ESPN Insider story on Wesley Matthews

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BlazerBeliever

BlazerBeliever

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This is a great story.

Whenever a guy goes undrafted, there's always a reason. Or reasons, as was the case with Matthews. Scouts said the 6'5", 220-pound guard didn't shoot as well as he might. He wasn't overly athletic. He was a second-round talent at best, and that's where teams like to pick "stash guys"typically Euros who can be tucked overseas for a couple years at no cost. It didn't matter that he was a sticky defender. Or that he was smart enough to be recruited by Stanford. Or that he nailed his predraft interviews. "We ask guys to name as many people on our team as they can," says Buchanan. "They usually name one or two. Wesley named damn near our entire roster."

Still, Matthews' phone didn't start buzzing until the 50th pick. That's when teams start to contact players at the bottom of their lists, bubble guys they'll invite to play summer league as an undrafted free agent. To a player, being undrafted is the equivalent of being the seventh man in a game of three-on-three. But front office execs say it's a blessing in disguise. "Once it gets into the late second round," says Grizzlies VP Chris Wallace, "you're better off not being picked. Instead of being owned by whatever team drafts you, you can sit back, look at the rosters and choose the best fit."

...


Not that he didn't have options. A Turkish club was offering $120,000, tax-free. "More money than my family ever had," says Matthews. But it wasn't the dream. So when the Jazz called offering an audition for the third-string shooting guard spot, he took it. "My goal was to impress them so much that they had no choice," he says. "It was all or nothing."
Spencer HeyfronWhy was Portland so anxious to snag Matthews? His reach -- and the 1.8 steals he averaged in the playoffs -- were two reasons.

Turns out it was all. Thanks to injuries to Miles and Korver before camp even broke, Matthews started a preseason game in London against the Bulls. He scored 16 points and hit three of four from three. By luck, timing and effort, Matthews earned a spot on the team, and the rookie minimum of $457,588. Then, in the third week of the season, in his first start, he put up 16 points against the Sixers. A string of 18 more starts followed. By season's end, Matthews was averaging nearly 10 points a night and he had started 48 times. In the playoffs he upped his numbers to 13.2 ppg and 1.8 spg, all while taking on opponents' biggest scorers. "He doesn't take bad shots, he has a tremendous basketball IQ, and he's a tough SOB," says one Eastern Conference scout. "He just finds a way to make plays. Not drafting him was a grave mistake."
Click to expand...
 
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Just a heads up: I really do appreciate you posting the whole article, but doing so is kind of a no-no; it's OK to take a couple of paragraphs of an article under fair use laws, but you could potentially get S2 in trouble for copyright violation ...

EDIT: Not to get all 'lawyery', it's a really nice article and it makes me kind of excited to see what he can do in a Blazers uniform ... if nothing else he sounds like an incredibly hard worker and a guy with a junkyard dog mentality; something that has been in woefully short supply for years on this team.

Here's the direct link to the article for those with ESPN Insider
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/news/story?id=5546852
 
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I hope he lives up to what the management sees he could be.

Bowen+Defense.jpg


Like a Bruce Bowen.
 
Nikolokolus said:
Just a heads up: I really do appreciate you posting the whole article, but doing so is kind of a no-no; it's OK to take a couple of paragraphs of an article under fair use laws, but you could potentially get S2 in trouble for copyright violation ...

EDIT: Not to get all 'lawyery', it's a really nice article and it makes me kind of excited to see what he can do in a Blazers uniform ... if nothing else he sounds like an incredibly hard worker and a guy with a junkyard dog mentality; something that has been in woefully short supply for years on this team.
Click to expand...

Take a chance man!
 
I wish I'd read it before Minstrel edited it. There's not much in that excerpt. Could you summarize the missing parts?
 
jlprk said:
I wish I'd read it before Minstrel edited it. There's not much in that excerpt. Could you summarize the missing parts?
Click to expand...

Summaries in one's own words are fair use, copy & pastes of entire articles aren't. So if someone would like to summarize, please do.
 
In short:

Wes wanted to get drafted, he didn't, this made him mad/determined. Wes played good for Utah, Portland gave him a ridiculous contract. His mama and grandmama are both getting a house and a car and Wesley got a scar from guarding Kobe in the playoffs and this means he's going to be even more "determineder" this year for the Blazers
 
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Nikolokolus said:
In short:

Wes wanted to get drafted, he didn't, this made him mad/determined. Wes played good for Utah, Portland gave him a ridiculous contract, his mama and grandmama are both getting a house and a car and Wesley got a scar from guarding Kobe in the playoffs and this means he's going to be even more "determineder" this year for the Blazers
Click to expand...

That was even more inspiring than the original article.

You can't quantify "determinederness" in stats.
 
A lawsuit is just the publicity Denny needs for his S2 IPO.
 
Minstrel said:
That was even more inspiring than the original article.

You can't quantify "determinederness" in stats.
Click to expand...

That's what you think. I'm working on a "Determinderness Equivalence Ratio" ("DER" for short) that calculates a player's intangibles, "wanting it more," heart and scrappiness -- John Hollinger eat yer heart out.
 
That saved me a lot of time! How about a summary of all posts since I was last here 3 days ago? Thanks!
 
jlprk said:
That saved me a lot of time! How about a summary of all posts since I was last here 3 days ago? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sure thing.

"You're a dummy head," "No, you're a dummy head," "Nuh uh!" "Yes huh!" "Kevin Durant!"
 
seems like "determinederness" is inversely proportional to "tremendous upside potential"
 
Nikolokolus said:
That's what you think. I'm working on a "Determinderness Equivalence Ratio" ("DER" for short) that calculates a player's intangibles, "wanting it more," heart and scrappiness -- John Hollinger eat yer heart out.
Click to expand...

No DER!

Ed O.
 
WOW. Gotta love those types of stories, guy goes from having nothing and thrown to the side to being on top the world. Glad I was able to catch the full article before someone "cried wolf"

Matthews is getting a + from me today. After hearing that story I could now care less about the guys we gave up and the Rudy drama. Good things comes to those who wait, and Wesley Matthew's story is a classic example of that.

All you hysterical Blazer fans who want it all right now could learn a lesson or two from our Newest Blazer.
 
Nikolokolus said:
Sure thing.

"You're a dummy head," "No, you're a dummy head," "Nuh uh!" "Yes huh!" "Kevin Durant!"
Click to expand...

You forgot, "our team as constructed is garbage and health is irrelevant" "The grass is always greener on other rosters (especially Memphis)" and "Kevin Love is better then Shaq circa 1999" "Random bitching about the team" "Bitching about the bitching by Idog1976".
 
Minstrel said:
Summaries in one's own words are fair use, copy & pastes of entire articles aren't. So if someone would like to summarize, please do.
Click to expand...

Sort of and not exactly. A copyright protects the manner of expression, not the ideas. If you express the ideas in a summary that does not reproduce the stylistic expression in the article, it's an independent work (entitled to it's own copyright!). If you copy, or borrow heavily from, the original work then you might get in trouble if you undermine the commercial value of the original expression. It's hard to quantify how much copying is permitted so I can't help you there.

Fair use speaks to the copying the original, or borrowing heavily from, and subsequent use. A copy & paste in the right context can be a fair use, but it depends on the use: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

So I disagree that summary in one's own words is 'fair use'. It's not a use since you've remade it.

-One of the board IP lawyers.
p.s. ok I'm mainly a patent lawyer but I do copyrights once in a while
p.p.s. this is not legal advice for the purposes of establishing a attorney/client relationship
p.p.p.s. anyone who upon reliance on this advice to their own detriment has assumed the risk
p.p.p.p.s. see, I'm really a lawyer
 
zeded said:
Sort of and not exactly. A copyright protects the manner of expression, not the ideas. If you express the ideas in a summary that does not reproduce the stylistic expression in the article, it's an independent work (entitled to it's own copyright!). If you copy, or borrow heavily from, the original work then you might get in trouble if you undermine the commercial value of the original expression. It's hard to quantify how much copying is permitted so I can't help you there.

Fair use speaks to the copying the original, or borrowing heavily from, and subsequent use. A copy & paste in the right context can be a fair use, but it depends on the use: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

So I disagree that summary in one's own words is 'fair use'. It's not a use since you've remade it.

-One of the board IP lawyers.
p.s. ok I'm mainly a patent lawyer but I do copyrights once in a while
p.p.s. this is not legal advice for the purposes of establishing a attorney/client relationship
p.p.p.s. anyone who upon reliance on this advice to their own detriment has assumed the risk
p.p.p.p.s. see, I'm really a lawyer
Click to expand...

Fair enough, I didn't have the terminology right. Summaries are not violation of intellectual property rights, is what I meant.
 
These are pretty impressive:

Matthews’ Career Stats
Year GP GS Min Avg FG-FGA Pct 3FG-FGA Pct FT-FTA Pct Off Def Tot Avg PF FO Ast TO Blk Stl Pts Avg
2005-06 23 13 573 24.9 65-163 39.9 14-32 43.8 63-80 78.8 34 59 93 4.0 51 0 51 52 5 29 207 9.0
2006-07 34 34 1062 31.2 133-304 43.8 23-80 28.8 141-183 77.0 64 115 179 5.3 84 4 75 84 5 49 430 12.6
2007-08 35 35 1009 28.8 121-279 43.4 31-67 31.3 132-167 79.0 58 97 155 4.4 76 0 59 57 10 34 395 11.3
2008-09 35 35 1191 34.0 193-406 47.5 42-114 36.8 213-257 82.9 46 155 201 5.7 76 1 86 82 18 43 641 18.3
 
While I do like what I see so far, I still question how much we paid for a backup SG.
 
Targus said:
These are pretty impressive:

Matthews’ Career Stats
Year GP GS Min Avg FG-FGA Pct 3FG-FGA Pct FT-FTA Pct Off Def Tot Avg PF FO Ast TO Blk Stl Pts Avg
2005-06 23 13 573 24.9 65-163 39.9 14-32 43.8 63-80 78.8 34 59 93 4.0 51 0 51 52 5 29 207 9.0
2006-07 34 34 1062 31.2 133-304 43.8 23-80 28.8 141-183 77.0 64 115 179 5.3 84 4 75 84 5 49 430 12.6
2007-08 35 35 1009 28.8 121-279 43.4 31-67 31.3 132-167 79.0 58 97 155 4.4 76 0 59 57 10 34 395 11.3
2008-09 35 35 1191 34.0 193-406 47.5 42-114 36.8 213-257 82.9 46 155 201 5.7 76 1 86 82 18 43 641 18.3
Click to expand...

^ Man, that shit is giving me a headache!
 
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