I was only messing with you. It's a two horse race.

I figured. I am a fan of Aldridge, really stepped it up this year...not to mention he caused Pop to get himself ejected last night!

Durant will get his. Lebron is 29, Durant is 25. In 4 years it will be KD's turn and he will have every chance to win a few. Bye then Lebron will be 33 and will have literally played an insane amount of ball. Deep playoff runs every year, Olympics, etc.
Maybe the two of them even hook up. Because Lebron not selfish he seems like he will age very well. I can see Lebron doing 20 7 and 7 at 37 years old.

Pretty sure he is the frontrunner for MVP right now, why does he have to wait four years?

Right now he's clear cut. I'm talking about a Championship.

I often wonder what game you watch....

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...s-jackson-five

"In the ten games since Jackson has assumed starting duties, not one of his 10 matches has shot better than 50% from the field and only one shot better than 40%."

You are joking right? Brandon Jennings is a lifetime 39% shooter that has weak PG skills and doesnt play defense. He got 8 million a year on the open market this year. That is probably the starting point for Jackson if he stays healthy. OKC has him tied up for 2 more years.

Yeah, but people around here were thinking he was going to be a 13-14 million a year type guy. Of course he can turn it around, long way to go, but he hasn't looked nearly as good as a starter.

He is a RFA after next year, right when Perkins comes off the books.

Are you saying he has played good defense? Because Scott Brooks would STRONGLY disagree. He has been benched for more than once in games lately. The Thunder don't really play man on man, they switch everything. They don't double. Jackson has not been doing what he is supposed to do out there.

He like to shot and he turns the ball over. Like I said I watched two full Thunder games this week. More then once I have watched KD loudly clap for the ball and be visually upset. This being while Jackson is dribbling, basically ignores Durant and throws something wild up.

2 of the other 3 top NBA players having big games early tonight. Saw Durant and want to go off. Ones a total beat down so I doubt the #'s get that big....

People around there are a little nuts then. What could anyone have seen to make them think that? Ibaka makes that and he is one of the 3 or 4 best players at his position in the league.

Being a RFA is not really like being a FA. If the team makes him a qualifying offer (which they almost certainly will) they have the right to match any offers he gets. The only time teams dont match is when guys get ridiculous offers (Landry Fields!) or they would rather ditch the guy (Brandon Jennings) and do a sign and trade.

oh ok. He must suck then because no good player ever has a bad game and Durant has never played with another player that ignores him and takes a bad shot...

The numbers are pretty clear. I'm not sure what else to say?

I'm absolutely confounded by your man to man and switching statement. What does that mean? You think that Jackson's guy has just been the victim of an unusual number of switches, not good defense? Do other NBA teams not switch? Is the switch not an absolute tenant of man to man defense anymore? If Jackson is so bad or isnt doing what he is supposed to why has his unit given up so few points, even better than Westbrook's unit?

Assuming that the two games you saw this week were against Houston and Golden State.
Jackson's combined line from those 2 games
37 points
17-32 FG's (55%)
15-22 on 2 point shots (68%)
1-1 FT's
4 reb
10 assists
9 steals
5 turnovers

You're up at 3 in the morning trying to reason the logic of PG1985? :eek:

So I found the article that talks about how opposing guards have "torched" Jackson using examples by name of the following guys.

Rubio was 4-13
Lawson was 7-16
Kemba Walker 6-17
Lillard 6-15
Deron Williams 10-17

Combined 33 for 78

Chris Paul is really even better than people think (the ones that understand that he is good not overrated because he has commercials)

http://stats.nba.com/playerTrackingP...ilters=GP*G*20

The tracking stats are just insanely good. I wish we had access to the rest of the data as they only give us a small %.

The NBA really has really done a great job with all the stats and information they've made available to fans. The video box scores they recently unveiled are great and the tracking stats are fantastic. What was the rest of the data you were talking about?

They supposedly have a ton of stuff that only the teams have available to them. The data that has been made available on the website is like 2% of the total.

Out of the NFL, MLB and NBA who do you think is best as far as providing information to it's fans? I think the NBA has really done a great job with it recently.

I haven't seen the article. I go to the games. He was guarding Courtney Lee the other night. He couldn't stay in front of him. But like I said, the Thunder aren't very big on guarding guys straight up anyway. I don't think many NBA teams are with the pick and roll. The Thunder switch everything, and Jackson has not been doing a good job. The chances Jackson winds up on the guy that plays his position when the shot is taken aren't that high.

Like I said, he has been benched for long stretches in games recently because of his defense, but you ignored that. I guess you think I made it up.

The Thunder play very good team defense. Maybe you should write Scott Brooks, you seem to think you know more than him about Jackson's D. They play a lot slower with Jackson than they do with Westbrook. Surely you realize that, right? That kind of changes how many points they give up.

By the way, the Thunder are one of the top users of these analytics you reference. They've been using them a long time.

He has been playing 32 minutes a game

The numbers are clear. The 5 man starting unit including Jackson is an extremely good unit and when you plug someone else in for him the numbers drop.

Just to be clear I'd love the Knicks to have a PG that's starting 5 unit whose defensive numbers were about the best in the game and who holds (or his presence allows the team to hold under the mysterious switching tactic only hassles Jacksons guy system) players like Damon Lillard and Ty Lawson and Kemb walker to 5-17 shooting nights and which the local papers call getting "scorched". What would they call the Ray Felton ole defense? Crime against humanity?

Essentially the guy has been groomed to be a backup PG and has had his role greatly increased because of Westbrook being hurt. He is playing more minutes and is playing against starting players as opposed to backups. Obviously he isnt as good as a player as Westbrook but his numbers are good for any reasonable expectation level.

What does that have to do with being benched for poor D on a few occasions?

He can probably be a starting PG for some teams. I never said he played bad I don't believe, just that a lot of people expected more than reasonable numbers. They expected more. With no Westbrook he isn't playing much more than he did with Russ.

http://m.newsok.com/okc-thunder-regg...rticle/3924138

How many minutes a game do you think he is going to play? While he may have been taken out of the game for something defense related on occasions he is still playing starters minutes

Who expected more than 13-4-4 from him? Based on what? Who are these people who expected Reggie Jackson to become a close to max contract player?

He was averaging 24 mins a game with Westbrook. He hasnt played less 24 mins a game since except for a game he got into foul trouble. His last 3 games he is avg 35 mins a game.

The theme in Oklahoma may be that Jackson is a disappointment or isnt living up to expectations or is some sort of horrible defender but those theories arent supported by the numbers and seriously I dont know anyone who expected Jackson to do more than he is doing now.

I would say for a team with Derek Fisher as the only other point guard on the roster, 38 minutes wouldn't be unreasonable. Obviously they were taking it slow this year with Westbrook, so his minutes were down, but generally he played around 40 in prior seasons. To me, 32 minutes says he isn't doing enough to earn more time, because the minutes are there if Brooks wants him to have them.

As an example, look at Darren Collison's minutes in Paul's stead.

Reggie himself admitted his defense has been sub-par. Not sure there is much more to add to that.

In 12 games since Westbrook went down, he is averaging almost to the 100th of a point the same he did in the prior 12 with Westbrook, despite playing more. How is that not a disappointment? His assists are up about 1 a game despite handling the ball a lot more and playing more.

All I was saying was that if the guy stepped in a put up numbers as a starter at the same rate per minute that he did off the bench, he would have made himself a ton of money. But he isn't doing it, thus he saved the Thunder some cash if they want to keep him...simple as that.

Are you going to the game Tuesday? Great chance for the Thunder to make it a three way tie out West...Blazers and Spurs on back to back nights. Here's hoping Brooks saves a little something for Wednesday's ESPN game in San Antonio.

Iffy...I'm heading to Vegas for the NHC the next morning, so I may let one of my kids have the tickets. Just depends how well I plan.

Best of luck out there in the NHC

It is work related, not playing. Never done the contest thing, though I might start this year to see what it is like.

38 minutes a game would be 4th in the league. Westbrook never has averaged more than 35 min a game in any season.

32 min a game is a big jump for a guy that has never played more than 14 a game.

Collison is averaging 33.5 min a game sine Paul went down however regardless of unpleasant the option of playing Fischer at PG the Clippers dont even have a 3rd PG that can trump that extremely low bar.

Your assertions are silly. He is playing against the other teams best players not the backups now. We are talking about a guy with 15 NBA starts. In case you hadn't noticed that Durant guy is taking an awful lot of shots lately.

This isnt high school. He is playing in higher leverage situations now and the last thing you want is him to press for better numbers especially considering that Derrick Fischer is your only other option.

This idea that you have that Jackson's play since starting has somehow cost him money 2 years from now is bizarre. Believe me he is going to get a lot more money that a guy off the bench not named Ginobelli is going to get. Like I said before he is looking at 8 million a year and a starting gig somewhere else.

With the extra playing time he has proven to be in the Brandon Jennings/ Brandon Knight category. Those types of guys are young starters making 8 million plus a year.

I'm not watching the game but Isaiah Thomas is lighting somebody up on the Thunder...27 at the half.

This would be Chucks starting 5...

Reggie Jackson
Jr smith
Melo
Amare
Italian stallion

They would give up 145 points a game, but Chuck would stick with them because they score a lot and have Melo.