Game #17: Toronto Raptors 103 - Golden State Warriors 112

[mcHAPPY]

This argument has degenerated.

So assuming DD is an average rebounder (given his numbers). He's 11th in starting SG for RPG.

I've seen two main knocks on this front of his game:

1. He should be better given his size and athleticism.
---------- I think this is actually a positive. He's shown willingness to improve, hopefully his athletic gifts will shine through. If not, well then he's no worse than an undersized guard who rebounds at an average rate due to hustle and technique.

2. A player who is average at one or multiple positions isn't a player to build around.
---------- Maybe true. But I think he can be built around as a #3 quite easily. If he improves either his defence or rebounding, which he may, then he's a great piece to build around.

DeMar is playing over 38 minutes per game. What are those other players playing? Context.

[Axel]

This argument has degenerated.

So assuming DD is an average rebounder (given his numbers). He's 11th in starting SG for RPG.

I've seen two main knocks on this front of his game:

1. He should be better given his size and athleticism.
---------- I think this is actually a positive. He's shown willingness to improve, hopefully his athletic gifts will shine through. If not, well then he's no worse than an undersized guard who rebounds at an average rate due to hustle and technique.

2. A player who is average at one or multiple positions isn't a player to build around.
---------- Maybe true. But I think he can be built around as a #3 quite easily. If he improves either his defence or rebounding, which he may, then he's a great piece to build around.

He's not 11th in SG, he's 17th. Special's stats via ESPN filtered out D Wade, James Harden and a host of other starters because they've missed a couple of games.

[stooley]

You're defending the fact that DD is a completely average rebounder in rpg. That isn't a very good thing to mention in the same sentence as "he is a piece to build around"

No matter how much you argue that he is an average rebounder will change the fact that he is a fundamentally poor rebounder and that is not a good trait when you want to build a championship team.

This argument has degenerated.

So assuming DD is an average rebounder (given his numbers). He's 11th in starting SG for RPG.

I've seen two main knocks on this front of his game:

1. He should be better given his size and athleticism.
---------- I think this is actually a positive. He's shown willingness to improve, hopefully his athletic gifts will shine through. If not, well then he's no worse than an undersized guard who rebounds at an average rate due to hustle and technique.

2. A player who is average at one or multiple positions isn't a player to build around.
---------- Maybe true. But I think he can be built around as a #3 quite easily. If he improves either his defence or rebounding, which he may, then he's a great piece to build around.

[mcHAPPY]

You're defending the fact that DD is a completely average rebounder in rpg. That isn't a very good thing to mention in the same sentence as "he is a piece to build around"

No matter how much you argue that he is an average rebounder will change the fact that he is a fundamentally poor rebounder and that is not a good trait when you want to build a championship team.

But in another argument it would be said his post game is a great threat because of his size, strength, and athleticism advantage.

Say what?

[Axel]

First bold - I don't get why you keep saying he's a below average rebounder. There are 30 teams. 2 guard positions on each team and reserves. For arguments sake....lets just compare him to other starting guards.

Your number says 29th out of 60 (likely much more). How is that worthy of ridicule? Which brings me to bold #2.

Second bold - We all agree that he needs to continue to improve his defence and rebounding.

You keep repeating the same stuff from last year, yet don't acknowledge his improvements. 29th out of 60 seems to be (at the very least) AVERAGE to me. Keep in mind i'm a fairly reasonable person. I hope he does get that 1 more rebound a game so that you can finally get off his member, i mean case.

I just wonder what excuses you'll come up with next time.
All summer we heard from you posters that he needed to improve his defence and 3 point shooting. He's done that!! All the stats point to improvements in almost all areas. Yet here you are whining away...What more can he do to get respect from you hating ass posters?

Because he is below average. You choose to use ESPN stats, and that's your prerogative, but you filtered out lots of great players (Harden, Wade) in doing so, so I'm sticking with the BR stats.

Why should we limit it to just SG "for arguments sake"? The positional lines are blurred on many teams, so combining all guards is a perfectly fair assessment. You want to drop PGs because there are at least 10 PGs who rebound better than Demar.

No per36 (which was your argument last time even though the number weren't per36), pure per game stats from starting NBA PGs.
Michael Carter-Williams, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Ricky Rubio, John Wall, Steph Curry, Jrue Holiday, Kemba Walker, Patrick Beverley and Damian Lillard.
Full time PGs (some of whom play with beast rebounders such as Blake Griffin, Serge Ibaka, Kevin Love, Nene, David Lee, Anthony Davis, Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge) who average more boards than the 6'6" super athletic Demar. That is shameful. Demar says he is tired of losing, it's time for him to back it up for some effort.

You wonder what I'll come up with next? Well it depends on what Demar continues to ignore. For all the talk about him improving and having great work ethic, it so far seems to be a fairly one dimensional work ethic. But all the excuses seem to be coming from Demar's supporters (he's a scorer, he isn't paid that much, he loves Toronto, etc etc etc).

You say his defence has improved, I say nay. His defence has not made any significant gains and he is still considered a poor defender. In 4 years, he has managed to "improve" to poor. Demar gives up the 3rd most FGA per game within 5 feet in the entire NBA (not just SG). If you call that improvement, then your sights are set far too low.

Demar (per game) is 10th in FGA from 10-14 feet and 6th in the NBA in FGA from 15-19ft. That is far too many (45% of all his attempts) inefficient attempts per game. 15-19 feet is his #1 shot taken but only hits 36%, the 2nd lowest of the 5 areas, only his 10-14ft jumpers are a worse %.

Call me a hater all you want (it's a stupid term), but Demar is wasting away talent. He has zero excuse for not being a better defender or rebounder. He has zero excuse for still shooting so many midrange jumpers.

[OldSkoolCool]

First bold - I don't get why you keep saying he's a below average rebounder. There are 30 teams. 2 guard positions on each team and reserves. For arguments sake....lets just compare him to other starting guards.

Your number says 29th out of 60 (likely much more). How is that worthy of ridicule? Which brings me to bold #2.

Second bold - We all agree that he needs to continue to improve his defence and rebounding.

You keep repeating the same stuff from last year, yet don't acknowledge his improvements. 29th out of 60 seems to be (at the very least) AVERAGE to me. Keep in mind i'm a fairly reasonable person. I hope he does get that 1 more rebound a game so that you can finally get off his member, i mean case.

I just wonder what excuses you'll come up with next time.

All summer we heard from you posters that he needed to improve his defence and 3 point shooting. He's done that!! All the stats point to improvements in almost all areas. Yet here you are whining away...What more can he do to get respect from you hating ass posters?

You're defending the fact that DD is a completely average rebounder in rpg. That isn't a very good thing to mention in the same sentence as "he is a piece to build around"

No matter how much you argue that he is an average rebounder will change the fact that he is a fundamentally poor rebounder and that is not a good trait when you want to build a championship team.

[special1]

The following question isn't directly directed at Nosike, but to all....

Not every player can be two-way, but what is Demar's excuse?

He has all the tools, all the talent but only enough will-power to working on jump shooting. Why isn't he a better rebounder? He has the size, explosiveness, athleticism, and ample opportunity, but for whatever reason, he is only the 29th best guard at rebounding this year. Why isn't he a better defender? He has the size, the lateral quickness, athleticism and a Defensive head coach for 3 years yet is below the team in DRtg (Team 104.7 - Demar 107). I'll let assists and play-making slide because they are more difficult and complex skills to develop, but rebounding and defence, for a player with Demar's talent, is completely down to will power.

The idea that he is a scorer, it's not his responsibility to rebound is completely ridiculous. He's a basketball player. Rebounding is a basketball play. It's part of his mandate as soon as he steps onto the court.

To Nosike:
The players you mention though are elite at one thing or good at multiple things. Ray Allen - 3PT shooting elite. Rip - versatile player who contributed in multiple ways and was on an unique team. Manu - scores, defends, play maker. Terry - very good shooter but also can make plays. He was a defacto PG for years.

Demar is still a one trick pony. He is more athletic than all of those guys yet by their 5th season, Demar has the highest career DRtg (a bad thing), Rebound % less than Allen or Manu (same as Rip), tied with Rip as the only ones below 1 SPG (0.8) and the only one with a DWS of less than 5 (4.3 - next lowest is 7.5).

Demar needs to step up at the other end of the court.

First bold - I don't get why you keep saying he's a below average rebounder. There are 30 teams. 2 guard positions on each team and reserves. For arguments sake....lets just compare him to other starting guards.

Your number says 29th out of 60 (likely much more). How is that worthy of ridicule? Which brings me to bold #2.

Second bold - We all agree that he needs to continue to improve his defence and rebounding.

You keep repeating the same stuff from last year, yet don't acknowledge his improvements. 29th out of 60 seems to be (at the very least) AVERAGE to me. Keep in mind i'm a fairly reasonable person. I hope he does get that 1 more rebound a game so that you can finally get off his member, i mean case.

I just wonder what excuses you'll come up with next time.

All summer we heard from you posters that he needed to improve his defence and 3 point shooting. He's done that!! All the stats point to improvements in almost all areas. Yet here you are whining away...What more can he do to get respect from you hating ass posters?

[p00ka]

near the end of the game DeMar got doubled and made a very aggressive move to tie the game 101-101 I believe it was.. then Lowry tried to find him again Golden State sends a triple after him... he passes back to Lowry looks around not attacking the paint like you think Lowry would do jacks up a 3....all that attention DeMar was getting end of the 3rd and onwards Nobody moved towards the basket for easy 2s.....

Rudy standing there JV standing there around 15 ft...Lowry waiting outside incase passed back out for a 3 understandable.its really quite a joke. The game was truly killed however when Rudy instead of playing within the team like what everyone else was doing got selfish and made 3 consecutive Turnovers which got the crowd cheering and raising warrior spirits. THAT TEAM WAS READY TO FOLD... o man and for once where it would have been a good idea to go small Casey never did Fields and Ross should have been out there to close out on shooters putting pressure on em we were up 27 they needed 3s to win. Raps could have entered the fourth holding the ball for 22 seconds each time and could have won... Find a way to lose Raps are masters of that.

but, but, but, aren't you listening? The loss was DeMar's fault because he didn't help Jonas out with rebounding while he was being owned by old man JO. DeMar needed to spend less time and energy being an efficient scorer, fed Jonas more so he could spend more time learning to back down JO from 18 ft out, then DD could have done his job and picked up some boards, because that's what lost them the game! Stay focused, man. In a thread about this one game, the problem of most importance to discuss is DD's rebounding! Forget that he's been carrying this team on his back for most of this season, while the Raps have been one of the top rebounding teams in the league. DeMar needs to rebound more, and that's the story of this game!

[Rapstor4Life]

near the end of the game DeMar got doubled and made a very aggressive move to tie the game 101-101 I believe it was.. then Lowry tried to find him again Golden State sends a triple after him... he passes back to Lowry looks around not attacking the paint like you think Lowry would do jacks up a 3....all that attention DeMar was getting end of the 3rd and onwards Nobody moved towards the basket for easy 2s.....

Rudy standing there JV standing there around 15 ft...Lowry waiting outside incase passed back out for a 3 understandable.its really quite a joke. The game was truly killed however when Rudy instead of playing within the team like what everyone else was doing got selfish and made 3 consecutive Turnovers which got the crowd cheering and raising warrior spirits. THAT TEAM WAS READY TO FOLD... o man and for once where it would have been a good idea to go small Casey never did Fields and Ross should have been out there to close out on shooters putting pressure on em we were up 27 they needed 3s to win. Raps could have entered the fourth holding the ball for 22 seconds each time and could have won... Find a way to lose Raps are masters of that.

[Axel]

Wolstat's blog on this game. Good read and touches on a lot of the discussions points that have been brought up recently.

http://blogs.canoe.ca/courtside/bask...i-ujiris-hand/

[Axel]

It IS his responsibility to rebound, but you guys need to stop berating him for not doing everything at a top-tier level. Yes he's only average at rebounding and on the defensive end. That doesn't mean he can't be an integral part of this team going forward.

The other part you mentioned is just plain biased. You said Rip "contributed in multiple ways". The only way he really contributed was by scoring the basketball, which is what DeRozan does primarily as well. Sure he could SCORE in many different ways, but so can DeRozan, and I'd actually argue that DeRozan is more versatile as a scorer because of his post game and superior athleticism. You have no tangible argument here.

Yeah DeRozan has the highest career dRTG because he's spent the bulk of his career on shitty defensive teams, wheras:

Ray Allen: His dRTG through his first 11 seasons was never lower than 106, and was an average of 110. It only dipped below 106 after he joined the Celtics, who were one of the all-time best defensive teams.

Rip Hamilton: dRTG was only ever good with all-time great defensive Pistons teams. Outside of those 5 years of the Pistons being elite. Prior to those his average dRTG was 111 and afterwards (before joining the Thibodeau Bulls) it was 114.

Manu Ginobili: Has basically spent his entire career on elite defensive teams hence the great career dRTG. Part of the reason why he doesn't start is because he isn't a particularly good defender.

Jason Terry: Dallas was basically routinely a top 10 defensive team, yet his career dRTG of 108 is only a little better than DeMar's (who has played on two 30th ranked defensive teams and another ranked in the bottom 10, so essentially 70-75% of his career spent on trashy defensive teams).

The stats I used were for each players first 5 years only. So regardless of Allen on the Celtics, Rip's full Pistons career (first 3 with Washington) or Terry's career in Dallas (first 5 years were all Atlanta), the numbers stand and your points irrelevant.

Ginobili's not a good defender? He averaged 1.58 steals per game over his first 5 seasons. His DRtg was better than the Spurs average in 4 of his first 5 seasons and on par the other season. So saying his stats are solely because of the team is BS.

Again, what's Demar's excuse? He's below average in rebounding and defence and there is no excuse.

[Masai Ujiri]

DeMar does need to improve on the defensive end, but his current defensive play is passable and doesn't prevent him from contributing to a contender.

People would likely have no complaints about his defense if we had an elite system on that end of the floor.

[Masai Ujiri]

It IS his responsibility to rebound, but you guys need to stop berating him for not doing everything at a top-tier level. Yes he's only average at rebounding and on the defensive end. That doesn't mean he can't be an integral part of this team going forward.

The other part you mentioned is just plain biased. You said Rip "contributed in multiple ways". The only way he really contributed was by scoring the basketball, which is what DeRozan does primarily as well. Sure he could SCORE in many different ways, but so can DeRozan, and I'd actually argue that DeRozan is more versatile as a scorer because of his post game and superior athleticism. You have no tangible argument here.

Yeah DeRozan has the highest career dRTG because he's spent the bulk of his career on shitty defensive teams, wheras:

Ray Allen: His dRTG through his first 11 seasons was never lower than 106, and was an average of 110. It only dipped below 106 after he joined the Celtics, who were one of the all-time best defensive teams.

Rip Hamilton: dRTG was only ever good with all-time great defensive Pistons teams. Outside of those 5 years of the Pistons being elite. Prior to those his average dRTG was 111 and afterwards (before joining the Thibodeau Bulls) it was 114.

Manu Ginobili: Has basically spent his entire career on elite defensive teams hence the great career dRTG. Part of the reason why he doesn't start is because he isn't a particularly good defender.

Jason Terry: Dallas was basically routinely a top 10 defensive team, yet his career dRTG of 108 is only a little better than DeMar's (who has played on two 30th ranked defensive teams and another ranked in the bottom 10, so essentially 70-75% of his career spent on trashy defensive teams).

[Axel]

DeRozan does play defense and rebound, he just does them at an average level. Meanwhile, he is among the best at his position when it comes to scoring the basketball. Not every player can be a two-way guy.

There are lots of teams that have been very successful with shooting guards who score the basketball, but are just average at most other aspects of the game. It's not an issue, your shooting guard doesn't have to be a 3+D guy for you to win titles. Ray Allen in 2008, Rip Hamilton in 2004, Manu Ginobili in 2007 (though quite a lot better playmaker than these other guys), Jason Terry in 2011.

The following question isn't directly directed at Nosike, but to all....

Not every player can be two-way, but what is Demar's excuse?

He has all the tools, all the talent but only enough will-power to working on jump shooting. Why isn't he a better rebounder? He has the size, explosiveness, athleticism, and ample opportunity, but for whatever reason, he is only the 29th best guard at rebounding this year. Why isn't he a better defender? He has the size, the lateral quickness, athleticism and a Defensive head coach for 3 years yet is below the team in DRtg (Team 104.7 - Demar 107). I'll let assists and play-making slide because they are more difficult and complex skills to develop, but rebounding and defence, for a player with Demar's talent, is completely down to will power.

The idea that he is a scorer, it's not his responsibility to rebound is completely ridiculous. He's a basketball player. Rebounding is a basketball play. It's part of his mandate as soon as he steps onto the court.

To Nosike:
The players you mention though are elite at one thing or good at multiple things. Ray Allen - 3PT shooting elite. Rip - versatile player who contributed in multiple ways and was on an unique team. Manu - scores, defends, play maker. Terry - very good shooter but also can make plays. He was a defacto PG for years.

Demar is still a one trick pony. He is more athletic than all of those guys yet by their 5th season, Demar has the highest career DRtg (a bad thing), Rebound % less than Allen or Manu (same as Rip), tied with Rip as the only ones below 1 SPG (0.8) and the only one with a DWS of less than 5 (4.3 - next lowest is 7.5).

Demar needs to step up at the other end of the court.

[mcHAPPY]

blah blah blah, rinse and repeat.

"The people who have zipped up their pants and gone home.

Don't worry though. Next good game by him or Raptors they'll all be back."

Is not taunting you say? Just expressing the holes in DDs game you say? Me calling it taunting is me having a "cognitive distortion" you say? So that's the acceptable parameters in this yard, huh. Noted, boss.

(PS. as far as "expressing concerns as a fan about the holes in his game" , tell you what, save it next time. You've ranted, and shouted, and preached these "expressions" hundreds of times and EVERYONE knows your opinions a LONG TIME ago. Whatever thrill you get out of turning an opinion into a long term rant, I've no idea, but just saying we KNOW your feelings, dude!!!! Calming down a tad would be good for your health!)

You don't recall the swinging dick comments when everything was rolling and all peaches n cream?

You're a tad sensitive p00ka. When I said they'll be back next good game, I mean just that. Not a dig, a statement of fact.

As for dd I'll say what I want when I want within forum rules. So funny how because you don't like the opinion you go on the literal personal attacks for ages while the opposite views get 'liked'

Here is a suggestion: put me on your ignore list and be proactive about not wanting to read my views versus whining. Just a suggestion.