CB Draft '09 Mock Press Conference: Atlantic Divison

[Kwhit10]

New Jersey:

Fisher is getting old and he can no doubt hit his share of shots, but he has really slowed down, even though you have Beno behind him, he may have been the worst starting PG in the league.  Are you concerned about them being exposed against quality PG's?

Are you concerned about your backup centers?  You have Kwame Brown and Eddy Curry as back ups.  How do you feel you matchup against other teams/players in the Atlantic.

[Rondo2287]

Boston            Toronto
Alston  <<        Miller
Dwade    >>       Garcia
Prince   <        Artest
Mcdyess  <<       Garnett
Nene     =        Camby

Birdman   <       Big Z
Butler    <       Finley
Barbosa   >       Barea
                  Warrick
Beyond that, I think my bench destroys his, not even close

[bucknersrevenge]

Fisher is getting up there in age and even in his prime to call him a distributor would be a stretch. What's your answer to concerns that he may not be up to running a team and facilitating an offense.

[Gainesville Celtic]

Boston            Toronto
Alston  <<        Miller
Dwade    >>       Garcia
Prince   <        Artest
Mcdyess  <<       Garnett
Nene     =        Camby

Birdman   <       Big Z
Butler    <       Finley
Barbosa   >       Barea
                  Warrick
Beyond that, I think my bench destroys his, not even close

I will continue to say this kind of analysis really misses the point when any team makes it. this isn't the old CBA scoring system where you get a point for every quarter you win. 

three examples here:

1. Prince and Artest... Artest is better but by a very narrow margin. Prince is a very good defender with long arms that will bother Artest and go about his job quietly. Artest may have more raw talent, but he's not consistently carried a team.

2. Z might be better overall as a player than Birdman in some abstract sense, but there is no way Z will be able to match Birdman's athleticism & motor. Comparing just the 2 of them ignores the effect Birdman's D would have on KG, Miller, etc.

3. Finley has had a better career than Rasual Butler but statistically they were about even last year. Can Finley really keep up with a guy 6 years his junior in a 7 game series?


if you're going to do this sort of analysis i think you should do PGs, Swings, bigs... not individual players.

just my 2 cents. I'd probably give the nod to TOR, but it's really close when you consider the sum of the parts.

[nickagneta]

This question is for the Toronto GM.

In a league where, to win a championship, you almost HAVE to have a dominant shooting guard that can defend his counterpart, how do you propose to win a championship when the first 2 SGs on your depth chart are not offensively dominant and are poor defenders?

[bdm860]

To answer Roy
1) Are you "too old", with Rasheed and Fisher in your starting lineup?
Hopefully keeping Sheed and Fisher at under 30 minutes per night, and I feel I have good depth behind them so this usually won't be a problem.  Also we're not playing Mike D'antoni style of game.  A normal to slow pace, half court offense will help us get the most out of Fisher and Sheed.

2) Does your team need a "true" small forward off the bench?  Who can create their own offense on your second unit?
Hmm, now I consider Posey a "true" small forward, but I guess you don't, so maybe why don't you feel Posey is a true small forward so I can better answer that question?

3) Why did you several times pick the guys Portland was targeting? 
AgoodGMsayswhat?

4) What's your outlook on Brand's health, and how should teams factor that in when voting for you?
I have a very positive outlook on Brand's health.  He's coming back from a shoulder injury, it's not like we're talking about microfacture surgery or a torn ACL or a career threatening injury, or something that is a key to his athleticism that will make him a different player from the injury.  Brown has never been known as an athletic player, so his injury past shouldn't limit his game.  Also his last 2 major injuries have not been related so it doesn't appear we're looking at a reoccuring problem.

5) How do you match up with the other teams in your division?
Answer to this one will come later in the day when I have more time.

New Jersey:

Fisher is getting old and he can no doubt hit his share of shots, but he has really slowed down, even though you have Beno behind him, he may have been the worst starting PG in the league.  Are you concerned about them being exposed against quality PG's?

Are you concerned about your backup centers?  You have Kwame Brown and Eddy Curry as back ups.  How do you feel you matchup against other teams/players in the Atlantic.

Fisher is getting up there in age and even in his prime to call him a distributor would be a stretch. What's your answer to concerns that he may not be up to running a team and facilitating an offense.

My response to Fisher is he just won a ring and was in back-to-back Finals so I think he has what it takes, but if doesn't can't we have strong backups in Udrih and Brown, and could even bring Udrih in to start and bring Fisher off the bench if age really catches up to him.  Also Pierce can direct the offense as a point forward.  My main scoring options Pierce and Brand don't need Fisher to create shots for them, and both of them requiring double teams will create for everybody else.  This team doesn't require a point guard to create for others to be successful.

And not concerned with backup Center.  Curry (if healthy) is a starting Center, and Brown is a starting Center on alot of teams too.  Kwame started more than 50% of the games he played last year.  So I actually think we have plenty of depth at Center, more than most teams.

How I stack up in Atlantic will come much later in the day.

[nickagneta]

To Philadelphia, same question I asked Toronto. While brewer is a good defender and coming into his own as a offensive player, he is far from the dominant type 2 guard that championship teams over the last decade have all had playing the SG position. How do you propose to overcome such a deficiency?

[Rondo2287]

This question is for the Toronto GM.

In a league where, to win a championship, you almost HAVE to have a dominant shooting guard that can defend his counterpart, how do you propose to win a championship when the first 2 SGs on your depth chart are not offensively dominant and are poor defenders?

Sorry for the delay, but I was out to lunch.  Nick I gotta ask, how many of the elite shooting guards in this league are on teams that can win the championship.  I know Kobe and Dwade are not on championship contenders.  I guess Manu on Portland is a consideration but I really havent tried to matchup with them yet because I have been focussing on the east.  I think its a great point but in this league as it is consituted now EDIT I guess its just not my main concern

[JSD]

I've been on vacation and I'm at TPA awaiting my flight so this will be somewhat of a rushed conference. I will answer questions ASAP.



Boston Celtics

Starters:
PG - Rafer Alston (24 MPG)
SG - Dwayne Wade (34 MPG)
SF - Tayshaun Prince (32 MPG)
PF - Antonio McDyess (27 MPG)
C -  Nenê (34 MPG)

6th Man:
PG/SG - Leandro Barbosa (24 MPG)

Role Players:
PF/C - Chris Andersen (30 MPG)
SF - Rasual Butler (10 MPG)

Prospect:
PG - Will Bynum (14 MPG)

Limited Roled Players:
SF - Jarvis Hayes (6 MPG)
PF - Jared Jeffries (5 MPG)

Bench Players:
SG/SF - Jerry Stackhouse (0 MPG)
SF - Darius Miles (0 MPG)
SG - Devin Brown (0 MPG)
PF/C - Solomon Jones (0 MPG)



Draft philosophy: It was all about getting solid pierces to build around Wade; players that could operate effectively on offense and defense both in transition or the half court set (especially the half court set = playoffs).

Everything else I'll address as asked.

Questions?

[Rondo2287]

Do you think Birdman will be as explosive and effective playing 13 minutes over his career average minutes?

[nickagneta]

This question is for the new jersey General Manager.

I think you have some fairly serious front court questions that need addressing.

1.) Has Brand lost what he once had after his severe injury of two year ago? he has only played in 37 games over two years and his numbers have only declined each time he has come back.

2.) Rasheed Wallace is getting on in years, his numbers have been consistently mediocre for a man with his obvious talents and has shown signs of being disinterested quite a lot? Can he really be depended on to give your team 32 MPG and 12 and 7 any longer because it's fairly obvious he isn't going to give you numbers that are better than that?

3.) Drew Gooden has never played for a team where he didn't wear out his welcome fairly quickly and been sent packing. Did you take a risk in drafting a man so many other GMs have given up on so quickly? There are obvious problems there.

4.) Kwame Brown and Eddie Curry are two of the LARGEST, in every way possible, #1 draft pick busts of the last 20 years along with Michael Olowakandi. They both have been bad recently with Curry embarrassing himself last year. Do you regret making such risky pick ups when front court bench players the caliber of Brian Scalabrine, Reggie Evans, Darius Songalia, Rasho Nesterovic, Dan Gadzuric, Joe Smith  and Fabricio Oberto were still on the board?

[Roy Hobbs]

Questions for Boston:

1) Can you rely on Rafer?  He played okay in last year's Finals run, but that seemed to contradict his career norm.  If he sulks, what is your solution?

2) Wade, Nene, and McDyess have all had major and repeated injuries in their careers.  If one of them goes down, can your team survive?

3) You essentially have a nine man rotation; will the other six players on your team complain?

4) When Wade goes to the bench, who picks up the scoring slack?

5) How do you match up with the other teams in your division?

[JSD]

Do you think Birdman will be as explosive and effective playing 13 minutes over his career average minutes?

His career  AVG. is skewed downward due to limited roles on his passed clubs. Anderson played an effective 22 minutes a game in the playoffs last year (21 during the season) and at age 31 would effective in a similar roles with a couple more minutes a game.

[Rondo2287]

So you have no concerns about a player that is effective because of his high energy playing almost 1.5 times more minutes per game this year than last while coming off of his first full season since EDIT :2004-2005?

[Kwhit10]

To Philadelphia, same question I asked Toronto. While brewer is a good defender and coming into his own as a offensive player, he is far from the dominant type 2 guard that championship teams over the last decade have all had playing the SG position. How do you propose to overcome such a deficiency?

I think it's kinda of short minded to only think that a team can only win the championship with a dominant 2guard, or as you are putting at a superstar?  How many teams have this superstar.  Look Brewer is asked to drive the hoop and play defense, two things he is excellent at doing.  With our team make up that's all we need him to do, I don't think having him as our 2guard will limit this team from being a championship team.  We also have this guy name Carmelo Anthony who is a pretty darned good wing player playing next to Brewer.