Chambers -
Obviously you're not happy that your thread took a different direction than you intended. I apologize for my part in that, and this will be my last comment on the matter.
However, thrice now I will be explaining myself when once should have sufficed. You act like your thread exists in a vacuum when you claim that he made uncontroversial remarks regarding the Smart vs. Randle debate that weren't "baiting" or "inflammatory." However, it is most definitely a controversial comment given the context of his firm stance against summer league and preseason being indications of a player's abilities, at least for Celtics players that is.
On more than one occasion, he has tried to temper expectations of Smart and Hunter (and I believe Mickey and Rozier, too, though I'm not positive on that) by claiming that it's merely summer league or preseason, and you can't really gauge these guys off of that. Yet, apparently now things have changed, because you have not heard any of the same reservations about it being merely summer league or preseason in Randle's case.
That is simply confirmation bias, and it's inconsistent and illogical. It's really as simple as that. So, sure, maybe in the context of your thread alone those weren't controversial statements, but since he's previously used different criteria for these summer league and preseason performances in other threads, it is without a doubt a controversial statement.
LarBrd33 -
Come on, dude. Do you really believe you don't employ a double standard when it comes to evaluating C's players versus other team's players? It's one of the worst kept secrets on Celticsblog. I agree with you that it's an ongoing debate that is far from settled, but in addition to not factoring context into the equation, you have two totally different standards of evidence for the two players. You rail against taking anything from summer league or preseason games for C's players, but that's virtually your entire set of evidence for Randle! Good Lord, at least be consistent with your pessimism and employ the same standards of evidence to the players you want to compare.
I mean, as hwang noted earlier, I find it telling that you just consistently evade and ignore these well-reasoned critiques. It's solely because you have no rebuttal to the critique, because the critique is spot on.
That's fair enough, although I still don't think the original comment 'the Smart vs Randle debate is still up for grabs' was untrue. We're both looking at LarBrd's comments from different perspectives so I can understand where you're coming from.
Really all I wanted was to point out that the %($*! Lakers may have scored a great player which is annoying.
We can leave it at that and I'll respect the side banter between you and Brd.
Oh, for sure. I'm probably Smart's biggest fan on here, but even I can admit that it will still be a debate in the future. It'll be interesting to see how it unfolds in the regular season, especially given the contrast between their styles, i.e. offense versus defense.
Topic: Is anyone else worried that the Lakers picked up a legitimate beast in Randle? (Read 7700 times)