(lots of stuff...then the following)
Did you do as I suggested and actually read what this conversation was about? It was NOT about who is or will be a larger impact player between Blair and DC. You and your strawmen are turning it into that.
I've some time at lunch. Here goes:
(BTW, one of the peeves I'm trying to gain some patience about is the internet custom of utilizing the word "strawman" when you don't really want to talk about what someone else is attempting to show you. So if this seems snarky, I apologize. But damn, man)
1. Blaze01 started this off in post 44 with the comment:
I don't think POR passing up on him (Blair)was that big of a deal AT ALL....both Cunningham and Pendergraph showed glimpses every bit as impressive as Blair this year...I am tires of reading this "we passed on Blair" bullshit from naysayers...
I thought this was ridiculous, and showed that vs. just JP, since "winning" that part was enough for me to show that the entire comment was flawed to start.
2. Then in post 46, Blaze01 insinuated that I don't watch the players on the court, and said that Dante showed
good mid range jumper that is pretty damm automatic, great hustle, good defender and rebounder.....Quite frankly, he showed more potential and a more important definable NBA skill (that mid range shot) than Blair did
I noticed that Blaze01 didn't refute anything I said about JP (how could he?), but brought up DC's "automatic jumper", being a "good defender and rebounder" and "more potential and a more important definable NBA skill (that mid range shot) than Blair did, who he said was just a "good rebounder". So I, who doesn't think that mid-range shooting is a "more important definable NBA skill" than rebounding (since it's the most inefficient shot in basketball after the half-court 3), disagreed, and asked again about JP.
3. After being shown the part about mid-range jumper being horribly inefficient, blazerboy30 said:
I think Dante's defense and defensive potential are better than his mid-range jumper. And, 44% for mid-range jumpers isn't bad.
So, since Blair's defensive rating is better than DC's, and I feel that his "defensive potential" is slightly limited since he's playing backup PF and not great at it (which I proved in post 51 with defensive rating and PERAgainst), I figured that he wasn't saying much about his jump shooting anymore, but I responded to the "44% isn't bad" comment by saying that you're only getting .88 points per shot from DC's primary weapons (he shoots it 75% of the time), which is worse than if we had a one dimensional 3-point gunner who shot 29%. At this point, I was pretty sure that the conversation was over, since all anyone could say about drafting DC and JP over Blair was that they had "more definable NBA skills" than an elite rebounder who's better than them statistically and visually in almost every aspect of the game--while playing the same position.
4. Then BlazerCaravan came in to say that he agreed with Nik and I that Blair's "
obviously a better player than JP and DC", but (to me, anyway) insinuated we were being wishy-washy about drafting players with bad knees. Since I was slightly confused, I didn't know if he was talking about Roy (the only other player we've drafted with knee problem history) or Oden (who didn't have any knee problems until after we drafted him).
5. In post 58, Blazerboy came back sarcastically with Roy, Duncan and Parker's mid-range percentages as if to refute the notion that shooting 44% on mid-range jumpers was horribly inefficient. I notice he didn't use the term Blaze01 used that I was refuting from post 46 ("good mid-range jumper that was pretty damn automatic".) The second quote Blazerboy used in post 58 from me was not directed at him, it was for those who thought 44% midrange shooting was "pretty damn automatic" or that my opinion that it's "horribly inefficient" was wrong. The third quote from me in post 58 WAS directed at Blazerboy, who said earlier that "I think Dante's defense and defensive potential are better than his mid-range jumper". I showed that, while that may be true, his defense wasn't close to Blair's....and the comparison from Blair to DC and JP and how he was better as just about everything than our two draft picks was the crux of everything I've been writing since post 44. And imo, the last line of post 58 ("You're the one assuming we should be judging his defense guarding PFs, not me") was odd, since in the approximately 640 minutes he played this year, PF's (and mostly backup ones) werethe only players he's covered. Any judgment you might have of his defense based on your observation of him against NBA players by definition has to be of him guarding PFs. And Blair's better at it than DC is.
6. Then in post 59, you told me to go reread the thread and that "Nowhere did I, or anybody else on this thread, bring up not drafting him because of his knees." I submit that it was my response to BlazerCaravan in post 53. Maybe you didn't read that part.
7. Then, in post 65, BlazerCaravan used the 82games stats to "counter on the jump-shooting front" (bringing up the comparisons of jumpshooting from JP, DC and Blair). I didn't quite understand this, since nowhere was the opinion that Blair was a prolific or proficient mid-range jump shooter brought up. However, BlazerCaravan used it as proof that
there's much more to Jeff than meets the eye. I noticed this watching games; Jeff's a dead-eye shooter when he's open, all the way out to 18 feet.
. I thought that this was funny, since JP made a total of 8 jumpers ALL YEAR LONG. I guess making 8 jumpers all year qualifies you as a "dead-eye shooter" in BC's world, but not mine. And regardless, what's the conclusion? "There's more to Jeff than meets the eye". I'm sure there is. He might like Russian Poetry, or be a chess wizard, or like posting on Facebook 8 hours a day. The POINT I'VE BEEN ARGUING SINCE POST 44 is that, regardless of what more there is to JP than meets the eye, that Blair is a better player than both in almost every single measurable category, passes the eye test, got more minutes than both of our guys, and was more productive in the minutes he did get.
Now, if I can refute the existence of any other confusion or strawmen on your part, I'd be happy to. If you'd like to weigh in on the point ("Blair's better, we should've drafted him, and we said this 10 months ago") I'd be happy to continue discussing it.
I was just venting my frustrations and offering up that, while DC's jumpshot was considered average at best, JP had a surprisingly good jumpshot, one that might serve him well if he's allowed to grow. In short: DB is much better than JP now, but JP may be able to ramp up to the point where he can contribute at the level DB can.
