Can we get over the summer (league) romances? Dionte Christmas's upside is to be the next Gabe, Pruitt, J.R. Bremmer, Milt Palacio, or Allan Ray, all end of the bench players with short NBA careers. We don't need to keep him around to find out if he can join that esteemed company when we have a proven player in Keyon Dooling. As Roy said, title teams don't carry 4-5 rookies.
I am not saying we keep Christmas--but strongly believe he has earned a camp invite and the oppotunity to show he belongs. The people you list as his upside all have weaknesses or flaws that Christmas has worked past. Gabe had no heart--Dionte has a lot of heart...big hustler, plays every minute. J.R. was short and one dimensional..Xmas 6'5" an all around game--defends strong, good long and mid-range shooter, can create his own shot, pushes the ball as well as getting out and running. He also goes to the hoop and rebounds well for a guard, plus he threw the pass of the day on more than one day. Milt no offense at all..and Allan Ray was too small and could not defend. I think from seeing Christmas and hearing Danny & Doc he has a shot to stick and earn minutes.
First, I hope you're right
But second, what are you basing these things on? It's summer league games that have glorified the likes of the players I mentioned as well as other such luminaries as Kedrick Brown, J.R. Giddens, Jerome Moiso, Brandon Hunter, and even the immortal Kris Clack.
But even if we were to assume you're right and that Christmas does have NBA potential, I would posit this: being a role player is a learned skill in the NBA.
Nearly every player in the NBA was a star in college who got lots of touches and a chance to dominate the ball. There are some exceptions with this--for instance some big men like Steamer, who was really a role player in college--but I'm sure even Steamer was a star in high school.
But sometime along the way, the players that transition to become successful role players had to learn to thrive without the ball. Not only does this means that they had to become effective in nonscoring areas like rebounding, defense, passing, setting screens, etc., but they also had to learn how to be effective weakside scorers after not touching the ball for 20 seconds of the shot clock while the teams scorers tried to work a pick and roll.
This is no easy task. Even Ray Allen struggled a bit in 2008, as he got fewer plays called for him and was asked to do more of his scoring on kickouts and weakside looks.
To me, this is the big difference between Dooling and Christmas. Could Christmas potentially do more than Dooling if they both got Paul Pierce's plays called for them in a game? Possibly.
But that's never going to happen.
If either player plays next year, he'll be asked to play away from the ball, play tough defense, and help the stars be effective.
We know Dooling can do that; we don't know if Christmas can make the transition to do this. So unless Danny really feels that Christmas is someday going to be a player we'll regret losing (meaning a starter or a 6th or 7th man; it's not really a loss to lose a fringe rotation player), then I'd go with Dooling.
