Devean George? Quinton Ross? Are you kidding me? Those guys can't defend three positions like Posey does, are not nearly as tough as Posey, nor do they stretch the floor like Posey.
You can sit here and say "we'll sign a wing defender, we'll sign another 3 point shooter, we'll sign another tough guy..."
You're not going to find one guy who gives you all those things. Even Bowen can't defend power forwards.
Remember, the whole Lakers series turned when Rondo and Perk were hurt and they put Posey and House in and spread the floor with shooters. Again.....there is no one guy available that gives you everything that BGJ does.
see heres the inherent difference in our arguments. youre operating under the belief that we NEED to sign ONE guy to guard 3 positions. i dont. i feel a committee of paul pierce, jr giddens, signed fa wing defender, signed big man(andersen maybe?) and even a little scal for a few min guarding mobile 4s can absolutely cover all bases on the wing and forward spots. we dont need one guy to do all that. truth be told i liked poseys defense at the 4 a lot less than when he was guarding wings on the perimeter. not to mention the fact that when he was at the 4 spot on offense we had a tendency to settle for the jumpshot WAY too often.
we dont need one guy to give us all that posey did. we can sign a few with the mle, fill out a whole roster, give each of them roles and get everything posey gave us on the court as a collective sum. as for who plays the 6th man, who cares who it is?? if all the roleplayers have a role and do what they do that situation will bear itself out naturally. the important thing is bringing in guys that can defend, that can play together and can support the starters.
I understand that logic, but in all honesty, it only looks reasonable on paper. That's why versatility is such an expensive commodity.
Try to apply it to concrete situations. Let's say that we sign Ross - the best perimeter defender available - and we're facing a team in the playoffs with a good wing player, like many in the East. Imagine that Pierce or Allen gets in foul trouble early guarding that player. Ross enters the game for one of them. But then, you'll have Ross and Rondo, two players who can't shoot, in the backourt and the other team can, and will, sag off both of them in the defensive side. They'll clog the lane and cheat the passing lanes with two players. It'll make scoring much more difficult for us, so you'd probably need to replace Rondo with another pg with long-range shoot, then downgrading the pg defense, etc etc.
Imagine we bring Barnes instead of Ross. Barnes is not a good perimeter defender, so you'd probably play Giddens in that situation. But do you want a rookie to play major minutes in the playoffs during his first season? Is he that good? The majority of the #30 picks is out of the league after their first contract.
Or imagine that we're playing Dallas in the finals and we signed Ross. He can't defend Nowitzki, so now you're trusting major minutes in the NBA Finals to Scalabrine.
That's why the "collective sum theory" doesn't really work, and teams usually shorten their rotation during the playoffs, and versatile players like Posey are so coveted, while true specialists like Ross or House, not so much.
Topic: No Worries From Ainge (Herald Article) (Read 53680 times)