What Now For Gerald Henderson? Raja Bell? What Style Will the Bobcats Play?
by David A. Arnott on Sep 26, 2009 11:40 AM EDT
13 comments
Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer is on the same page I am when thinking about what Larry Brown must have seen in Flip Murray, but I'll go even further than Bonnell. I think Brown is so rookie-phobic that he's willing to block Gerald Henderson and jettison Dontell Jefferson just to get a guy on the floor who's been in the league a while. I mean, Murray's no slouch. We know we're not getting an All Star, but we also know he's no scrub (and a scrub is a guy who can't get no love from me).
What I'm getting at is that It's a real possibility Gerald Henderson will only get 500 minutes this year.
Say the PG rotation is 55% Felton, 35% Augustin, 10% Murray.
The SG rotation could be 65% Bell, 10% Felton, 10% Murray, 10% Henderson, and 5% Radmanovic.
If Raja Bell goes down for an extended period of time, do you really think Brown's going to hand over starting minutes to Henderson if Murray and Felton are on hand? The frustrating part of it for me, personally, is that I think Brown is building a roster with potential to be one of the most exciting teams in the league, if not a playoff contender.
With the hand we've been dealt right now, the only thing missing from a clean-cut roster is a backup PF. However, if they go for another shakeup, trading Bell, for instance, there's an opportunity to be a specially exciting squad. I don't see a trade that makes sense for both teams, but let's say they trade Bell's expiring contract for someone with upside plus a guy with a poor, but workable, contract. Maybe Milwaukee and Scott Skiles don't want to wait on Joe Alexander anymore, and they'd be happy to give up Charlie Bell's contract in the process.
I'm not saying this is The Thing To Do, but that Raja Bell is the one major piece of the puzzle who is a traditional grind it out Brown type of player. If Brown and the Bobcats want to blow our minds, they could make that trade, or something like it, and roll out a three-point-bombing, alley-ooping, floor-running, lineup of Augustin/Felton, Murray, Wallace, Diaw, and Chandler, with Radmanovic, Alexander, Henderson, and Diop playing supporting roles, and cameos from Derrick Brown and Charlie Bell. Instead of playing one of the slowest paces in the league and scoring 71 points per game, that would be a pretty flashy roster with at least four guys who can jump out of the gym.
Sorry for the flight of fancy. I'm just not convinced that the marginal improvements the Bobcats keep making in the short term are worth the delay on finding out whether our young guys are any good or not.
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Yep
What you said. Bell’s contract is very tradeable and he can still play enough that other teams might want him. If he’s here the whole season it will block Henderson, which may not be a bad thing, but if Henderson shows enough promise/maturation they could move Bell for something akin to what you suggest.
One thing we know is that Larry wants his guys playing defense and going to the rim, which is what Henderson does, and so in that sense he represents a fitting evolution of the line-up, moreso probably than Bell did. Regardless, Raja’s almost certainly gone after this season one way or another so the worst case scenario is Henderson doesn’t get too many minutes this time around but then can attempt to emerge as a second-year player, which is appropriate for a guy drafted in his slot anyhow.
I would say you're overrating the worst case.
The worst case is that Henderson gets buried on the bench, gets no experience, and is no better next year than he is today. In fact, he could regress some. Do you think Ajinca’s really gotten markedly better just by practicing?
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Sep 26, 2009 5:16 PM EDT up reply actions
How do you know Procto??? You DON'T!!!
You know squat about Ajinca’s improvements, or Henderson’s potential improvements (or anything else basketball related)!
Does NOT playing significant minutes preclude a player from getting better? Of course not, you idiot! You just want to bitch about EVERY move the Bobcats make — whether it is a good move, bad move, or a move that is not definitively either good or bad.
Henderson could get to play more minutes than he’s ready for, be relatively unsuccessful and then regress because he was thrust into a situation that we wasn’t ready for. It’s all conjecture, and i for one (of many) am sick of your stupid, negative conjecture. Bottom line: you don’t know! so shut up…..
All the talk of young players not getting enough PT this year , b/c people want to see “how good they are” is ridiculous. I’d much rather see the Bobcat’s put the best team on the court and aim for success this season, instead playing guys who aren’t ready and aiming for some (hopeful) success two or three years down the road.
We're talkin bout' practice!
Not the game, but practice! Hell no players don’t get better by practicing. That’s why I never practiced at all. I would have gone pro too but my coach in highschool never put me in the game so I never had a chance to get better. It’s all my coaches fault that I didn’t get a chance to play.
Let that little parable sink in…
Did you really want to say that players don’t get better from practicing?
I didn’t think so.
my high school career
Amazingly, I think I actually got worse by practicing. Coach was not going to put me into games regardless. It was his first and I’m guessing only season of coaching and due to his general incompetence could not establish any kind of credibility or control over a team full of wise-asses, so he became an unreasonable and arbitrary dictator, refusing to acknowledge that his hastily-chosen pre-season starting squad was (way) less than optimal, thus stifling all the rest of us all season long. Therefore I threw myself into practice with a vengeance, first to try to earn some minutes, then when I realized that didn’t matter to mock our starters by outhustling them, throwing myself at loose balls, offensive rebounding like a madman, in general getting far more physical than warranted in practice. And as a result, the retired coach— at that time the assistant headmaster— would drop by after practice for the express purpose of teaching me how to foul without getting whistled for it. Which is easier said than done, and so even in limited minutes I ended up fouling out of half a dozen games my senior year. And I seriously think adopting that style of play slowed down my development into a scorer by a couple of years.
Of course, if we had enjoyed anything approaching competence in coaching, practice would likely have done me a world of good, which as you suggest is more typically the case…
They certainly don't improve as much as they do by getting in games.
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Sep 27, 2009 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions
So what if our "success" this season is 36 wins?
What was the point of giving heavy minutes to a pair of over-the-hill guards who won’t likely be with this team next year, much less two or three years now.
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Sep 27, 2009 4:21 PM EDT up reply actions
That would be an exceptional deal...
but there’s no way it’s happening. Alexander still has a good bit of upside as a versatile offensive forward, while I think calling Bell overpaid with all of the things he can do is a bit crazy.
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
Augustin averaged about 27 minutes a game as a rookie last year so I think LB will play Henderson. Besides, Henderson seems to be an athletic defender, something he likes.
"it's a bad day to have a bad day"
We also didn't sign an over-the-hill player at Augustin's position immediately before the season began.
Remember when the Panthers had a good offensive line? Yeah, me too.
--Darin Gantt
by MichaelProcton on Sep 27, 2009 4:27 PM EDT up reply actions
I hate to keep bustin your balls David...
but do you really think that the difference between the high octane lineup you described and “71 points a night” is trading Bell, making Murray a starter and adding Joe Alexander to the bench? Per 36 minutes Murray averages about 2 more points but shoots significantly worse 3p% TS% and EFG%. Alexander adds some scoring pop, but seems to duplicate Vlad-Rad. I don’t see both of them getting the minutes as back up forwards to really be useful.
If we trade Bell, or even Felton (with his consent) we should get a player that adds to what we’re missing (i.e. a power forward)
Neither roster’s a winner, because we simply don’t have an All Star. The 71 ppg thing is my attempt to make it clear I’m talking about a philosophical shift represented by dumping Raja more than a practical solution to our roster problems.
by David A. Arnott on Sep 27, 2009 12:04 PM EDT up reply actions
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