Sbucketball
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Hopefully Wemby likes BIG ole' women
There was a legit argument to be made that Carmelo deserved ROY in 2004. He averaged more points (barely) and rebounds than Lebron. Shot better from the field, from 3 and from the line. Similar steal and block numbers. Lebron doubled him up on assists, but Melo led a team that won 17 games the prior season to 43 wins and the 8th seed in a loaded Western Conference while the Cavs won 35 games and finished 9th in a super weak East (literally half of the playoff teams were .500 or below). Now that I've typed that all out, I DEMAND A RE-VOTE!
I'm not saying it's probable, but if he made it to the All Star game as a rookie I really wouldn't be surprised. He led the French league in points, rebounds, and blocks this year as a teenager (and in the case of blocks, had nearly twice as many as the #2 guy lol). I know there are NBA scouts out there that legitimately think he'll be a star from Day 1.I agree he's an incredible prospect, I think in the one and doneish era it's between him and Lebron for the top spot. But I would be pretty surprised if he were an all star as a rookie. There will probably be some growing pains.
I was looking at Lebron, I forgot he averaged 27-7-7 in his second year in the league. Even more impressive than it seems because pace was about 10% lower that year than now, you're probably talking closer to 29-8-8 as a 20 year old in todays environment
Luka, Lebron AD; all these guys were AS in year 2. So I will stand by what I said above, I would be pretty surprised if Wemby was an AS in year 1 (especially since the team is still gonna be really bad in all likelihood) but I will be less surprised than I was 2 paragraphs ago
They did have pretty similar numbers as rookies, Melo was ever so slightly more efficient (50.9 true shooting with a 12.7% TO on 28.5% usage vs 48.8 with 13.9% TO on 28.2% usage)
The one thing I will say about Denver improving, and I know because I've looked this up before, is that Denver really turned over their team from 03 to 04. Here are the top 8 players in minutes on the 2003 team that was horrible
1) Juwan Howard
2) Nene
3) Junior Harrington
4) Donnell Harvey
5) Rodney White
6) Vincent Yarborough
7) Nikoloz Tskitishvili
8) Ryan Bowen
I promise you I didn't make up even one of those names. Here are the top 8 in minutes in 2004
1) Melo (duh)
2) Andre Miller
3) Nene
4) Voshon Leonard
5) Marcus Camby
6) Earl Boykins
7) Jon Barry
8) Chris Andersen
The only guy in the top 8 in minutes from the 03 team who was on the 04 team was Nene, who was a 20 year old rookie in 2003. My point being was they almost totally overhauled their roster in addition to adding Melo, which helped them go from 17 to 43 wins.
Here is the top 8 in minutes for the Cavs in 04
1) Lebron
2) Carlos Boozer
3) Big Z
4) Kevin Ollie (gross)
5) Eric Williams
6) Ira Newble
7) Jeff McInnis
8) Tony Battie
That cavs team improved by 17 to 35 wins, granted there are some differences in the strengths of the two conferences, but the rosters after Bron/Melo in 2004 werent even a contest.
For whatever this is worth (meh, I don't know how much stock I am putting into it), the Cavs were -2.6 per 100 with Lebron in 04 and -4.7 per 100 when he was out while the Nuggets were +.8 when Melo played and actually a little better at +1.6 when he sat.
This is all a long way of me saying I do think there's a reasonable case either way in 03 but I would've voted for Lebron
The Nuggets may have had an overhaul from 02/03 to 03/04 but that was still a pretty blah roster. Melo, Andre Miller and a bunch of role players/NBA journeymen. Big Z was an all-star the prior season and Boozer was developing into an all-star talent.
26 win improvement year over year in the West at that time is far more impressive than a 17 win improvement in the East. Per this, the Nuggets had the 7th toughest SOS that year. The Cavs had the 5th easiest. I think when everything else was fairly equal, that should have carried more weight than it appears it did. I'm sure there were plenty of voters that crowned Lebron ROY before the season started, and their vote wasn't going to be swayed.
I'm not saying it's probable, but if he made it to the All Star game as a rookie I really wouldn't be surprised. He led the French league in points, rebounds, and blocks this year as a teenager (and in the case of blocks, had nearly twice as many as the #2 guy lol). I know there are NBA scouts out there that legitimately think he'll be a star from Day 1.
Edit: To further put things in perspective, Wemby's team attempted 61.6 shots per game this past season. The Spurs attempted 92.6 per game this year. If we assume Wemby will be San Antonio's #1 option (which, barring a trade, feels pretty likely), let's assume he takes 18-19 FGA per game (which is what their leading scorer did this past season). With the rate that Wemby was scoring in France, you'd expect him to land around 24-26 points per game. With the way teams funnel their rebounds nowadays, it feels like maybe a > 50% chance that he's putting up 20/10 per game as a rookie.
Just for fun, if we assume Wemby's usage and scoring efficiency carried over perfectly to San Antonio's FGA per game, you'd project Wemby to average 32.3 PPG and 12.1 RPG as a rookie lol
I am sure this was a factor. Like I said, it seems reasonably close, and it probably ended up being a tie goes to the assumed pre season winner deal
Again though, the Nuggets outscored opponents without Melo on the floor, and in fact played better without him on the floor. (This is not evidence that he hurt them or they were better off without him, this is evidence the rest of the roster was decent and better than what was in Cleveland)
The Knicks have been out of the playoffs for less than a week and I'm relitigating the 2003 ROY vote. Things are going well
Hopefully Wemby likes BIG ole' women
Meh, it's more interesting to me than speculating what the Knicks are going to do about Randle.
I don't think it's his fault that his guys don't try on defense or get back in transition. Just a soft and lazy team.Gonna be a long series for Mazzulla
More concerned about why the defense has been so horrid...yet againJaylen dribbling is always an adventure
ECF. Two very good teams. Stop pretending like Miami is a bunch of bumsMore concerned about why the defense has been so horrid...yet again