I, for one, think Dione Christmas should get a roster spot. And no, this has nothing to do with his play in Vegas, which I didn't even see. I don't care about that.
I know a lot of people are skeptical of him, and more power to you.
I also know a lot of people here have an irrational hatred for advanced metrics. I will be the first to admit that metrics are not all-inclusive, but it's telling that nobody can ever come up with a convincing argument why the stats are wrong besides waiving their hands and mumbling about how good player X looks to them when they play. Stats have a much better prediction accuracy than the "eye" test, like it or not. That's been proven in a variety of fashions. But that's not the point.
Anyway, the folks over at the Wages of Wins recently made a player ranking list, by Wins Produced. This time, though, they were looking at European players. They tried to come up with some sort of algorithm to convert European performance to NBA performance. We all know the leagues are very different, and good play in one doesn't always translate to good play in the other. However, these sorts of differences are predictable, not random.
Taking the differences into account, they projected how a number of player will produce in the NBA.
You can see the full list here:
http://wagesofwins.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Euro-Graph.pngComing in at number 1 is Kirilenko, which should be no surprise to anyone. He was pretty [dang]ed good in the NBA, and was dominant in Europe. Tony Parker is also highly rated, as is Batum.
Guess who clocks in at number 7? Our very own Dionte Christmas, from his time with Rethymno.
Why not give him a chance? A reliable statistical measure indicates that he has a good probability of producing well in the NBA, and we aren't getting anybody with proven performance off the scrap pile.