JuX

You're right. I also hate to see those young talents in Brewer and Smith wasting away especially in a team that need them the most. Green, I don't care because he won't be here long term, anyway. Nonetheless, it would be nice to see some talents on the floor there for a while.

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.

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.

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.

Mateo

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.

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.

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.

luther

After each of our last posts, I don't think we're all that far apart in our opinions, actually--we just were saying them differently. I don't doubt at all that he's our second-best post scorer and rebounder. Never did. And I also am not against playing him more than his 16 mpg; I just doubted that he could be a full-time kind of player, a 35 mpg guy. And you said that he ought not be considered a 2nd option on a good team, which I agree with (obviously).

And I am definitely not against him getting more minutes than Walker. DEFINITELY. My only defenses for Walker were that he was ever productive, which I think he was. Not great, not brilliant, and a horribly inefficient player. But productive.

As an aside regarding the use of per 40 instead of per game, I usually avoid that kind of thing because projecting out numbers doesn't really work. It's fun to play with stats, but I don't think it's a true reflection of basketball itself--the reality of what happens, and why. Guys who don't get time, often don't get time for a reason: fouls too much, defensive sieve, stops the offense and thus keeps others uninvolved, turns it over, isn't in good enough shape to maintain his pace over extended periods, or whatever else.

Mateo

Very well then.