2010 CB Draft: Pacific Division Press Conferences

[Fafnir]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Pau dominated him on the boards, but defensively as a whole Garnett did okay when he guarded Pau.

It was the offensive rebounds that killed us...

[Who]

If Yao Ming is healthy for even half the season ... there is no way that Utah doesn't finish with the first seed.

[Donoghus]

If Yao Ming is healthy for even half the season ... there is no way that Utah doesn't finish with the first seed.

I like that type of analysis.   

[mgent]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Those stats mean absolutely nothing to me.  I seriously don't know why people even reference them having no clue who was on and off the court not only for that team but the teams they're playing against.

[celticpride07]

If Yao Ming is healthy for even half the season ... there is no way that Utah doesn't finish with the first seed.

i would think yao would need to be healthy for the whole year for utah to be number 1

[Fafnir]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Those stats mean absolutely nothing to me.  I seriously don't know why people even reference them having no clue who was on and off the court not only for that team but the teams they're playing against.

Adjusted plus/minus accounts for all of that and still rates him as a bad defender.

This also matches with his defensive win shares, and what I saw with my own eyes.

[Donoghus]

If Yao Ming is healthy for even half the season ... there is no way that Utah doesn't finish with the first seed.

i would think yao would need to be healthy for the whole year for utah to be number 1

I can tell you that Utah is going to be very wary of his minutes throughout the regular season.  Probably looking at the 25-28 minute range, ideally. 

They have a pretty competent backup center in Robin Lopez who will help lessen the burden on Yao and allows the luxury of keeping his minutes on a leash.

[mgent]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Those stats mean absolutely nothing to me.  I seriously don't know why people even reference them having no clue who was on and off the court not only for that team but the teams they're playing against.

Adjusted plus/minus accounts for all of that and still rates him as a bad defender.

This also matches with his defensive win shares, and what I saw with my own eyes.

I'm not saying he's a good defender.  Just that those stats are hardly ever meaningful.

[Roy H.]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Pau dominated him on the boards, but defensively as a whole Garnett did okay when he guarded Pau.

It was the offensive rebounds that killed us...

As a whole, Gasol scored 18.5 points per game against KG on 48% shooting.  That's not a sterling defensive performance, but it's good enough to win.

However, in terms of rebounding, KG averaged 5.6 rebounds, compared to Gasol's 11.6!  If you want to point to a major reason why we lost, it's because Gasol destroyed KG there.  That's a very real sign that KG's athleticism has dropped off.  Also, KG was essentially a non-factor in terms of blocked shots until Game 7, when he raised his series average to 1.3 blocks per night.

I just wouldn't point to KG's performance against the Lakers as a sign that he's back.  KG was good-but-not-great.  To reach mgent's expectations, he's going to have to elevate his game a heck of a lot more than he showed in the Finals.

[Fafnir]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Those stats mean absolutely nothing to me.  I seriously don't know why people even reference them having no clue who was on and off the court not only for that team but the teams they're playing against.

Adjusted plus/minus accounts for all of that and still rates him as a bad defender.

This also matches with his defensive win shares, and what I saw with my own eyes.

I'm not saying he's a good defender.  Just that those stats are hardly ever meaningful.

Why do you say that?

They're susceptible to noise, but as a whole they consistently identify the best and worst defensive players in the league.

[Roy H.]

If Yao Ming is healthy for even half the season ... there is no way that Utah doesn't finish with the first seed.

I think you underrate just how poor Utah's defensive backcourt is going to be, with Calderon in decline and Casspi playing out of position.  I think some of the great PGs in this division are going to eat the Jazz alive.  If Yao isn't healthy, that weakens Utah's front court depth substantially.  Gasol + Lopez can't play 48 minutes, and when they're not in there, opposing teams would be running layup drills.

[mgent]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Pau dominated him on the boards, but defensively as a whole Garnett did okay when he guarded Pau.

It was the offensive rebounds that killed us...

As a whole, Gasol scored 18.5 points per game against KG on 48% shooting.  That's not a sterling defensive performance, but it's good enough to win.

However, in terms of rebounding, KG averaged 5.6 rebounds, compared to Gasol's 11.6!  If you want to point to a major reason why we lost, it's because Gasol destroyed KG there.  That's a very real sign that KG's athleticism has dropped off.  Also, KG was essentially a non-factor in terms of blocked shots until Game 7, when he raised his series average to 1.3 blocks per night.

I just wouldn't point to KG's performance against the Lakers as a sign that he's back.  KG was good-but-not-great.  To reach mgent's expectations, he's going to have to elevate his game a heck of a lot more than he showed in the Finals.

Obviously KG isn't the same rebounder he was.  I don't feel this is really a problem on my team however as we are a much better rebounding team than the 09/10 Celts.

[mgent]

1.  Yes, Ben is old, but he is pretty reliable.  I don't consider the size in the Pacific to be particularly overwhelming.  Yi obviously wasn't playing center with Brook Lopez in NY, but is 7ft 250lb so I'm not concerned.  He's not a bad defender and he has potential.  He's improved over the summer also, putting up 25/10 in FIBA.

2.  Ankle injury.

3.  Define poor, it's his natural position.  The season before last with the Kings he got 14 points and 6 rebounds a game while shooting 44% from behind the arc.  His defense isn't great but I don't think it's really any worse than it is at the 4.

4.  KG will without a doubt have a better season this year than he did last year, the question is how much better will he be.  He improved throughout the season as he got further away from the injury.  KG will lead the Celtics and the Clippers to the championship.

I would disagree that Yi is anything other than a bad defender. 

As far as Nocioni, he's been in consistent decline in terms of his mobility, to the point where he now gets killed playing the small forward position.  The "real life" Kings scored 99.1 pts/100 possessions and gave up 106.6 pts/100 when Nocioni was at SF; they scored 103.6 and gave up 105.5 when he moved over to PF.  Neither is good, but his play at PF was appreciably better.  (Also, SFs actually shot a higher percentage against Nocioni than PFs did, believe it or not.)

I hope you're right about KG.  He looked great defensively in the first three rounds, before falling off pretty substantially against the Lakers.  It's hard to admit it, but Pau pretty much dominated him.

Those stats mean absolutely nothing to me.  I seriously don't know why people even reference them having no clue who was on and off the court not only for that team but the teams they're playing against.

Adjusted plus/minus accounts for all of that and still rates him as a bad defender.

This also matches with his defensive win shares, and what I saw with my own eyes.

I'm not saying he's a good defender.  Just that those stats are hardly ever meaningful.

Why do you say that?

They're susceptible to noise, but as a whole they consistently identify the best and worst defensive players in the league.

Too many variables.  Has too much to do with team performance rather than individual.

[Fafnir]

Too many variables.  Has too much to do with team performance rather than individual.

Adjusted plus/minus corrects for those confounding variables. Those are the numbers I'm talking about.

[celticpride07]

If Yao Ming is healthy for even half the season ... there is no way that Utah doesn't finish with the first seed.

I think you underrate just how poor Utah's defensive backcourt is going to be, with Calderon in decline and Casspi playing out of position.  I think some of the great PGs in this division are going to eat the Jazz alive.  If Yao isn't healthy, that weakens Utah's front court depth substantially.  Gasol + Lopez can't play 48 minutes, and when they're not in there, opposing teams would be running layup drills.

i agree with this...i am not a big fan of calderon and casspi especially with gallinari at SF...if yao is hurt there is no way gasol can do it all.