#freeAnthonyRandolph

(i just had surgery so it may be the percocet im on) but my brother is a huge Wizards fan, so having seen McGee a lot (not to mention the trip-double last night) I have to say he is a hell of a player, with alot of potential. he is much more gifted in the post than people give him credit for. he has trouble with foul trouble like most young big men, but he is gonna be a force in this league!

His blocks totals and blocks% is pretty special. Not that it actually helps our interior D much, but eh…

The reason I left it off the list though is because it’d be really unfair to Pekovic. He just doesn’t have the height or length to be a goalie. I think he has something like 29 or 30 blocks total this year, which is a number Darko or AR could get to in a single month pretty easily

Not being able to watch these days I don’t know if they’re just not using him against bad matchups. Whether they sometimes slide Love to take the center matchup defensively, for example, I dunno.

He’s on the center for lots of the minutes he has gotten, though, anyway. Isn’t he?

Jonny Flynn, who coughs it up 27+% of the time when he’s on the court;
Pekovic, at above a 1 in 5 %; and
Darko, at a smidge below that rate.

Juxtaposing “usage” and turnover percentage, the roster looks a little weird that way. Turnovers count toward usage. Jonny really pushes the edge of reasonable math that way.

In Wolves history, another injured point guard is among the very few bad turnover apples that were anywhere near as bad as Flynn this year. Michael Williams was worse – albeit in under 200 minutes, because the team didn’t play him with his plantar fasciitis.

There are only 13 players in the league this year who’re getting any minutes at all and turning it over like Flynn. Rondo is one of them, and so is rookie Eric Bledsoe. It’s pretty much PGs and centers.

what you say sarcastically is statistically true MOST of the time. That’s what makes the difference between players like MJ vs players like AI. (sorry te repeat myself from earlier)

I think his minutes should be improving gradually. Best guess is he’s learning the system and therefor cant be thrown in for 24 mins a game.

I’ll fix it in a sec

but his jump shot is scary (to me). I also question whether he could chase around screens on the perimeter for long minutes. In general, I’d like to keep a very good rebounder and shot blocker a little closer to the basket.

If they decide to make him a big part of the team, I think they need to do the following:

1. Dump Darko
2. Make Pek their ‘big’ C or find another taller, more defense-oriented guy to be their big C
3. Have Love defend the opposing C and Randolph the opposing PF as much as possible
4. When the previous bullet doesn’t work due to a very big, very skilled C, put in the ‘big’ C and have Love defend PF

There’s a reason why the kid has had limited minutes for every stop so far.

IMO, I’m pretty sure it’s because he has the height of a C, the weight of a SG, and the skills of a SF. He can’t really match up with anybody. Too weak to guard C’s and PF’s, too big/slow to guard SF.

then he’s going to keep getting tagged in the face. Trying new stuff is what’ll save him.

We do have some signs that he can learn to be flexible. He’s given Jonny some P&R stuff lately that’s seemingly new, or so I heard in the games in which Flynn felt more comfortable. He took Love’s minutes leash off. His plays from timeouts have improved somewhat.

Weird stubborn/doctrinaire decisions are still what I expect, from both him and Kahn, though.

I’ve seen him play one game, and I really know nothing about him. But I kind of think Enes Kanter might be the final part of what could be a championship frontcourt.

Marc Spears article on Kanter

"From what the international scouts say, he’s the top big man coming out. He’s like a taller Al Horford(notes). He can pick and pop, and score inside. He can pretty much fit into any system for any team that needs a center doesn’t matter if they’re a half-court or running team."

As others have said, the wagon is hitched to Darko

I’ve heard the first Richardson line mentioned many times, but it is much funnier when you read the second too.

Glancing over the various gameflows there, it looks to me like Randolph has played the same mix of minutes (first and second quarters vs. end-of-blowout time) as anyone else.

In terms of who’s guarding him, I’m looking over games like Dallas, or Detroit, or Philadelphia, and not particularly seeing this.

In a larger sense it’s definitely the “backups always match up with backups, so their performance is discounted” argument that’s “careless.” Over the course of a season that doesn’t hold up. I’m not at all sure it does in this very narrow case of fewer minutes, either.

He looks very capable doing it, and it really ignites the break. I’m less fearful of him getting the ball taken away when he’s pushing it upcourt than I am with Jonny.

The jumpers I’m not as crazy about.

That character doesn’t fit the way people use his name. The guy isn’t a sellout even by today’s terms, and when Stowe wrote that novel, no way did that apply. Wikipedia describes him this way:

Throughout the book, far from allowing himself to be exploited, Tom stands up for his beliefs and is grudgingly admired even by his enemies.

The novel was huge in the 19th century, a huge rallying point for the opposition to slavery. Is this one of those things where our problems with race after political violence killed reconstruction have done things like make John Brown into a crazy man? We’re seeing “Uncle Tom” through warped glass, I think – demonizing the wrong figure.

(Grant Hill has a lot of class. A Lot.)

but the basic message of Rose’s is legitimate, even if the Uncle Tom usage was off-base. Duke represents a culture that inner-city black kids resent. I believe Rose, in the documentary, even admitted that he was jealous of Grant Hill. It’s understandable from his perspective, but also understandable why Hill would come to his and his alma matter’s defense.

What I found interesting was that Jimmy King was such a prominent part of that message, including an appearance (with Rose) on the ESPN2 morning show to defend it. King, as I remember from the book, comes from a two-parent, middle class family in Plano, Texas. He almost chose Kansas which is not Duke, but hardly UNLV, either.

I actually think Grant Hill missed the point here. Jalen was talking about his attitude towards the Duke players back when he was a youngster at Michigan. He never said that Grant Hill is an Uncle Tom, he said they viewed him that way (all questions about accuracy in usage of the term aside).

He could have (and should have) said that was a foolish perspective, but the topic was why they had such an intense distaste for Duke back then. In fact, he even talked about how he was jealous of Grant Hill’s good family background, and how he had a chip on his shoulder because Duke never recruited him. He didn’t make it sound entirely rational.

I thought that some admiration of that Duke team actually poked through in some of their comments.

and had the starting center position handed to him. He was (to my eyes) in worse physical condition than Randolph is now.

Darko started when Kevin Love did not.

I think it’s fair to question why Randolph isn’t playing more, right now.

Based on what? Darko looked great too, before they signed him. He even looked dominating in
some games this year. I hope you get a better sample of this guy before you pull the trigger.
I mean, he’s fascinating to me, too, but the eye can be fooled. First things that strike me is that
this kid has no outside shot, but he likes to take them. He’s no guard, but he likes to take over
the guard’s job during a game. He’s 6’11, with a good wingspan, but he’s a flyweight against cruiser-weights. He has a niche, I’m sure, but there are red flags, too.