basketball iq in terms of starting

[dk7th]

i haven't watched the pacers game since i was watching my yanks do their thang. i will later, but from what i have read on realgm it seems that chandler for all his positive attributes does not quite know what he is doing out there.

my contention is you have to have as many players as possible who have high basketball IQs and sets of skills to which their positions should be matched, in your starting lineup. the less you know what you are doing out there the lower you are on the totem pole in terms of touches. even if an argument can be made for a lack of athletic ability in terms of speed and strength basketball remains a game of specific skills and savvy and the ability to play within a team concept wherefrom synergy and the whole being greater then the sum of its parts has an opportunity to germinate.

i like chandler. he gives 100% and is athletic. but that does not make him a basketball player let alone a smart basketball player. some people say he should be a shooting guard. this is patently nonsense and is being made manifestly clear. he does not have the stroke or the creativity or the basketball iq to play that position. in fact he himself says his natural position is power forward. if d'antoni were smarter he would have been starting milicic all this time and allow the guy to play himself into shape. gg is right-- he's good for only five minute stints right now.

we have been witnessing a trend with this team. the lower bbiq players are starting to come off the bench. nate in the first place, then harrington, now jeffries. what they have in common is they are not smart basketball players. athletic sure. but not smart, and in basketball dumb kills teams. chandler is cut from the same cloth.

so my frustration is with the notion that a player like chandler should be a starter. well if must start then for the reasons stated above he should be playing the power forward position, running pick and rolls, posting up when all else fails, or cutting to the hoop on a give and go. he should not be trying to handle the ball on the perimeter. but then david lee is already doing that in this offense.

right now the latest lineup has duhon and hughes, with lee, gallinari and chandler up front. this is counterproductive. having lee play center instead of milicic is just plain wrong. sure milicic is out of shape and tentative-- but he should be allowed to play himself into shape because he is the most legitimate defensive presence we have. he is the only true center we have at least on defense, and his passing skills are manifestly better than many of his teammates.

that way lee gets to play his usual power forward position and do what he does with duhon and all the rest. gallinari should be laying either the small forward or the shooting guard position depending on how consistent larry hughes is. at least with hughes you have an adequate defender at the shooting guard position, and he is also the better shooter and ballhandler than is chandler, who is being shoehorned into the shooting guard position for no good reason since he is a lousy ballhandler and cannot create for others and does not have discretion as to when to shoot the ball and when not to shoot the ball.

so like for the 3rd time in as many weeks i am going to make another suggestion:

duhon and hughes with milicic, lee, and gallinari up front-- but the proviso is that gallinari get the majority of touches in the offense since he is the best shooter and the best creator off the dribble.

i repeat-- what all five of these players have in common is that their basketball iq and their passing abilities are higher than the rest of the players on this squad. hence their ability to execute and cohere is far more likely than any other combination. though lee and duhon are not good defenders, hughes and gallinari are good enough and gallinari is in fact an excellent help defender, while milicic is an adequate paint presence at the very least.

the second unit should be much more wide open if chaotic. harrington, chandler, robinson, douglas and whomever should be able to run and gun or chuck and duck with abandon and tire out the opponent's second units.

[ironman95]

I couldn't agree more. Milicic should start. Chandler's shot selection and decision making leave a lot to be desired. I like his athleticism and energy, but he needs to bring more. Harrington is starting to "get it". That he has to get to the foul line to have an effective game. Hughes still scares me, as I saw a lot of him when he played for the 76ers with AI and Eric Snow, and he wasn't always effective, not even close. Milicic makes good decisions, and he is starting to correct my main criticism of him, with the one-handed rebounds and trying to tip it to a teammate. Douglas has not impressed, defense is good, but offense so far, not very good. Gallinari, actually defends very well. He knows how to position his body, for maximum effectiveness. He may not be as athletic, but he sure has a high BB IQ. Jeffries has to go, even when he hits a shot, it looks like he missed it. He just looks so awkward. I think eventually Hill has to start taking some of his minutes. Milicic first, then Hill that is. I am afraid that Hughes will turn out to be like Jamal Crawford on offense, 3-4 bad games and 1-2 good ones, but at least he can and is willing to defend, unlike Crawford.

[greatgates]

Wonderful points Dk and Iron. One small disagreement. i think jeffries has a relatively high basketball IQ. He just Sucks beyond belief. I don't think he could post up martha stewart or regis philbin. his physical weakness limits him to spot duty but he certainly isn't clueless like nate or douglas or hill.

[kgooglog]

And so it goes, once again, to Wilson Chandler, who was deemed one of the bulding blocks on the team last season by both the coach and the team president. I cannot disagree more about moving Wilson to the bench, where Harrington is thriving. Chandler's problem is not IQ, but learning that his flashes of aggresiveness are what got hm to be where he is at, and this is still the NBA preseason as far as NBA ball is concerned. Unlike every other player on the squad, Chandler has had to learn a radically different position.

The line-up becaomes unbalanced if you have Nat, Harrington, and Chandler in the same line-up. Whilst I agree that Nate and Al are low-IQ players, Wilson Chandler is not. He plays the game the right way and if he is not a natural long-range shooter, than he has to use his athelticism and play a slashing, molesting type of off-guard like a well-mannered Latrell Sprewell, who was not a pure shooting guard ever in his career.

To even suggest that Larry Hughes supplant Wilson Chandler in the starting line-up is blasphemous, in my opinion. Hughes is a big mouth attention seeking media whore. Wilson Chandler is not like that, in fact, he is one of the nice guys of the game, who needs to be meaner on offense, and not jack up threes like Allan Houston, since he doesn't have that type of shot. But he has something Houston never had, and that is a defensive presence and a body built for for speed and power. All Chandler has to do is have a cheap sneaker named after him...

An effective 2 guard doesn't have to have a 50% shooting touch from 3 point range. The kid is struggling and if the Coach has given Jeffries the nod over other better players, he is certainly not going to yank one of our two young studs out of the line-up based on trying to get his shot down.

[ironman95]

I might point out that simply using math, shooting 33% from three point land is exactly the same as shooting 50% from in closer. 33% is good. Wilson Chandler is proving that he is not up to playing the 2, that is all. I think he has lost some of his explosiveness due to the surgery, but that he will regain it. So it is not a question of whether Hughes or Chandler is better or who offers more. It is a question of which puzzle piece fits better. Hence Hughes starts at the 2 for now. I don't like Hughes and I do like Chandler, but the idea is to put the best team out there to WIN games. Right now Hughes offers a better option. I think eventually he will implode, but right now, ya gotta ride the horsey. We would not have these problems if Donnie listened to me and drafted Budinger instead of Douglas, and then signed Arroyo(or Sessions). Milicic has to start and soon, or the season is doomed. I don't care if he only plays 15-20 minutes, he needs to be out there and own the paint, and alter the opponents game plan. Right now: Milicic, Lee, Gallinari, Hughes and Duhon. Eventually Hughes spot can be taken over by Chandler, Gallinari or Nate.

[mercury]

Wilson is not a two gaurd. He is more of a three or four. Think last year when he made those good moves against Garnett in the post. He also rebounds like a four. The main thing keeping Wilson from being a two is his handle. That said, the best thing about chandler seems to be his mid range game. He is the only guy on the team who takes a couple dribbles from outside the three point line.

[dk7th]

ken: ironman is right. the point is to try to fit pieces of a puzzle together, and the best way to do that is to see what skills a player has first and foremost. chandler does not have the skills of a shooting guard but rather the skills of a power forward, which he has in fact stated he is and hence where he is not only most comfortable but also most effective. a compromise is having the guy play small forward, which means a shawn marion-type game within the offense: rebounding, defending, cutting to the basket but without the ball, meaning less dribble drives since his ballhandling leaves a lot to be desired, and spotting up in the corners for the occasional three point shot. he does not deserve more touches than gallinari. in fact gallinari should be touching the ball on every and i mean every possession. he is by far the best shooter we have and regardless of height he is meant to play the shooting guard in this offense. he can shoot over most guards with ease and he has shown he can get by taller but slower players for dribble drives and dishes. these are two things that chandler has not shown a skill for so why bother trying to shoehorn a player into that role? the time is now for the knicks and the sooner they can cohere with the right players at their right positions the better.

[pearl]

DK:

I am with Kenny on Chandler's IQ. Yes, as a team, the Knicks have a very low IQ. I don't believe that of Chandler though. He is still learning and really would benefit if the other Knicks were smart players, which they're not.

Chandler will be fine, although he is no way a 2. I look at him as a 3 and that is part of the problem. The Knicks have too many 3 type players, Harrington, Chandler, Gallo.

The reality is the current Knick squad is comprised of decent bench players mostly. Aside from Lee, Chandler and Gallo, I look at Duhon, Jeffries, Nate, Darko, Hughes, Douglas, Hill, all as bench players. Hill showed some promise yesterday, as he shot mostly without hesitation.

Back to Chandler, I do see him as a solid NBA starter in the next few years. Their terrible lack of defense is disgusting to watch and I am all for yanking D"Antoni right now. At some point, he has to be held accountable and I do not believe he will coach the Knicks to any future world championships with his style of play.

I am in favor of bringing Mark Jackson in here as head coach, make Kenny Smith the GM and Charles Oakley, a defensive specialist. I truly believe this trio would turn the Knicks around in terms of attitude and professionalism.

Pearl

[ironman95]

Darko and Hill played 4 minutes each. Hill hit 3 shots, had 2 turnovers. The good with the bad. Darko looked OK to me, he needs more minutes. Chandler and Harrington just couldn't handle the big front court with Ilgauskas, Hickson, Varajao and of course Shaq, not mention LeBron was playing the 4 a lot. It is amazing to me that Harrington and Chandler are still alive, because they got knocked down and in your face so many times. They tried going inside, but that wasn't working because the outside shooting wasn't working. Douglas looked much better, Lee had a pretty good game. Gallinari is the one other guy who can and should work more inside, because against that team Harrington and Chandler were overmatched. I think a healthy Nate might have made a difference, because their whole defense would have had to change. Jeffries should not be on the court, he has rebounds taken away from him, he gets his shot rejected back into his face every time he tries. He just so weak. The only good thing about Curry supposedly coming back next week, is that it may cut Jeffries out of the rotation, I hope. One good game from Curry, Donnie, and I hope you have Houston on your speed dial. They're one big body away from the playoffs now. I'll take McGrady now, and if they want to throw in Budinger for Mobley's contract too, I'll take it. I'll even include Nate. Defensively, I thought the Knicks looked decent, despite the 40 point first quarter, but offensively, they're the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Poor, desperation shot selection. Some if it due to overmatch, some due to lack of ball movement and without the ball movement. I see openings where Darko and Jeffries could have moved into open spots, but they just stood there watching. It's not lack of defense, they held them to 100 points. It's the offense that sucks. In that first quarter some of those made Cavs shots were very well defended, they just went in anyway. Hard to stop LeBron when he has his mind made up.

[whensly]

Basketball I Q or not Darko is now all-pine.
I guess we know why he didn't earn the minutes with his last 3 teams.