re: Would the Pelicans have been better off with Nerlens Noel?

quote:

---

Plus you got to give the guy more time to learn his teammates habits and gamestyle. I think that's often overlooked when evaluating a pg going to a new team.

---

This. It's like a QB going to a new team. It takes a while to get the offense down and even longer to understand how your teammates play and what they like/want to do and all that before it becomes 2nd nature.

quote:

---

You mean middling players like the two SG that we pay $26M to each year.

---

Tyreke's PER rating would have made him either the 5th most efficient SG or 6th most efficient SF in the league depending on what position you wanted to say he played last season. The majority of his minutes came at SF though.

Plus minus is kind of worthless imo

quote:

---

he cant shoot

---

He can't shoot from deep right now, but I thnk he will have a higher FG% than Lillard has... Which is 42.7%. Lillard is a better shooter than Payton, but he also settles for the 3 way more than he should. Lillard averaged 15.9 shot attempts per game, and 6.8 were from 3. That's a bunch.

Plus I think Payton averages more assists as well. Lillard has Aldridge, Batum, and Wes Matthews on the floor with his most of every game, and he averages the same amount assists as Joakim Noah. If Lillard would shoot a couple times fewer per game and get his assists to around 7-8 per game, he would be better and so would the Blazers. I actually think Lillard is better suited as a scoring 2 guard rather than a true PG.

And I think Payton will be a really good rebounding PG and 1 of the top defensive PGs in the nba. I don't know what his ppg will be, but I'm fairly confident that he will have better FG% than Lillard. If I had to guess a stat line for Payton it would be like 15ppg, 7 assists, 5 rebs, 2 steals and shooting 45%. If he improves as a shooter, he could be a very good player. I def see some similarities between Elfrid and Gary Payton, not saying he will be as good as Gary, but I do see some similarities.

That said, gimme Jrue Holiday all day every day right now. Payton could be great, Payton could suck. Holiday is a proven all star caliber PG and just made 24 years old.

i think at this point its more on Monty than anyone else. this is probably the most talent we've had since the team was here. as long as we are healthy this needs to be a playoff team. no more excuses.

quote:

---

Which is 42.7%. Lillard is a better shooter than Payton, but he also settles for the 3 way more than he should. Lillard averaged 15.9 shot attempts per game, and 6.8 were from 3. That's a bunch.

---

His % is low because fg% is flawed for guards or anyone who takes a decent # of 3s. Considering that a 3 is worth 1.5 times as much as a 2, his 39.1% from 3 gives you just as many points as someone shooting 59.4% from inside the arc on the same number of attempts.

If someone shoots over about 36% from 3, it's not a bad thing to shoot from that range.

quote:

---

Name another small market who has built a championship contender through the draft, other than OKC

...

Also, being a small market team, he has to overpay to get those guys... its not an ideal situation, but it is what it is.

---

I'm not excluding large and medium market teams because I don't think the size of the market is relevant, but rather how the team was built:

Boston in the 80s - Bird and McHale were both draft picks
Chicago in the 90s - Jordan, Pippen and Grant were all draft picks
Detroit in the 80s - Thomas, Dumars and Rodman were all draft picks
OKC you mentioned
Orlando in '95 - Shaq was a draft pick and essentially so was Hardaway
Orlando in '09 - Dwight Howard was a draft pick
San Antonio - Robinson, Duncan, Parker, Ginobili and Leonard were all draft picks
Utah in the 90s - Malone and Stockton were both draft picks

Unless you're a glamour franchise like the Lakers (and you have smart ownership, which they don't have at the moment), the teams that do the best usually are built through the draft.

In retrospect, I would have dealt Gordon and used him to get a lottery pick in last year's draft. It wouldn't have been an even swap even with whatever role players we would get to make the trade work, but I see Gordon's value only deteriorating. I would have kept Noel and probably drafted McLemore (no one saw MCW coming and I'm trying to base this on what people would have thought at the time), and I would have kept Lopez and Vazquez.

That probably sends me in the tank, which puts me in a position to get Payton or maybe even Smart. You have a nucleus of Davis-Noel-Payton, and you give Rivers and McLemore another year to get their acts together. Because you've done it this way, and you didn't pick up massive contracts on Tyreke and Holliday, you have cap space to go after Parsons or maybe Stephenson.

I'm going to root for the Pelicans no matter what, but I think we went about this the wrong way. Championship teams are built in a crock-pot, not a microwave.