Mike@LG and I argue over the Fisher signing

A series of post in this thread on LakersGround.net on 8/13/07 and 8/14/07.

Mike@LG wrote:
What makes me feel worse is when there's a 2-way Win Win situation. Patterson and Posey would've surely helped defending SFs and SGs for MLE ish money. Still need the vet. PG? Brevin Knight has been available on and off for 5 years now. Still ignored, yet he provides high quality PG defense, stability, and solid playmaking skills.

The Lakers #1 problem last season was PG. The Lakers get a shot at a veteran PG with triangle experience and they went for it, locking up most of their MLE money. The Lakers have lots of players who can play SF - Walton, Odom, Bryant, Evans and Vlad. Getting a defensive SF was not nearly as important as getting a better PG.

For those of you who are going to say, "But they could have gotten Fisher for the Vet Min", I disagree. There are several teams that need veteran PG help and they would have made a run at Fisher if the Lakers had low-balled him. In particular, I think Houston and Boston would have gone after him.

Now, if the Lakers can get Patterson or Posey for what they have left of the MLE, they should do it.
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Mike@LG wrote:
I'm of the opinion that real basketball talent can play within any offense as long as the player is willing to learn. Brevin Knight would've been a triangle fit, no different from Parker when he actually executed it well.

My impression is that the PG in the triangle doesn't handle the ball as much as other defenses, but has to be able to make the 3 in order to spread the defense. Knight shot 5.6% from 3pt land last season. He's a career 15% 3pt shooter. He's not a reliable player, having played 80, 39, 65, 53, 53, 55, 56, 66, 69 and 45 games in his career. As he is 32, it is reasonable to assume his durability will decline.

So you would have spent the whole MLE on a defensive SF and hoped that you can land Brevin Knight as a PG? That's nuts to me. You nail down your weak spot first, particularly as the PG you are landing has years of triangle experience. Then you look around for a defensive SF/3 pt shooter.

Mike@LG wrote:
Getting a defense SF/3pt. shooter should be nearly as important as getting a better PG. Why? Relieve Bryant the defensive pressure. Solidify the perimeter defense. Bryant is the only real man-defender out there. Brevin Knight does a good job at PG. Posey does the same. 3 solid man-defenders that can lower FG% AND force turnovers? Better than just Fisher.

Last season, if the Lakers wanted better perimeter defense, they brought in Evans to play SG and slid Kobe up to SF. Evans provided better defense last season (Opp PER of 11.5 as SG) then Posey did (16.5 PER at SF). Or the Lakers can slide Odom to SF to provide perimeter defense (in '05-'06, Odom at SF allowed an Opp PER of 12.7). They don't need to add a very limited player (Posey is a mediocre ball handler and either shoots a 3 or in the lane - nothing in-between, ) for MLEish money to solve a problem they have other solutions for.

Mike@LG wrote:
This happens every year with the Lakers. It's tiresome.

What? That they don't follow your unrealistic ideas?
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Aeneas Hunter wrote:

Mike@LG wrote:
What's so unrealistic? Posey, Magloire, and Patterson are going for less than the MLE.

Brevin Knight is going for the vet.min.

If that's unrealistic for the team, there are FAR bigger issues, STARTING with the front office.

I don't think that Dennis meant that signing these guys is unrealistic per se, but rather that your strategies for improving the team are not realistic.

In particular, Mike's strategy for filling the Lakers biggest need - PG - was unrealistic. My understanding was that his strategy was to hope that the Lakers could sign Knight to the vet min, then hope that Knight would be effective in the triangle despite no experience and no outside shot, then hope that the injury-proned Knight would have a healthy season. I think that is unrealistic and the fact that Knight signed a 2 year, $4M deal yesterday proves that it was unrealistic.

If you accept that is unrealistic, then unless you know of some trade for a PG that the Lakers could have made, signing Fisher to a MLEish contract was their only option to address their biggest need. IMHO, signing Fisher ranks up there with drafting Tim Duncan with the #1 in terms of moves that were obvious to make. Signing Fisher precludes signing anyone else to a MLEish contract. So, saying that the Lakers should have signed Posey or some other defensive SF to a MLEish contract this off-season is also being unrealistic.

Aeneas Hunter wrote:

Mike@LG wrote:
Every year the Lakers skimp on quality talent while other teams pick them up for cheap. There's always a Brevin Knight, Jason Kapono, James Singleton... etc., for the vet.min...

Brevin Knight signed for a lot more than the veteran minimum, Jason Kapono signed for the full MLE, and James Singleton (who I had never heard of) got cut by the Clippers and signed in Spain. I think this is what Dennis means by unrealistic, though he can speak for himself.

That's not being unrealistic. That's making up your mind and not let the facts confuse you.
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Mike@LG wrote:
Brevin Knight signed for multiple years for the vet.min. prior to his new contract.

Brevin played the '04-'05 season for what I assume is the vet min for Charlotte. That was Charlotte's first season and I assume that he was willing to play there for the vet min to prove his worth. He started 61 out of the 66 games he played. He then earned $4.6M and $4.4M the two seasons afterwards.

Mike@LG wrote:
Kapono? Same.

He signed a 2-year min contract with Miami in the 2005 off-season. Given that he is only a 3 pt shooter and that the Lakers were loaded with SF's at the time, I don't see why it is a big deal that the Lakers didn't sign him.

Mike@LG wrote:
Singleton? Great find. I don't care if he got cut. He's got some good NBA talent on the cheap and fills some Laker needs.

He had a good-for-an-undrafted-rookie season for the Clips and then a bad season (7.1 mpg in 53 games, 1.6 ppg on .366 shooting, 2.0 rpg). From his stats, I can't see the "good NBA talent" that you see.
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Mike@LG wrote:

Aeneas Hunter wrote:
I would add that Brevin Knight is a 5'10" point guard who turns 32 this season, who has no experience in the triangle, and who is not a logical fit for the triangle. The fact that he shot over 50% from one "hotzone" last year does not diminish the fact that he was a 41.9% shooter overall. While he can be a valuable asset in the right sort of system, he is not someone I would have targeted to fill our gap at PG.

Brevin Knight was a 5'10" PG that played even better defense and distributed well as a 27 year old PG that the Lakers still past up.

I don't think the Lakers could have offered him the opportunity that Charlotte offered him, so I doubt he would have considered the Lakers if they had made him the same offer that Charlotte had offered him. Also, I thought we were talking about the Lakers options this off-season, not hashing what should or should not have happened years ago.

Mike@LG wrote:
For all this talk about shooting, I think people forgot that at Utah, he shot 38% last year overall, despite the fact that Deron Williams relieved him of PG duties.

Fisher started 61 games last season at SG despite being way too small because he was the best SG the Jazz had. Per 82games.com, his stats were much better when he played PG, but he played most of his time at SG (41% vs 16%):
PG: 0.450 eFG%, 18.9 PER, +2.0 Net PER
SG: 0.401 eFG%, 9.7 PER, -7.4 Net PER
It's hard for me to hold poor stats against him when he was playing out of position most of the time.

Mike@LG wrote:
Brevin Knight buys time for Crittenton and Farmar, just like Fisher. Except, Knight is the better defender, playmaker, with higher FG%.

Except Knight would never make it to the Lakers. If the Lakers had signed a defensive SF for MLEish money (your suggestion), then they wind up with Farmar and Critterton as their only PG's. It's not a question of Fisher vs Knight. It's a question of a defensive SF vs Fisher.
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Mike@LG wrote:
See why I have an issue with the Lakers? Pass up guys. I even called for Banks for the MLE #1 over Radmanovic (Good signing, not my favorite), and guess what he would have done for the Lakers? Defensive PG, some vet. experience, up to 20mpg. Perfect situation.
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So, instead of Banks and Posey (which improves the team defensively, and there's no question to Posey's 3pt. shooting is good as well), we've got Fisher and Radmanovic.

Banks was terrible last season for the Suns. At the start of the season, they had him in the rotation, playing 11-19 minutes. By the 14th game, they were playing him 4-6 mpg. By the 20th game, he was only getting minutes in blow outs. He got some run in late Jan and early Feb, and then was sent back to the end of the bench were he stayed through the playoffs. He played 6 minutes against us in blow out Game 2, then 1 minute in one game against the Spurs. As far as I can tell, he wasn't injured last season.
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Mike@LG wrote:
See, I've pointed out the season when Banks got the most starts. And he was solid on both ends. Still heavily criticized anyway, even if he matched Parker on stats but was a much better defender. Because somehow, 12ppg 5apg 48%FG 36.4% 3pt. and solid D is "poor".

The T-Wolves were 19-21 before the trade for Banks and went 14-28 afterward. Before the trade, they were allowing 90.9 ppg while scoring 91.2 ppg. After the trade, they were allowing 96.2 ppg while scoring 92.2 ppg. Per 82games.com, Banks had for the T-Wolves a PER of 15.5 and an opponent PER of 19.0. I didn't watch Banks play while he was in Minnesota, but the stats point to him not being a good defender there.
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Mike@LG wrote:

Dennis_D wrote:
Banks was terrible last season for the Suns. At the start of the season, they had him in the rotation, playing 11-19 minutes. By the 14th game, they were playing him 4-6 mpg. By the 20th game, he was only getting minutes in blow outs. He got some run in late Jan and early Feb, and then was sent back to the end of the bench were he stayed through the playoffs. He played 6 minutes against us in blow out Game 2, then 1 minute in one game against the Spurs. As far as I can tell, he wasn't injured last season.

You do know D'Antoni runs the tightest rotations and Banks was just outside of it?

Why would D'Antoni change anything, when he's got a 3 guard lineup of Barbosa, Nash, and Bell?

From the Suns press release when Banks was signed:

Suns Find Their Backup Point
Guard in Banks
While bringing in a native Las Vegas playmaker may be the equivalent of the Suns “going all in” for this summer's free agent market, what isn’t a gamble is what point guard Marcus Banks will provide the defending Pacific Division champs next season – namely less minutes for starter Steve Nash.

Nash's minutes for '05-'06: 35.4
Nash's minutes for '06-'07: 35.3

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...[Banks] taking pressure off the backcourt as a whole solves a multitude of concerns for a team whose summer priority all along was to find a quality backup for the two-time NBA MVP.
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Managing Partner Robert Sarver added, “This is a team he wanted to play for. He’s excited to play with Steve Nash. He’s excited to play the role he needs to play to help us win a championship. It fills a need for us this year and fills out the rest of our roster to get us where we need to be. We’re close. And Marcus will help get us there.”

The addition of Banks also allows reserve Leandro Barbosa to slide over to his more natural position at shooting guard.

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