WizBlog RSS FeedLITHUANIA STILL UNBEATEN IN EUROBASKET
After two convincing victories in their first two games against Turkey (86-69) led by current NBA players Mehmet Okur and Hido Turkoglu and Czech Republic (95-75), Lithuania won a close game by beating Dirk Nowitzki’s Germany team (84-80) and finished off the preliminary round with a solid 3-0 record in Group C of FIBA EuroBasket 2007.
Lithuania and 11 other teams advanced to the qualifying round and were divided to two pools Group E and F. The top three teams from Group C (Lithuania, Germany, and Turkey) and Group D (Slovenia, France and Italy) will compete each other in Group F and the top four teams from each group will qualify to the Quarter Finals.
One of the key players on this Lithuania national team is Wizards forward Darius Songaila. He started at power forward in all three games and averaged 9.7 ppg and 3.7 rpg while playing an important role on stopping Nowitzki, the reigning 2006-07 NBA Most Valuable Player.
Darius Songalia on the win over Germany: “We won and we had a very decent game. We had some problems shooting but a victory is the best way of getting into the second round of a tournament. They just made some great shots but we did a pretty good job. We always had a man on (Dirk Nowitzki), that was the key that we stopped him quite well.”
September 6th, 2007 at 2:20 PM
It will be really interesting to see the competition this year for backup to Jamison: Songaila, Blatche & Pecherov.
September 6th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
yeah i was thinking the same thing i wounder if we will ever see a line up like this Gil, Caron, Jamison, songaila, haywood move caron and jamison up and take out DS add songaila
September 6th, 2007 at 4:09 PM
I think are best starting line up would be Gil, Caron, Jamison, Songaila, Etan.
But Deshawn would NOT want to be benched.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:43 PM
As far as making those changes to the lineup, the Wizards would have even more defensive issues.
Jamison would have issues defending small forwards, and Caron would have issues with some 2 guards.
Jamison is better defending PF due to having help from the center position when being posted up (At least the center should be backing him up but the wizards don’t have much to work with at the center position. In my opinion I feel D Songalia is the best PF the wizards have defensively at this moment.
September 6th, 2007 at 6:37 PM
u cannot believe u guys are talking about benching deshawn for songaila! that will slow the pace down tremendously and defense will become even worse, and songaila is no better than antwan at d, and he is a slow as a parked car! he just doesn’t move! gil,deshawn,caron,twan,brenda! secondly, AD,nick, the other rookie, pecherov, etan. blatche, songaila, taylor, fill the rest. songaila was never a starter, well maybe for the bulls, and u see how that went! i love u guys, but yall trippin’…….. DAWG! LOL
September 6th, 2007 at 7:32 PM
I think Antawn has lost a little in quickness; he would have even more defensive problems at the SF than he does at PF. And Caron could not guard most SG’s. I think both are at their proper position.
Songaila likes to rebound; he is probably as good at it as Pecherov. I look for him to get most of the minutes backing up Jamison. I think Pecherov will be the third C and the third PF. Considering the probability of Thomas (and probably some other big) getting hurt, he’ll get substantial minutes this year. But where does that leave Blatche? Can he shoot jump shots well enough to play SF? Is he better than McGuire?
September 6th, 2007 at 8:52 PM
I might be wildly optimistic, but I’m day dreaming about DMac as an occasional Jared Jeffries type 2-guard in the system.
‘The Dominator’s’ assist rate was on par with Jeff Green and Julian Wright (other SF’s with supposed guard-like skills in this draft). Once he’s comfortable in the system I can’t imagine he’d be that steep of a drop-off compared to DeShawn (offensively) and get the feeling his defense will more than make up for any shortfall. He just seems to have the right attitude, mindset, etc. and can help fill in some of the gaps that Antawn might leave. Offensively he can let Caron do what he does (classic old school SF game) just as a facilitator, ball-movement guy who takes his shots when open or if he gets a lane.
By the way the head-to-head stats (at 82games.com) suggest that Antawn isn’t all that bad as a SF. Taken with a grain of salt. But all he needs to do is keep his hands up and shout help when they blowby him.
Darius. I like the guy. Pesh too. Lord knows Antawn could stand to have a decent back-up now and again. And either one has a chance to prove both an upgrade in defense without too much dropoff in offense. Darius has a nice pick and pop, pick and roll game that I’d lvoe to see the other players feed off and learn from. I have the feel that if he got minutes next to Brendan he’d start making the big ‘Wood look almost offensively ‘ept’ (opposite of inept?). There are so many passes possible from big-to-big in the real Princeton sets.
I’m also excitied about the potential of Darius sorta tutoring the goofy Ukrainian. The dudes can have entire conversations in Russian in front of the defenders, and with the exception of Ilgauskas and a couple others– ain’t nobody gonna know what the heck they’re talking about.
I want to see ‘Proof (’Dray) get minutes in the middle, since it seemed he had some success there this year playing next to Calvin Booth (who ran the forward patterns in the Princeton sets, not the center). He’s got the passing touch you’d love to have in a Princeton ‘pivot’. Alls he needs is a Big Man camp or two and a quality connection to a BALCO rep. Um, I mean, some steady time with Etan in the weight room, building musckle.
-doc.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:34 PM
I love all this dreaming — mcguire as a guard, caron as a guard, etc. Lets see whether dmac can play in the nba *at all* before penciling him in at the 2. Ditto for the rest of the “ideal” lineups.
Don’t you think that if Jamison could play the 3, he would already have been moved there? Ditto Caron at the 2?
neal - what makes you think songaila is a gifted rebounder? what he does best is hit an open jumper.
I just hope some of these young kids — blatche, young, mcguire, pecherov — can actually play!
September 6th, 2007 at 9:41 PM
we are packed at the 4 that’s certain but i don’t think Songaila is bad on D he is more of a low post 4 and not a 3 ball 4 that’s what makes him better on D is hangs around the hoop and can grab loss balls and i did think about AJ being kinda slow on the 3 spot but the new rookie D Mac could take that spot an we could spread the floor so far that it would be hard to defend us then around the 4th qt there so wore out from chasing us around that we can lock them up on D but its just a thought
September 7th, 2007 at 1:32 PM
jamison already plays the 3 on offense, he just can’t guard the opposing 3 men.
September 7th, 2007 at 1:46 PM
I’m with Tom I hope the young guys get to play and can play ( there talent still has to be proven). I do think one of the PF will be playing alot on Center this year. (who that will be I don’t know)
September 7th, 2007 at 2:01 PM
Tom Mandel my man,
If you can’t be wildly unrealistically optimistic in the offseason– then when can you be?
‘Fan’– derived from ‘fanatic’ implies the willingness to lose perspective, froth at the mouth, maybe shout a few things things you’d be embarassed for your gramma to hear.
Otherwise you simply become an interested hobbyist, an armchair analyst with pretensions of relevance. No sir. Dominic McGuire will surely save the world my friend. It’s been seen and foretold. So says the doc, for the doc hath spoken.
As for Jamison at the 3. Um, you recognize and understand he won the 6-man of the year award as a Small Forward. He defended the 3-spot more than the 4 when Jared Jeffries was in the line-up (and the– admittedly imperfect– numbers suggest his defense is better at the spot).
http://www.82games.com/0607/06WAS9C.HTM
At the 2-guard, Caron can’t handle the ball in the open court. He’s better one-bounce two bounce, inside the arc and in the paint. Agaisnt teh smaller quicker players he is a risk for offensive turnovers, in part becuase he doesn’t get the benefit of the the whistle that he does when he’s defensed by the Bigs in a mismatch — in this case he racks And-1’s with alacrity. That means ‘with da quickness’.
But the sneaky thing about the Princeton hybrid offense is that either forward essentially plays the Strong Forward, either forward plays the swing- or quick- forward. It’s the job of a distributor–
(best played by a sweet passing jumpshooting Bigman at the top of the key–since this keeps the paint clear– and he can make dump passes over the defense, or with an alley oop threat, in the passing lanes that exist in the air)
–to recognize which one has the match-up at the time. Caron’s underneath game was honed as a power forward in High school. Smaller guards can’t face him . Defenses get confused enough to front him with the littler man underneath, where refs recognize they are out of position and sometimes give CButt the benefit of the doubt. This works better when you have a decoy Big, especially if he can make up for Caron’s ballhandling challenges.
This is one reason why we could afford a no-offense ‘2-guard’ like Jeffries. He helped break the press if Gil was doubled, drew defenses out to meet him at the top of the key, passed well enough to make Caron’s job easier finishing, and coould even break his man down off the dribble to attack the basket and bounce it of the rim, then the glass, then the rim then turn it back over or lose it out of bounds.
So. DMac’s skill in this regard remains to be seen. But it’s not unprecedented.
And facts are facts. Unless Nick Young is an instant success prodigy and picks up the complex offense faster than you’d expect from the kid with a learning disability– well then we are gonna have to experiement a little bit with the back-up 2-guard spot anyway. At least in Summer League DMac seemed relatively mistake-free even when playing at the top of the key. And the coaches sound impressed with the kid. I’m just saying, no promises, but there’s still room on this here bandwagon if you want a prime seat before all the good ones get snatched up…
-doc.
September 7th, 2007 at 4:39 PM
erm what he said…
September 7th, 2007 at 6:23 PM
yeah you got to love the first part ha ha ha
September 7th, 2007 at 8:50 PM
Doc — you are *so* right!
Now talk to me about ET and BH —
Nick has a learning disability? Hope he can make his way all the same. I thought he was a pretty witty kid — I loved the video of their prep for summer league where he intro’d Dominic (who was wearing #5) as “my man Kwame Brown.” McGuire was totally nonplussed!
September 7th, 2007 at 10:15 PM
What d’ya wanna know? Brendan at his best is better than Etan. Etan works harder to maintain his consistent mediocrity. Neither of them are any great shakes. And either one is a poor fit for the offense. But the team is unquestionably better when Brendan is out there, even when he’s halfassing it.
Current wisdom says that Brendan is sometimey. More so than quality starting centers around the league. Eddie has no idea the best way to motivate the guy, he’s exhausted his bag of tricks getting the guy to perform like it matters. The fact that when he’s playing right he’s a dominant force will only frustrate a coach more if he can’t get the same performance when he needs it, or often enough to count on it.
So he plays Etan because the guy will give 100% of his lesser talents, all the time. And some nights that’s enough to shut off Dwight Howard like a blown fuse. Mostly, not.
Thing is Brendan is hands down the most important defensive player on the team. That’s damning with faint praise, maybe, but if you check the stats you see opponent FG%’s drop when the big ‘Wood is in the game.
Why does that matter? Because the Wiz had better (3pt adjusted) shooting percentages than their opponents in only 5 of the top 20 line-ups used last year. What’s that mean? That means everybody could shoot on the Wiz, and we didn’t have the firepower to outgun them except: at the FT line, and by forcing turnovers. Brendan was in 3 of those top 5 lines. (One was a smallball line-up that gave up FT’s like a sieve).
(The other was interesting: Daniels-Stevenson-Jamison-Songaila-Thomas shot insanely well: effective FG% of .577, and the opponent shot a 3pt adjusted .466. But there’s only 32 minutes of this line the whole season. Probably all in the playoffs when both Daniels and Jamison were playing out o’ their minds).
So. If we plan on defending at all, Haywood is key.
Now it’s a fair question if you want to blame the coach for not figuring out what’s the best way to motivate big ‘Wood and get a consistent performance. (Though he does a damn good job with everyone else on the team apparently). I’m sure if he knew how to do it he would. And Haywood has dragged a reputation around since Tarheel days that he sometimes just doesn’t give a rip & puts out a lazy effort.
Now I got a theory a way to work it. Brendan apparently is a notorious cheapskate. Or youknow, he’s thrifty. Dude apparently wouldn’t eat right the first couple years in the league because he wanted to save his meal money. Coaches had to take him out to dinner and pay so he wouldn’t get woozy and light headed. You hear stories from fans who sat next to the guy folded up in Business class on flights to Caroline because the big fella didn’t want to spring for First Class tix.
If we had a Pat Riley type motivator, he’d tie the per diem rate to rebound production, deflections, changed shots and blocks. He’d give bonuses for hard fouls, take penalties for blown assignments, and put a no-nonsense take-no-mess assistant coach on the videotape. Let the team get ’swag’ points for defensive stops and knockdowns the same way they celebrate the last-second heroics and such. Or FG% (Mr 50).
Because millions of dollars or no, little things like pocket money represent something instant and tangible, no matter how small it looks form the outside. I get the feeling Brendan would straight knock you down for the chance at that 15 dollar rebound. Shoot, he’d prob’ly knock Jamison down for trying to take it.
September 7th, 2007 at 10:29 PM
Top 20 Line-ups:
http://www.82games.com/0607/0607WAS2.HTM scroll down to look at ‘details’.
eFG is the measure of the Wiz shooting percentage with the 3pt shot taken into account. eFGA is how the other team shot against the Wiz. Those are some ugly numbers if you know how to read it right.
But the Wiz were small. Just small. The only way they could win was giving their allout energy and make their points off fouls and takeaways.
But this year?
–We replace tiny three point specialist Roger Mason with 7-foot catapult Pecherov.
–We replace inept offensive hustling defensive specialist Ruffin with a guy who can throw down an alley oop, and pass off the dribble in MacGuire.
–We replace the prettiest jumpshot that ever missed, and an inability to dribble, and a fear of the paint brought on by a cracked kneecap in Jarvis, replace him with a guy who in summer league split the defense between two defenders who were basically standing shoulder to shoulder, and looks like he might like to try to 360 windmill dunk on Shaq if he gets the chance, even if he gets snuffed and shut down every time.
Remains to be seen how it all works out, but the raw materials are there. Could be something interesting.
September 8th, 2007 at 12:17 AM
Doc,
Tom is a Great Guy, if not just a wee bit pessimistic LOL.
I live and breath for your posts. Antawn will be fine as a SF… “all he has to do is keep his hands up and yell when they blow by him”. ept.. opposite of inept… Russian talk….. You break me up! At the end of the day though I pretty much agree with almost everything you say. I’d love to see Mr. Blatche in the middle as well as Dmac sometimes at the 2. Now if Brendan can coax Adidas into make a shoe line for him that has springs in the soles we may just have something?
September 8th, 2007 at 2:52 AM
wow Doc droppin knowledge up in here its Friday night and i learned something! keep it coming….
September 8th, 2007 at 8:09 AM
Doc is god!
I absolutely love your ideas for motivating Haywood — hope someone from the basketball side of the organization is monitoring this blog.
September 8th, 2007 at 8:45 AM
I’m also lovin your posts, Doc. But I’m with Tom on Jamison as a 3. He’s probably a little slower than when he was with Dallas. And he rebounds well enough to compete with other 4’s in that category.
Tom, I agree that Songaila’s best talent is “stop and pop”. But I agree with the advance billing that he likes to rebound. I’m just saying he seems to me to hold his own in comparison to bigger PF’s.
You guys are getting me to warm to the idea of Blatche at the center position. He did make a few excellent passes, he seems to rebound as well as bigger centers, and he’s probably a better defender than Thomas. Maybe that’s the way for him to play w/o competing at the overcrowded 4 position.
I think Haywood’s often lack of energy may be physical as well as mental. I’ve thought that before and what doc said makes me think so even more. I hope the Wiz are coaching his eating, sleeping, conditioning, etc.
September 8th, 2007 at 2:12 PM
neal, sir.
Well I’ll tell ya, one of the reason Jamison rebounds so well is because he leaves his defensive assignment to chase the ball. He doesn’t box out or seal his man, he floats in the space between players and anticipates where the ball is gonna go.
Specifically: in every facet of the game he avoids contact whenever possible. That’s how he’s developed that junkball game of floaters etc: he shoots before he is defended– it’s also the reason why on this team that survives by Free Throws, you almost never see Tawn at the line.
Now that’s fine, he does it well, and the Wiz definitely need the boards. But Jamison is often caught out of position because he’s watching for the ball instead of keying on his man. But there are times when you need to put a body on a man in order to defend better. And against the Bigs Jamison is usually in a mismatch, even if he liked the contact. The fact that the Wiz are undersized in every match-ups but Haywood’s (and sometimes Gil) means you are fundamentally at a disadvantage defensively, even if you do have good habits or schemes. Measure any stat you want, but the best measure of defense, and in fact the one stat that most strongly relates to Wins is this: opponent FG%.
The reasons are simple. Think about it, ain’t no rebound on a made basket. You got to force them to miss it first if you want a chance to get it back. This is the stat Haywood excels at–
(Haywood is so big he alters shots without touching them, players take jumpers instead of driving underneath. In this no-handcheck era you can’t get better defense than that. It’s like a Sun Txu Art of War thing, if you can force your oppoent to alter his behavior wihtout having to fight him you have already won the war)
–and this is the stat where most other Wizards fall short. Teams hit every shot against us. Scrubs become superstars. I bet Jarvis Hayes looked great in practice shooting on these defenders. Because nobody challenged and made him have to dribble for a shot. Jamison’s rebounding habit is one of the culprits on .
(Gil has the same bad habit by the way. Which explains his seeming inattention on D despite his phenomenal quick-twitch athleticism. He should be able to shut down his guy like a spigot, and frustrate his man buy keeping in front of him at all times with the good old hand in the face. But he’s busy ball-watching and keying on steals and long bounces instead. It’s no surprise after JKidd Gil is the top rebounding PG in the league. Llooks good on paper, but it makes it easier to get him out of position on a switch/backdoor cut, or to positively kill him on a pick).
Put simply, sometimes it doesn’t matter so much if Jamison loses his man and they blow by him– love the player, and our offense needs him, but Jamison’s gonna be a defensive liability no matter where you put him.
At least if you stick him on the outside there’s a one-second chance for the PF and Center underneath to recover and erase the mistake. If both your guys underneath are 7 footers with long arms, you might force the attacker to pull up and take the midrange shot off the dribble. That’s a low % shot that allows for them rebounds in the first place, and it only costs two points if they hit– no foul. That no man’s land is where we give up shots if we have to. Maybe DMac or Haywood or Blatche is long enough to challenge there, but if not: no big deal.
(Standing on the shoulders of giants: The realGM board’s The SecretWeapon has studied defenses aroudn the league, and this is exactly the San Antonio defense: contest all three pointers, guard the paint, give up on the midrange shot. Works pretty well for them, right?)
Jamison is tall enough that if he can just challenge the shots he can reach, and try to defend the 3 point shot, he’ll be fine. Jamison actually registers a decent block rate against the a jumper, because this is one case where his innate sense of timing works well. And no little SF is gonna back him down, inside. And on the other end, this is where Tawn occasionally gets chesty and physically shoves his defender around, when he’s got a little guy on a mismatch.
So while there are times when I definitely want him as the PF on offense (to spread the floor, leave room underneath for Gil and Caron to attack). It’s just a good idea to find times when you can stick him on guard duty outside with a walkie talkie, and let the more physically intimidating pitbulls guard the inside of the house.
September 8th, 2007 at 3:00 PM
with the two pages doc put i noticed two things that supports my arguement. deshawn was in each of the top three winning percentages along with gil. keep him at the two and not caron. secondly twan oppenents scored nearly the same amount whether he was 3 or 4 and his points were up more at the 3 but remember those were mostly the warrior days early in his career and the 6th man year with dallas. he has an advantage on offense regardless. his is bigger at the 3 and quicker than most in the league at the 4 because he brings the big men out to the 3 point line where they do not want to be. and on defense he is at an disadvantage. he is not as quick as other sf and not as strong and big as other power fowards. so just keep the same line up. focus on the bench lineup casue thats where the team lacked production. and at the center spot. not pg sg sf or pf.
September 8th, 2007 at 4:30 PM
I definately see some lineups were we play two small forwards at the same time.. i.e Dmac and Caron together at the 2/3 gil at the one, antwan at 4 and haywood or blatche at 5. Small ball I think our small ball center will be blatche or pech. Pech looks like he has a better jumper. i”d consider putting them both in at some points. I can also forsee a big lineup with two power forwards. caron or Dmac at the two, jamison at three and blatche, songaila or pech at the 4. I’d also play some linups with etan and haywood together and have offense from the one through the three in gil, nick young and caron. Theres alot of possibilities. If everyone plays to their abilities we have flexibility.
Lets Play a game. Pick teams in the east one by one their possible lineups and who we’d play against them in each case depending on matchups. This should be some interesting armchair coaching.
Lets start with cleveland:
Gil vs snow, gibson or hughes
Play Dmac or Nick young to keep the 2 guard busy so they can’t gaurd gil.. e.g so larry hughes can’t gaurd arenas.
I’d interchange Caron, blatche and songaila on lebron. Dmac I think isn’t strong enough despite having the same size. And compensate for how much damage lebron is doing at the PF spot by putting a bigger guy in if he keeps penetrating
I’d put in Jamison who killed cleveland in the playoffs at power forward but would consider blatche or etan here depending on how clevelands offense is doing vs our paint and how good clevelands rebounding. if we can’t defend well then blatche goes in. If we are getting out muscled then etan goes in.
then Haywood at the C. He always has Z’s number. He’d plau every minute Z was in the game. feel free to make any adjustments to the lineup depending on stats or some gameplan etc. Also consider other lineups cleveland might play.
September 8th, 2007 at 4:37 PM
I think when it comes to cleveland our major defensive issue is lebron. Otherwise cleveland was a crap team before he came along. I know he can’t shoot jumpers that well. He has a powerforward build. I’d try and limit his forays in the paint and force him to try and contribute to the team in other ways or score in different ways. Which player do you think is the best defensively in our team against him right now. What players does lebron suffer against? what other weaknesses can you point out about his game?
September 8th, 2007 at 4:41 PM
also I want to add their major weakness as a team is at the point gaurd. THey were killed at through the playoffs by different gaurds from jason kidd, to tony parker looking like an mVP to even AD killing them. we have gil, the reason why I have a big two gaurd along side gil in a lineup against them is to avoid cleveland switching defensive assignments, and to enable a switch against the small forward, to provide some length to help our rebounding as well. Cleveland is a half court team and their offense is stagnant at time and we should be able to out score them. Its just we’ve never had a lebron stopper.
September 8th, 2007 at 10:15 PM
This will be an interesting season for the Wiz. This is the last year of AJ’s big contract.
Will he be back with the Wiz depends on the kind of year he will have. As part of the big 3 I believe he will have a great year if he stay’s healthy. AJ is not known as a power forward or small forward. He is a NBA forward who has good sound offensive skills but not great on defense. His locker room leadership and integrity means a lot to EJ, EG and Abe. Of course AJ may not get a big contract offer next year but a fair one for his time in the league. Which means he may take it or opt to go home to end his career in Charlotte.
The key to the Wiz being a good defensive team down low is Haywood. AJ being in the PF spot benefits us when Haywood is rebounding and blocking shots on a consistent basis. AJ manages to get around 8 boards a game so if BH good could stay out of foul trouble and play within his strengths and get us about 9 to 10 rebounds and 3 blocks per game we would be a force in the east with the depth we have coming off the bench.
I see Songalia backing up AJ but I also see ET getting time at the 4 spot when AB and OP are at the five spot. ET is not a center but a pf playing center. OP and AB can play the 5 if we have a enforcer at the 4. I feel going into camp we should not solely concentrate on the potential offensive skills that songalia, ab, op, nick will bring to the team but see if we can get bh to give us about 30-32 minutes. If BH starts he should get at least 2/3of the PT if he is rebounding, blocking shots and staying out of foul trouble. This will enable EJ to be more creative with the matchup problems he could create with AD, DS, NY, DMAC, AB, OP and ET coming off the bench.
Another key is for Agent Zero not to average over 27 points a game but to average 22 to 26 points a game and averaging about 7 to 9 assists a game and lower his turnovers.
If Agent Zero can rely on his quickness and strength he can become a much better defensive player. With caron continuing to raise his game and DS improving his outside shot we can take the East but the key is not the big 3 but the key is BH.
September 9th, 2007 at 12:50 AM
Does anyone but me think that the biggest “Sleeper” we have going into this season will be Mr. Young? He didn’t show much in the summer league, but, we all know he can shoot the lights out.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:59 AM
when nick young moves with the ball he reminds me of kobe. He has the tools, the ball handling, the midrange shots, the same size and the athleticism. NOt the defense though or the killer instinct. Nick young also needs more strenght and stamina. He gets worn out if he plays too many minutes. But even though his shots were streaky at summer league at times he did create shots off the dribble with ease and had an average field goal percentage of 52% at USC .. I expect him to do well in rebounding as well. Not as well as Dmac but NY was outrebounding alot of people last year in college while playing out of position sometimes.
I’m really looking forward to his development. Alot can be done with him and he has such natural offensive skills. Playing NY and Dmac at the 2 spot will one day cause mismatches.
September 9th, 2007 at 7:58 PM
I agree, dmac, that part of Jamison’s value is his leadership. I hope we keep him, even if he goes back to being a 6th man after this year. Instead of $16M, I figure he’ll get $6-8M. He should be worth more to us than anyone else.
And I think if Arenas averaged about 35 minutes instead of 40 his whole game would improve, including his shooting percentage. He tries to do too much sometimes, both shooting and with his passes. I keep hoping he’ll mature in this respect, and he’s improved a little. Maybe this year he’ll make bigger strides. Doclinkin I think you’re spot on regarding Arenas on D. Can’t the coaches get him to be more disciplined? Or is Jordan so enamored with him he goes easy on him?