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Originally Posted by luther
I can't believe I'm defending Antoine Walker, considering I don't even like him. But how is 8+ rpg below average? And how is 4+ apg below average? He was a bad percentage shooter, but that's really it as far as being below average for his positions of SF/PF. You don't have to like him or his game (I know I don't), but be realistic, at least.
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A "per game" perspective doesn't tell you much about how productive a player is. You can't realistically expect someone who only plays 20 minutes a night to grab as many boards as someone who plays close to 40. That's just not fair.
Walker has been a below average player almost his entire career. Most years the average PF grabs 9.5 rebounds per 40 minutes. Last year it was a little higher, they grabbed 9.6. Walker only managed 7.5. OK, you can say that he played a lot of SF that season, but still over his career he has played mostly as a power forward and his career reb/40 is 8.8. Even subtracting his Miami days and he's still well below the league average. This season he's only grabbing 7.3.
His shooting has just been atrocious. The average player shoots at about 53% true shooting percentage. His career average is 48.5%. Last year it was only 46%. There are only about 30 players in the league who do worse than 50% and Walker's about the bottom 15-20 every year.
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As for Craig Smith, he's a very good player. I like him. But it seems to me this board has a bit of "Backup QB Syndrome" when it comes to him: love him because he's not playing a lot. He's productive, sure, but only in two areas: scoring and rebounding. Frankly, he's not all THAT much different than a guy like Gary Trent. Play him and he'll score points and grab rebounds. Trent got about 30 mpg in 98-99 and got 16 ppg and 7.8 rpg. But that year, Trent also averaged 1.7 apg. 30 minutes, less than 2 apg. Trent was rightly known as a guy who could get his own when given the ball on the block, and that's about it.
Move over to Craig Smith. He's getting about 16 mpg and 7.4 ppg and 4.2 rpg. Double it and you've got 15 ppg and 8 rpg. Look similar to Gary Trent? Yes, nearly identical, in fact. Except assists, which so far Smith is averaging .1 each game. Not 1.0, but 0.1. Double his minutes and he gets you 0.2 per game. Too few games for a legit sample size? Check out last year, when he averaged a whopping .6 apg. Double his minutes to that and you're still less than Gary Trent, who was widely known and mocked as a black hole on offense. And you think Antoine Walker is "below average at everything" with his 4-5 apg as a PF? Per 30 mpg, that is still about 20 times more than Craig Smith is currently averaging.
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Gary Trent is a pretty good comparison. Except that Smith is better at everything except passing. He's a much more efficient scorer and a better rebounder (Trent was only average, Smith is well above average). If Smith turns out to be a rich man's Gary Trent, I'll be happy to have him on our team.
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Craig Smith catches and shoots. EVERY TIME. And when you've already got one post player who isn't going to pass out of double-teams well in Al Jefferson, do you really need another one who's even WORSE? Add to it that Smith would foul out of every game if he played 30 minutes (he averages 2.9 PF in his 15 minutes) and the fact that with his lack of size as a 4 he has already proved himself a well below-average defender, and the reason he is a reserve is clear. He is good at coming into games and scoring points when playing with reserves (often, but not always, against reserves). He is a valuable player in that respect. He is not some kind of savior, all-star, or even star. Or second option. Or third option.
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I've never said he was an all-star. Or a star. I think he's going to be a valuable role player though. And he's already better than Walker. Right now he's the second best player on our team and that's not a good thing. He should be the 4th or 5th best.
I did a post on Smith's fouling a while back. I concluded that he could play about 25mpg right now without fouling out. He should be getting 25mpg and Walker about 13mpg. Gomes should be playing at PF more because he's not a good SF.
I did a spreadsheet on our bigs production (below) and it's obvious that when you look at their per minute production, Smith's the best player behind Jefferson. Sure, Smith is an awful awful passer, so if it's important to you that your power forwards pass a lot, then he's not your man. But if you want your PF to do PF things like score at a high percentage and rebound, Smith's a very good choice for any team.
Keep in mind that the TS% for Walker is very high for him so far. If history matters, it's going to go down as the season progresses and Smith's is going to go up. But even now Smith is an equally productive scorer and much better rebounder.
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Player PTS FGA FTA REB AST MIN PTS/40 TS% REB/40 AST/40
Al Jefferson 224 185 36 127 14 407 22.015 0.558 12.482 1.376
Craig Smith 74 59 23 42 1 158 18.734 0.535 10.633 0.253
Ryan Gomes 111 97 28 45 22 289 15.363 0.508 6.228 3.045
Antoine Walker 106 91 21 41 15 225 18.844 0.529 7.289 2.667