to admit that Hakeem had more range early in his career than Dwight does now. That's fairly well known. It also changes nothing that I've said.

 

And one video of Hakeem has no bearing on my overall point regarding one person carrying a team, Dwight's development on offense, Dwight as compared to other players, etc.

[My 6th Rebuild 6]

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

 

I await your NEGATIVE response because you think you know it all.....

 

Pay close attention to the J's.

 

If you noticed his turn around J on Parish with Long-Haired Bird in the background, that is 80s. The point is that you said Olajuwon scored based on athleticism, like D12, in the 80s. Obviously this video proves that you are WRONG!!! The Pistons, Sonics, and all those teams looked like 80s teams. I thaw I thaw Adrian Dantley.

 

Considering a solid 65% of those clips appear to be from the early 90s(FYI: if Tomjanovich is on the bench for Houston, it's the 90s), with the remainder being clips from the 80s of Hakeem getting steals, blocks, and Hakeem using his quickness to blow past people and then dunking, I don't see what aspect of my point this is supposed to disprove(since all those things fall pretty squarely in line with what I've been saying). But if it makes you feel better about...whatever...I'm happy to admit that Hakeem had more range early in his career than Dwight does now. That's fairly well known. It also changes nothing that I've said.

 

And one video of Hakeem has no bearing on my overall point regarding one person carrying a team, Dwight's development on offense, Dwight as compared to other players, etc.

 

If you noticed his turn around J on Parish with Long-Haired Bird in the background, that is 80s. The point is that you said Olajuwon scored based on athleticism, like D12, in the 80s. Obviously this video proves that you are WRONG!!! The Pistons, Sonics, and all those teams looked like 80s teams. I thaw I thaw Adrian Dantley.

 

Back to my original point...

 

I said D12 lacks post moves to carry a team on his back. Is this correct?

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

quote:

Originally posted by MagicAtic:

 

I await your NEGATIVE response because you think you know it all.....

 

Pay close attention to the J's.

 

If you noticed his turn around J on Parish with Long-Haired Bird in the background, that is 80s. The point is that you said Olajuwon scored based on athleticism, like D12, in the 80s. Obviously this video proves that you are WRONG!!! The Pistons, Sonics, and all those teams looked like 80s teams. I thaw I thaw Adrian Dantley.

 

Considering a solid 65% of those clips appear to be from the early 90s(FYI: if Tomjanovich is on the bench for Houston, it's the 90s), with the remainder being clips from the 80s of Hakeem getting steals, blocks, and Hakeem using his quickness to blow past people and then dunking, I don't see what aspect of my point this is supposed to disprove(since all those things fall pretty squarely in line with what I've been saying). But if it makes you feel better about...whatever...I'm happy to admit that Hakeem had more range early in his career than Dwight does now. That's fairly well known. It also changes nothing that I've said.

 

And one video of Hakeem has no bearing on my overall point regarding one person carrying a team, Dwight's development on offense, Dwight as compared to other players, etc.

 

If you noticed his turn around J on Parish with Long-Haired Bird in the background, that is 80s. The point is that you said Olajuwon scored based on athleticism, like D12, in the 80s. Obviously this video proves that you are WRONG!!! The Pistons, Sonics, and all those teams looked like 80s teams. I thaw I thaw Adrian Dantley.

 

Back to my original point...

 

I said D12 lacks post moves to carry a team on his back. Is this correct?

 

That one singular turn around jumpshot proves your point? Are you insane? You are correct that that particular jump shot was from the 80s(specifically, it was from the 86 Finals). But since I've already admitted freely that Hakeem had greater range than Dwight did, I fail to see why that's relevant. Hakeem was a threat from a greater distance than Dwight is now, where as Dwight is harder to stop inside 8 feet than Hakeem was at that point in his career. Given the choice of one or the other, I probably take Hakeem, but that decision is completely irrelevant since it has no bearing on your original point. Not to mention the fact that using a youtube highlights video to prove a point is asinine, since one could put together a video of Dwight hitting 12 foot jumpshots, throw in the fadeaway 17 footer he hit against Boston last year, throw in some of his longer hooks and his more impressive spin moves, and Dwight Howard looks like a complete offensive juggernaut.

 

Your original point was that Dwight doesn't have the refined post game to carry the team to a title without help, and that players like Hakeem, Shaq, and Ewing did. My point is that Dwight doesn't have that skill set at this point in his career(and it's entirely possible he never will), but that the players you listed didn't have that skill set either. Once Sampson's body broke down, Hakeem spent half a decade trying to get out of the first round as "the guy". Ewing didn't get out of the second round for years. Even Shaq, in his greatest year ever(99-00), needed an all-NBA second team player as a teammate to win a title. In fact, Shaq had someone who was at least all-NBA second team on all 5 of his Finals appearances.

 

And you've still yet to address a single point I've made regarding the amount of burn Dwight gets on offense as compared to Ewing, O'neal and Hakeem.

[Emory889 353]

quote:

80s Hakeem Olajuwon and his MANY post up moves

 

I await your NEGATIVE response because you think you know it all.....

 

Pay close attention to the J's.

 

Did you seriously just use a youtube clip to "prove" your argument? Here's a clip of another great center.

 

[Guardian 6]

Hakeem was the best center ever. While we hope and pray D12 can develop an offensive game like that it is highly doubful. Hakeem had a much more athletic type of game where D12 is more power. Somehow I just can't imagine Dwight dribbling a soccerball much less a basketball. With that said Dwight is still young and he can develop some type of game, I am just not sure it will be much better than what it is now. Time will tell.

[My 6th Rebuild 6]

quote:

Originally posted by Drunk on Mystery:

 

And you've still yet to address a single point I've made regarding the amount of burn Dwight gets on offense as compared to Ewing, O'neal and Hakeem.

 

I have stated before, a long time ago, that D12 gets 6 less shots per game then Shaq did when he was in Orlando. I also said that D12 should touch the ball every time on offense. With this "SVG Adjustment" I am hoping for a more reliance on a half court offense, where hopefully D12 gets the ball 95% of the time. Those 3 great centers got way more touches then Howard. Hopefully that will change after the all-star break for good.

 

I like seeing Howard when he posts up closer to the elbow and does a quick spin move towards the baseline and flies in for a dunk or hook shot. That's just a particular move that I have seen him do.

 

Like I said before, we will all find out what D12 can do when the offense is 95% generated through Dwight, and not Turk.