Quote:
Originally Posted by yamaneko
Id say its a very piss poor squad. And im assuming you picked perhaps their best year from the 3 they made the playoffs with?
Lorenzen wright? Hes a career 8/6/1 guy. That was one of his better years. Pau is Pau. Posey? A Career 9 point, 5 rebound guy. Also had one of his best years in his career that year. Mike Miller wasnt anything near the player he is today then. Also was coming off of a big injury. Jason is a career 11 and 6 guy, which is what he got that year. I wouldnt say that is a starting 5 that would scare anyone. Heck bonzi was their 3rd leading scorer and he poured in 12 points off of the bench.
Lets not forget the injuries they had that year. Bonzi missed 24 games. Miller missed almost 30 games, Which Chocclolate missed 10 games, lorenzen missed 20 games. Yet that lineup managed to get 50 wins!!!
Lets compare that to the clipper team of the same year. Statisticall elton and pau almost a wash about the same amount in every major category. Lorenzen had a better year overall than kaman, not by much. Maggette id take over posey. Q Rich over mike miller. (neither of those even close). Offensively j will was better than jaric, but defensively the other way around. The bench, clippers had wilcox, simmons, House, predrag, keyon, barnes. I would say that elton for sur ehad more talent surrounding him (many injuries too like the grizz) than pau did. Sure, there are intangibles like coaching, etc. but the grizz having TWICE the number of wins as the clippers that year?
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This piss-poor Memphis team won 50 games that year and was known around the league as one of the deepest team in the league. They had a 10-man rotation due to their deep bench but even with their regular season success and the clutch play of Pau, they were swept in the first round of playoffs and there was nothing Pau could do about it. To call this roster that won 50 regular season games piss-poor or worse than the Clipper roster of that year seems a little biased.
The 04-05 Grizzlies team that won 45 games had the exact same roster as this one, except for the addtion of Brian Cardinal, and were swept in the first round again.
The 05-06 team that won 49 games with Pau's career year (20PG/9RPG) had Mike Miller, Eddie Jones, Bobby Jackson, Damon Stoudamire, Shane Battier, Lorenzen Wright,and Hakim Warrick (A deep talented team) but as we all know couldn't win a single game in the playoffs again as good or clutch as Pau is.
It is ridiculous to say that Pau is a better player than Brand or even a more clutch player than Brand. Pau's numbers offensively and defensively never came close to what Brand's career avgs are and I've seen Brand make alot of clutch plays (offensive and defensive)especially ever since he got his mid-range jumper down a couple years back. We need to just build around Brand with young talent or thru some trades involving other players. If we get rid of Brand, we will be a lottery team for years to come before we have something good again IMO.