Community projection: Nazr Mohammed

Makes me kind of glad he blocked me lol

One thing that has been noted about Larry Brown in his coaching career is that he builds teams and trains players to match a certain set of specifications. Players that don’t fit the “Brown Mold” (the player profile as opposed to the virulent fungal spore) tend to spend a lot of time on the bench. I feel it’s LB’s greatest weakness as a coach. You can’t make a peach tree produce oranges no matter how you try (to rob an analogy from Mulan) and you can’t make a basketballer play against his natural abilities.

In the right circumstances Nazr Mohammed can thrive. He proved that last year. You just have to be aware of his needs and limitations. The biggest is that he plays his best when held under 25 minutes per. After that his production falls off. The more frequently you push the man past the 30 minute mark, the more likely he is to develop nagging injuries that are just bad enough to take him out of action. We start the season with “Center by Committee” and Nazr is going to be a major part of that process. If forced to play too often or too long we’ll lose him to injury. His success this season is directly proportional to how well Larry Brown recognizes this limitation. We can expect Nazr to perform as well as he did last year unless Brown is pushed into over-utilizing him. If he does get hurt we’re likely to see a lot of jury-rigged lineups with Diaw at the 5.

Defense was an issue against talented true Centers. Centers that combine speed and muscle were a problem for him. However, he could hold his own against many of Centers in the league. If the opposition was a little slow or a little short Nazr handled them fine. He doesn’t offer much as a goalie trying to alter other players shots. Nazr is good on the boards and compared to our other Centers, he can actually give an offensive boost to the team. If he can stay healthy he will be an asset next year. My biggest concern is that his back injury never really went away. He may not be the same player as last year due to the injury.

 Nazr is definitely not the answer at the 5 spot, but…. I was only able to attend one game last year, the last home game against Orlando. GW didn’t score his first point until well into the 4th quarter and the ’Cats had to make a furious last minute comeback to force overtime(in which we reverted to play similar to the better part of regulation and lost by about 10). Nazr carried the load that game and is capable of admirable fill-in work like that.

I was very impressed and glad with Nazr’s performance. The dude spent the previous season completely ignored, and it frustrated me that we kept him on the bench so long. Ok, so he doesn’t exactly fit in the team mold or system Brown was trying to do, ok. No one really wanted him. Ok. But he was brought on before Brown came, and in essence, we were ‘stuck’ with Nazr for several seasons. Might as well use him from time to time.

It was rewarding last season to watch Nazr step up to the plate and accept the challenge he was given. As we know, playing time takes quite a toll on him these days, as we saw last season. Sadly, I’m not expecting the same performance this year that he gave us last season, but I do know that when Nazr gets playing time —for whatever minutes—he will contribute to the best of his abilities and with hustle and earnest.

Way I sees it, seems like we’re going to be operating some combo of Diop, Nazr, and Brown, at least initially. This will certainly be interesting to see how it plays out.

Will Diop finally step up and take advantage of this new opportunity? Will Brown?

It is odd that David chose DJ and Nazr to start the projections, because i would not be surprised to see both of these guys wearing different jerseys by Christmas (or Ramadan).

DJ is one of the few young, cheap players on the Bobcats’ roster that other teams might be interested in. If we pursue a trade for a starting PG we very well might have to give up a young PG back up to make it happen. I could see multiple teams potentially being interested in DJ under certain circumstances: NJ, DEN, NO, HOU, POR., even NY if they were jockeying for Melo in a three way trade.

Nazr is an obvious trade candidate: An expiring contract of considerable size for a serviceable big man that can score off the bench. Any team could be interested in a player like that.

However, I think Nazr has another decent season in him for next year. And DJ is primed to come out of his sophomore slump, IMO. So if the Bobcats do stand pat with these two, i can envision averages 8 points & 4 rebounds for Nazr and 12 & 4 assists for DJ.