Avery Bradley vs Tony Allen

[scaryjerry]

Tony Allen was mostly garbage with an extremely low iq  as far as I'm concerned until the 2010 playoff run to the finals, and he's continued that in Memphis and really been wonderful for them.

While a Celtic Avery was/is smarter and better but Tony is currently better...for another franchise.

  TA wasn't as dumb a player as people claim, he got that reputation for a) biting on a few pump fakes at inopportune times and b) playing a lot of games on less than healthy knees. On a "dumb" scale if you're going to kill TA for dunking on a dead ball I'd hate to think about the comments you must make about KG going up to block every jumper in a dead ball situation.

Tony Allen isn't that intelligent in general, it carried itself onto the basketball court...I don't know how you could argue he wasn't dumb......considering while with us he was among the dumbest players I've seen. Doc would even have to remind him to "kiss" keep it simple stupid.

I like Tony...I enjoy watching him in Memphis when I can and don't think he plays dumb anymore....he's matured.

I'll still take Avery the basketball player and the person over Tony any day of the week

[Chief]

Henry Bibby said Tony was in the top 3 wing defenders he has ever seen.

[the_Bird]

AB seems to know how to play within himself a lot better than Tony did, although to be fair when Tony was first drafted there wasn't the strong veteran core to give him the kind of guidance that AB has had.

AB's a lot more consistent.  TA was/is a lot stronger, which let him match up better against the stronger SGs and against many SFs. 

I'd take AB, mostly because he seems to know what he's good at and what he's not good at - and he usually sticks to his strengths. 

[kozlodoev]

Tony played dumb (especially on offense so many turnovers),

Avery Bradley is turning it over at pretty much the same rate.

I find it funny people say Bradley know how to play within himself better, given the galore of ill-advised layups in traffic and threes from the top that we've seen recently.

[xmuscularghandix]

Tony Allen has my vote. Avery is crazy when it comes to his ability to pressure the ball handler and force him to turn and waste time off clock.

BUT

Tony Allen is a guy whose capable of checking the greatest scorers in the game for Playoff series. Over his career he's hiked up his shorts and accepted the challenge of guarding guys who are some of the greatest players/scorers who have ever played.

Wade, Lebron, Kobe, Durant, Ginobili.


In both of there defenses, they are very different players who play completely different roles in their teams' defensive systems.

In the 1st round of the playoffs Avery Bradley either be overpowering Raymond Felton or George Hill for about 30 minutes a game and forcing the Knicks or Pacers to put the ball in a lesser hallhandler's hands.

In the West, Tony Allen along with Tayshaun Prince will be suffocating Andre Iguodola and Gallinari into settling for bad jump shots...

[Lightskinsmurf]

Yeah I gotta give the edge to TA. Just because like another poster mentioned, hes more capable of locking down the another teams best player. Nothing is more valuable than that come playoff time.

[mgent]

Tony played dumb (especially on offense so many turnovers),

Avery Bradley is turning it over at pretty much the same rate.

I find it funny people say Bradley know how to play within himself better, given the galore of ill-advised layups in traffic and threes from the top that we've seen recently.

This was a post of mine from earlier in the season:

Sorry, but I just can't see how that justifies so much hate, regardless of the best in league perimeter defense.

Tony's last year here he had 1.2 TO per game with 1.3 assists per game.

Jeff Green has 1.4 TO per game with 0.8 assists per game this season.

Avery Bradley had 1.2 TO per game last year with 1.4 assists per game.

Keeping in mind they averaged 3-6 more minutes than Tony that's still not a ton of separation.  I know Tony was bad, and I know he was worse than these two players.  Most of all I know there's nothing that can be said to justify the amount of crap he got on this board.

Open it up to Tony's last 3 years here and it's 1.4 TO per game and 1.4 assists per game (18mpg).

Regardless of how you spin it, nobody ever says a dang thing about Green and Bradley's TOs and with Tony it was ALL you EVER heard ANYBODY say about him.

I hate how much ignorance comes out in Tony Allen threads.  So he could've had some better ball handling skills, I'm laughing that people call that dumb.  He clearly has some of the best instincts in the league.  And look at his stats in Memphis with actual minutes.  Yeah he turns the ball over on drives sometimes, there's not a lot of players that don't shoot and only score off drives.  I guess people just ignore that he wasn't healthy 90% of the time.  And clearly he had some control if he shot 51%.

I know it's not an obsession about offense and TOs because Perk was worse at both.  I guess people just needed a scapegoat for 07.  Make enough threads about someone's TOs and you start noticing every one.

[Fafnir]

Tony played dumb (especially on offense so many turnovers),

Avery Bradley is turning it over at pretty much the same rate.

I find it funny people say Bradley know how to play within himself better, given the galore of ill-advised layups in traffic and threes from the top that we've seen recently.

This year yes, Tony when he was young and with the C's turned it over at a much higher rate one that cemented his reputation. Thats why I was using the past tense instead of the present.

His last year with the C's he finally turned that around and has continued his improved decisions with Memphis. He still has the spectacularly bad TOs but not nearly as often.

[Fafnir]

Tony played dumb (especially on offense so many turnovers),

Avery Bradley is turning it over at pretty much the same rate.

I find it funny people say Bradley know how to play within himself better, given the galore of ill-advised layups in traffic and threes from the top that we've seen recently.

This was a post of mine from earlier in the season:

Sorry, but I just can't see how that justifies so much hate, regardless of the best in league perimeter defense.

Tony's last year here he had 1.2 TO per game with 1.3 assists per game.

Jeff Green has 1.4 TO per game with 0.8 assists per game this season.

Avery Bradley had 1.2 TO per game last year with 1.4 assists per game.

Keeping in mind they averaged 3-6 more minutes than Tony that's still not a ton of separation.  I know Tony was bad, and I know he was worse than these two players.  Most of all I know there's nothing that can be said to justify the amount of crap he got on this board.

Open it up to Tony's last 3 years here and it's 1.4 TO per game and 1.4 assists per game (18mpg).

Regardless of how you spin it, nobody ever says a dang thing about Green and Bradley's TOs and with Tony it was ALL you EVER heard ANYBODY say about him.

I hate how much ignorance comes out in Tony Allen threads.  So he could've had some better ball handling skills, I'm laughing that people call that dumb.  He clearly has some of the best instincts in the league.  And look at his stats in Memphis with actual minutes.  Yeah he turns the ball over on drives sometimes, there's not a lot of players that don't shoot and only score off drives.  I guess people just ignore that he wasn't healthy 90% of the time.  And clearly he had some control if he shot 51%.

I know it's not an obsession about offense and TOs because Perk was worse at both.  I guess people just needed a scapegoat for 07.  Make enough threads about someone's TOs and you start noticing every one.

I answered your post in the past thread. Besides I have complained about Green's TOs dude makes some really bad decisions when to drive and when to shoot still. (Utah game late was a really bad one)

Tony had a very high turnover % for a low usage guard who didn't get assists and wasn't a good floor spacer. He earned his "dumb offense" rep.

Perkins also got a ton of crap for his TOs all the time on this board. But arguing against straw men generic CBers is a sure fire way to be right.

[droopdog7]

I think it's close and agree with many of the comments about each player.  I'd probably pick Avery because of his shooting.

But where I disagree to an extent is on the idea that Avery has a great deal of potential.  Can he get better?  Sure, he can continue to refine his jump shot and maybe become a better playmaker.  But I am not sure how much better he will get in either area.

Avery, IMO, will always be a role player/specialist type, right around where TA is.

[Vermont Green]

I would not trade Avery Bradley for Tony Allen right now although I must admit, I have not seen TA play all that much lately.  The reason for that is mostly based on age/upside though.

Overall, I see AB as a more skilled player than TA but TA makes up for that by being a little longer.  Individual match up aside, we have Lee who I like better than TA so AB is giving us more of what we need right now.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Tony played dumb (especially on offense so many turnovers),

Avery Bradley is turning it over at pretty much the same rate.

I find it funny people say Bradley know how to play within himself better, given the galore of ill-advised layups in traffic and threes from the top that we've seen recently.

This year yes, Tony when he was young and with the C's turned it over at a much higher rate one that cemented his reputation. Thats why I was using the past tense instead of the present.

His last year with the C's he finally turned that around and has continued his improved decisions with Memphis. He still has the spectacularly bad TOs but not nearly as often.

A lot of it has been role change. He was previously used a lot as a PG, handling the ball a lot, and asked to be a playmaker a lot which led to his turnovers. You take him outside of that role, and his turnovers are going to go down certainly.

So considering that Bradley has become our defacto PG (not a back-up, but our main PG) is not realistic to compare it to how TA has been turning the ballover. That said, Bradley is not turning the ball over at all. In this month, he's averaging 1.5 turnover in 32 minutes of play being pretty much exclusively our PG.

His decision making is a bit suspect, and it's really peeved me some of his trigger happy moments that make zero sense to me, but otherwise he's been pretty good protecting the ball. Even a year ago, given this role, he would've been terrible, but I think he's holding his own at the moment.

TA during the playoffs, didn't play any PG role as far as I can recall. Plus, he shared the floor more with Rondo and Pierce than during the regular season, so that meant less time for him handling the ball. As I've mentioned through the years, worrying about TA turning the ball over during the playoffs is based completely on myth and extrapolating on the few instances he did turn the ball over, which were very few.

Conclusion: TA as a PG will turn the ball over at a high rate no doubt.

[Fafnir]

Conclusion: TA as a PG will turn the ball over at a high rate no doubt.

And worse, not get many assists at all. Tony as a PG (on offense) would be awesome for one game then terrible for the rest.

I don't think Tony as a PG part-time is the reason for his turnovers myself, though it didn't help. I think he was just way more prone to out of control drives and bad passes. He got better as he got older.

[mgent]

I answered your post in the past thread.

Um no you didn't.  Actually nobody did, it was the last post in the thread.

I don't understand either of your points.  Plenty of off the ball SGs average much less than 1.5 assists in 18 minutes (Bradley for one).  And a guard that shoots jumpshots is obviously not even going to have opportunities to turn the ball over.  And how does bad shooting = dumb anyway?

As I've said, Tony turned the ball over more than he should have.  That doesn't outweigh his other contributions, nor did it justify the amount of nonstop talk his TOs generated.

[lon3lytoaster]

Tony Allen's time with the Celtics was like the basketball equivalent of Newton's third law.. For every good play, there's an equal and opposite play.

That's how I remember TA and because of that I'd have to take AB over Allen. Watching Avery pressure the ball is one of the best things about this rendition of the team. Tony was constantly frustrating to watch.

I will say, though, that I'm not totally pleased with AB's offensive development. I'm willing to admit my expectations may have a little too high, but he needs to progressive and gain some consistency moving forward.