2010 CB Draft: Northwest Division Press Conferences

[Roy H.]

Questions for Minnesota and OKC:

* Why are your squads better than Utah and Denver?

Question for Minnesota only:

* The tallest player in your starting back court is 6'3", and he plays PG.  How do you defend tall / strong shooting guards?

[Rondo2287]

Questions for Utah:

1.  How do you match up with Denver;

2.  Jose Calderon is a bench player in real-life Toronto, and he seems to have lost a major step.  Why should fellow GMs accept that he can still play 30+ minutes per game, when he can't even beat out Jarrett Jack?

whoah whoah whoah.  Jarret Jack is a straight up Baller

[Evantime34]

Question for Minnestoa: You you forsee relying on a 2nd year player to be both the starting SG AND the primary backup PG as problematic.

Also, give me a lineup that can adequately defend any size at the 2 position. Josh Howard used to be able to defend the 2 when healthy but now he is a huge question mark defensively with the knee injury.

After seeing Beaubois play I am confident that he can be my starting 2 and backup 1. In the past Marquis has shown that he can run the point.

I still believe Josh Howard can guard size at the 2, however if you don't Marquis can, Henry is a good defender, Stackhouse is decent and Hayward has the length the bother long 2s.

You also have to look at the other side of the coin. Can large 2's stay with Beaubois? Big 2's could give us problems on the defensive end but those big 2's probably will not be quick enough to guard Deron or Beaubois causing a positive mismatch for us on offense.

TP for the question.

[Donoghus]

Questions for Utah:

1.  How do you match up with Denver;

2.  Jose Calderon is a bench player in real-life Toronto, and he seems to have lost a major step.  Why should fellow GMs accept that he can still play 30+ minutes per game, when he can't even beat out Jarrett Jack?

1)  I think I matchup alright with Denver.  Obviously, he's gonna try to exploit me with the Westbrook/Calderon matchup but I think I'll wear him down with size.  I think my big guys will make things tough on Westbrook driving to the basket and we'll let him try to beat us with jumpers.  On the offensive end, we're gonna punish them inside with Gasol and Ming.  If they foul us, we're gonna convert at the charity stripe.  Gasol is roughly 75% for his career from the free throw line while Yao is above 83%.  With my twin towers, you can double but the other will make you pay.  If they want to collapse and cheat, we have the outside shooting.  I just think in the end, our size will get the best of them.

2)  Like I mentioned in my presser, I think Calderon had a rough year and was a combination of factors.  Injuries didn't help as well as a general dysfunction on that Toronto squad.  I don't see that happening here.  He's still under 30 and is a competent basketball player.  He's not being asked to be the man here.  Just a facilitator.  If he limits the turnovers and keeps it up with his assist numbers, he's doing the job asked of him in Utah.

[Who]

2.  Jose Calderon is a bench player in real-life Toronto, and he seems to have lost a major step.  Why should fellow GMs accept that he can still play 30+ minutes per game, when he can't even beat out Jarrett Jack?

I think Calderon taps out at 30-32 minutes a night. If he plays more than that, I think he'll either burn out or get injured.

I don't think Calderon has lost a step but I do think he made a mistake losing that weight last summer. That hurt him, made it more difficult for him to ride physical contact + more difficult to handle switches onto bigger players. Calderon should put back on the weight.

Also, Calderon thoroughly and completely outplayed Jarrett Jack last season.

[Roy H.]

Questions for Utah:

1.  How do you match up with Denver;

2.  Jose Calderon is a bench player in real-life Toronto, and he seems to have lost a major step.  Why should fellow GMs accept that he can still play 30+ minutes per game, when he can't even beat out Jarrett Jack?

whoah whoah whoah.  Jarret Jack is a straight up Baller

Jack is a good backup point guard / part-time starter.  I don't think any team, though, would be salivating to have him as their full-time starter.

[Roy H.]

Also, Calderon thoroughly and completely outplayed Jarrett Jack last season.

I'll take your word on it, although the stats are pretty close, showing Jack to have scored more at the same level of efficiency, while Calderon was the better passer.  Defensively, I'd take Jack, although neither is a world-beater.

[The Walker Wiggle]

Question to Denver:

In my opinion, this division comes down to you and Utah. What makes you the better team?

I have Utah on the outside looking in right now. Gasol tips off opening night as the Association's best big man. But he's teamed with a quartet that started 137 games total in 2009-2010 for four lottery bound teams.

That and the league's shallowest back court.

EDIT - Had to check my numbers, Calderon: 31, Casspi: 22, Gallinari: 74, Ming: 0.

[StartOrien]

Question for Utah

In the even that Yao ming is injured, do you think your offense would have the firepower to continue to contend for a championship?

I think the West is lacking at the top of the conference. There are a lot of good to very good teams and I think Utah drops back into that pack without Yao Ming.

I would still consider them a title contender but on an even footing with a couple of other teams. Like Denver who are probably the second best team in the conference.

Sacramento and Phoenix say "don't forget about us".

Hopefully this'll help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhaHLoK3CF4

I know that's a live performance I won't soon forget

[Greenbean]

Questions for Minnesota and OKC:

* Why are your squads better than Utah and Denver?

Question for Minnesota only:

* The tallest player in your starting back court is 6'3", and he plays PG.  How do you defend tall / strong shooting guards?

It's easier to explain this by talking about matching up.

Denver.
With the limited shooting ability of his wings, my superior rangy perimeter defenders can sag and really frustrate Duncan. I also have enough size at the Center position where I wont have to double Duncan if he goes with some shooters off the bench. I really think the nuggs will struggle to score against Thunder defense.

Offensively, the Thunder can exploit Gibson's lack of height with Speights or JO.

If he goes big with Darko, Duncan. I can counter with JO, Kaman.

I think i can match up well with his best lineup while my superior depth puts me over the edge.

Utah:

I have the only squad in the division that can contend with the Jazz height. I also think the Jazz will struggle defensively to stop both Butler and Collison at the same time. Throw in DeRozan and there are too many offensive threats and not enough defenders. Mbah can play defense on 4 positions...just not all at the same time. Calderon is horrific defensively. I cant remeber the last title team that had a really bad defensive pg. PG penetration is usually the straw that breaks the back of a defense. Collison will be in the lane all night against this squad.

[Evantime34]

Questions for Minnesota and OKC:

* Why are your squads better than Utah and Denver?

Question for Minnesota only:

* The tallest player in your starting back court is 6'3", and he plays PG.  How do you defend tall / strong shooting guards?

Roy your second question was answered in my last post.

As to why we're better than those two teams,I'll explain Denver first.
Denver
PG - Russell Westbrook / Steve Blake / Daniel Gibson
SG - Marcus Thornton / Ronnie Brewer
SF - Trevor Ariza / Josh Childress
PF - Taj Gibson / Darrell Arthur / James Singleton
C - Tim Duncan / Darko Milicic / Aaron Gray

PG: Westbrook<Wiliams
SG: Thronton< Beaubois. Playing a combo guard at the 2 plays into our hands. Beaubois is much faster than Thornton, and Thornton doesn't have much of a size advantage to use on Beaubois.
SF: Ariza> Howard. Coming back from injury Howard might not be as good as Ariza. But is Ariza really that good? He contributed on a stacked Laker team but couldn't lift a Houston team up. He's a decent complimentary player that isn't surrounded by enough offensive talent on this team to do much
PF: Gibson< Smith. Gibson is about the same size as Smith with half the athleticism. He will be forced to swallow the basketball on every shot he takes on Smith. This will allow Smith to help on Duncan.
C: Duncan> Haywood. Duncan is better than Haywood, but the playoffs showed that Duncan is not a player that can be counted on as number one option on the team anymore. Duncan will look decrepit trying to switch on screens against Deron Williams.

Denver is not as fast as us, they aren't as athletic, they don't have as much scoring and outside of an aging Duncan are they really that good defensively? Westbrook is best in an uptempo system, who is going to run with him on this team? Thornton is a shooter, Ariza isn't that fast neither is Gibson. San Antonio doesn't even play Duncan in all the games, this team is much less talented than the real San Antonio team so when Duncan sits out they will miss him that much more. Duncan's health and need for rest will adversely effect this teams win total.

[Fafnir]

Since when are Ariza/Gibson slow?

[Evantime34]

As far as being better than Utah I think this is much closer ( I see Utah as much much better than Denver). I still think my team is better than Utah however.
PG: J. Calderon/W. Green/C. Quinn
SG: O. Casspi/Gallianari
SF: L. Mbah a Moute/W. Johnson
PF: P. Gasol/C. Smith
C:  Y. Ming/R. Lopez/B. Zoubek

PG: Can Calderon or any of his backups guard Deron even a little? Absolutely not.
SG: Since Casspi is more of a 3, we will move Howard to the 2 for this game and have him abuse the skinny Casspi in the post. Beaubois will be used as a Microwave off the bench for these games.
SF: MBah a Moute is offensively offensive (get it?). We're going to move Josh Smith to the 3, which allows him to hang out and help on the Utah bigs, which will lead to many blocks. We will force Mbah a Moute to try to score (which he can't)
PF: To match their twin 7 footer strategy we bring in McGee also a great shot blocker to guard Gasol. Now Gasol will be able to score on McGee although help from Smith in the post will deter this. McGee is 10x more athletic and will run up and down the court wearing Gasol down and getting easy buckets on the break.
C: Haywood is a thug, maybe Yao gets knocked over during the game and doesn't get up. But seriously I understand this is a bad match up for us, however having 3 long shot blockers to contest his shot will frustrate him.

Maybe Utah has more size than us, but our running game will negate this size. Even when we go large as mentioned above we are still much faster and more athletic at every position (the 2 is a wash). Running teams cause large teams to go small, which will cause Utah to sub out their size (which is the strength of their team) to combat the speed of my squad. We will pressure Calderon, to get the ball into the hands of Casspi and Moute (who have questionable handle), they will get flustered the game will speed up and it'll turn into a track meet. I win the track meet by a wide margin.

[Greenbean]

Question for Minnestoa: You you forsee relying on a 2nd year player to be both the starting SG AND the primary backup PG as problematic.

Also, give me a lineup that can adequately defend any size at the 2 position. Josh Howard used to be able to defend the 2 when healthy but now he is a huge question mark defensively with the knee injury.

After seeing Beaubois play I am confident that he can be my starting 2 and backup 1. In the past Marquis has shown that he can run the point.

I still believe Josh Howard can guard size at the 2, however if you don't Marquis can, Henry is a good defender, Stackhouse is decent and Hayward has the length the bother long 2s.

You also have to look at the other side of the coin. Can large 2's stay with Beaubois? Big 2's could give us problems on the defensive end but those big 2's probably will not be quick enough to guard Deron or Beaubois causing a positive mismatch for us on offense.

TP for the question.

TP for the answer!

I guess your just going to have a difficult time selling me on Roddy and Howard. They are wild cards IMO.

Howard isnt young anymore and a bad knee injury could rob him of the versatility he once had. You are right though, he could also bounce back.

I see the Jazz as having 2 sure things, Deron Williams and Josh Smith.

Haywood is solid, but he had a career year at 30. He can certainly give you 10 boards and 2 blocks, but where is the post presence on this team?

I have to say if your wild cards pan out, you have a nice team.

I just think there are some flaws that need to be addressed.

[Evantime34]

Since when are Ariza/Gibson slow?

Gibson is slow in comparison to Smith. Ariza isn't fast enough to run in the manner which Westbrook thrives in. I was just making the point that this teams 2nd best player thrives when pushing the ball, yet none of the players on the team (Ariza could be argued) exhibit that same characteristic. Due to that, Westbrook will not perform at the same level.