Decade of decadance

[Alex Goldblatt]

Ryan,

You'd trade Al for Howard TODAY - but I would not be that certain re doing
it tomorrow. Al has much higher upside on the O end, he also has shown some
flashes playing the weak side D and help D - IMO he's slowly getting to the
point of a very solid team defender. He also not as slow as he used to
be, losing totally if matched up against tweener forwards.

Consider this: Howard had a + 19.59 ERA going into this year. AJ had a +
8.98RA going into this year.

This year AJ has blossomed, and is at a + 20.65, and Howard is at a +
23.03Efficiency Rating.

Gap is closing, will be fun watching this 2 the next year. I'd also add
this: if Al will deliver this steady 15-18 footer he's been obviously
working on lately, no way I'll trade him for Howard. And if drafting Oden...
;-)

AG


On 4/13/07, Ryan, Patrick S Maj RES USAFR 439 MSG <
Patrick.Ryan at westover.af.mil> wrote:
>
> I'm curious, do you think it's the individual defense, the team defense or
> both? I ask because I agree wholeheartedly on the defensive aspect being
> the
> key to making this team better on the whole, but at the same time question
> exactly "how".
>
> My gut says that Al is passable man on man both at the forward and center
> spot, but as soon as he's asked to cover both his man and the myriad
> guards
> who get into the paint at will against this team; it then is HIS man that
> is
> getting the dunk off the dish, foul shots, easy follow up rebound when in
> fact it was the SG/PG/SF who actually broke the defense not Al's
> assignment.
>
>
> I'm not saying Al is Rodman or Cooper; but manned up in the post against
> the
> post players (Ming/Curry/etc) or at the elbow against the driver/shooters
> (Bosh/O'Neal/Okur) I think he's at least meeting his +/- most nights
> comparing his stats to his opponent over the course of a season.  Now
> against the real beef - yeah he's toast - he'll never cover Shaq or Howard
> that well, but who exactly does??? That's why Doc starts Perk against
> those
> guys most times.
>
> I would put Al in the "most" untouchable arena.  Would I trade him for
> Howard - uh, yeah, but that is never going to happen, but when older guys
> like O'Neal and Garnett's names are floated I really have to stop and
> think
> "hey, this kid is all of 22 and they're 32 or more" - that's A DECADE of
> production. That's a lot.
>
> -----------------
> SNIP
>
> It's more than obvious to me that we need to get better defensively.  This
> is our Achilles heel.  We need to address it and since none of our young
> guys are defensive wizards then none of them should be considered
> untouchable.  Offense may be pretty but defense still wins championships.
> -
> JayCelt
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