roux2dope

Wow... they need to put the bucks on espn more, if you cant shoot guards play off you and give you the jumper... and if i am no mistaken milwaukee was a much better team than toronto wa last year, its funny how his assists dropped from his rookie season, may it have been that spinal injury he had.. I will be the first to admit that the guy has talent but he is more of a tease than he is a stud.

And for the love of god stop comparing him to the best point guard in the league, he is no where near steve nash, he could one day be a better passer than nash but as long as nash continues to knockdown his jumpers that opens up the floor more. That is what hurts tjs game. Also his favorite play is run down to the corner of the floor slash under the hoop and jump, and not know wheter he will shoot or pass, lots of turn overs on those. You will see what I mean. 1 great play to get you off your seat then 2-3 plays that leaves you scratching your head.. But hey I could be wrong

trick

It's funny how you mention two people who are the complete polar opposite of TJ Ford. In fact, I can say the elite teams don't necessarily need their point guard to become the primary play makers, but I won't.

In any case, Ford's best asset he can bring to a team is playmaking. If he doesn't improve in that direction how can anyone expect he can help improve a team?

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buckaroo

TJ can significantly increase his assist stats if the Raptors play a run and gun style because there will be more open shots and more frequent shots taken. That's what happens if your offense is geared to take a shot within 6 second of being on offense. The 6 second offense was mentioned during the playoffs with the Suns and sure enough that's what it was.

If Nash played in a Detroit style half court offense his assists would prolly go down a lot. So I see TJs assists going up while his scoring stat may not change that much because the scoring must come from the others in a run and gun offense.

lucky777s

How much of an impact did TJ really have on the Bucks?

Dumb question? Not when you look deeper into the Bucks lineups.

His rookie year the Porter/Mitchell team came in to coach and had just cleared out the Ray Allen/GaryPayton/SamCassel/Pryz old guard team. Nothing was expected of them.

The Bucks had the core of TJ, Redd, Mason, Gadz, Kukoc but also had an excellent group of role players such as VanHorn, Skinner, DamonJones, and Brevin Knight that year. Pretty experienced team. Good talent level all around. Played hard every night. Team did well.

Now most people will say TJ's injury sunk the Bucks the following year. But did it. The Bucks gave up VanHorn, Skinner, DamonJones, and Knight. Replaced them with Anthony Goldwire, Kendall Gill, Calvin Booth, and Marcus Fizer. Major, major downgrades in experience and talent and work ethic. Team tanked. Porter fired.

This past year a new coach came in and for the 3rd straight year the Bucks completely overhauled the roster. In comes Charlie Bell, JamalMagloire, AndrewBogut, and Bobby Simmons. Plus TJ returning. MAJOR upgrade in talent from the previous year. Team does pretty well, but still not over .500.

So I think its fair to ask what TJ's impact on the overall record really was. The 2 decent years had the Bucks with new coaches and talented rosters with good depth. The 1 bad year saw a very thin roster and a lame duck coach who may have lost the team.

If TJ was really the difference maker for the Bucks they would never trade him and just let MoWill and Charlie Bell run the team.

So, while I hope TJ is a perfect fit in Toronto I am certainly not expecting him to be our 'saviour' or anthing. Style and fit greatly impact the success of a player. It's possible TJ will be a much better Raptor than he was a Buck because of this.

I look back on the impact that little guard from the D league had 2 seasons ago. Toronto brings him up and he is an assist machine that made the offence hum. Created fast break opportunities. For whatever reason we don't even bring the kid to camp.

TJ should be able to bring that pace and ballsharing to Toronto. But I am worried that he's quite overrated based on the Bucks record those 3 years.