Knicks · Knicks PG Situation (page 3)

rvwink wrote:

EnySpree wrote:
"This is my opinion. The authority is given to me by God himself. Got a problem get in line."

Because this forum gives me instant access, I don't have to get in line to state my opinion as you suggested.

* post was deleted because of its pure nonsense, and didn't even read it anyway*

Lets start fresh, and forget about this minor disagreement. What do you say?

I say lets talk basketball... The end

nixluva wrote:Iman is a COMBO GUARD!!! He's used to doing both things and so it's not really a stretch for him to do a little distributing and a lot of scoring. He's the prototypical Combo guard. He's got enough handle to play point and he's a capable scorer inside and out.

absolutely right as always.... But he is not a point guard. The way you describe it you agree too. He might bit be add good but he is basically Wade, Vince Carter, Jamal Crawford, Brandon Roy, or your favorite shooting guard.... Knicks are set for the next 8 years if this kid pans out.

Baron Davis is absolutely needed. And the knicks need to keep there ears to the ground looking for a pg for the future. For the next 2-3 years nation can hold it down.

I think Shump could play point but I see him as our eventual starting 2, hopefully for years to come. I think as he plays and gets coached he'll cut down on suspect shots.

Mike Bibby still not practicing today with back spasms. He missed 2nd half of Nets finale Wednesday and hasn't returned to court.

rvwink wrote:I suspect MDA has additional motivation for giving the Iman playing time at point guard in the scrimage. Toney Douglas seems about the same size as Rajon Rondo. He is listed at 6'2" while Rondo is listed at 6'1". But check out their wingspans, and you will find that Toney Douglas's wingspan is 6'6" while Rajon Rondo's wingspan is 6'9". Rondo's exceptionally long arms and huge hands make a huge difference. So Rajon Rondo's playing length is considerably longer than Toney Douglas's playing length is. Also we all know that Rajon Rondo played significantly better than Toney Douglas did in Celtics/Knicks playoff season last year.

Now enter Shumpert. His height is 6' 5.5", versus 6'1" for RR. His wingspan is 6'9.5" i.e. slightly longer than Rondo. His standing reach is therefore longer than Rondo's. He seems every bit as athletic as Rondo is and may be one of the very people playing point guard in the NBA who defensively will match up well with Rajon Rondo.

MDA was preparing in today's scrimage to put the Iman into the Celtics game to guard Rajon Rondo. He will likely do it either before or after Toney Douglas plays. Either way, it should be exciting to watch. It seems likely to me that having the Iman guarding Rajon Rondo, will improve the Knick's chance of winning the upcoming Celtics game. Thanks to Shump Shump's new role, I am predicting a victory for the Knicks.

Watching the preseason games, I agree Iman looks more like a combo guard than PG.
These are the scenarios in which I think I felt he could redirect his energy, guarding players and giving them a hard time that generate a lot of our opponents offense.
Some of these guys are pick, some of them are quick, some of them are both, TD just isn't in that same caliber as Iman.

Cp3
Deron
Wade/Lebron
Rose
WestBrook
Rhondo
Wall
Nelson
Philly would be tough, I am not sure if we use him for the wing or PG.

Remember why we drafted him and what his main skill is, I want him to learn and make mistakes, get crossed, get dunked on, knowing his spirits, it will make him work only harder.
You learn through your mistakes, but just watching the 2 steals he made in the preseason I believe both vs Deron he looked special.
Those are plays I think that can totally defeat our confidence and fear Iman, playing more conservatively, then this is where he switched gears and play the passing lanes at times.
Some little guys having really killed us over the years, even guys like Mo Williams, mainly because we have no shot blocker, but we didn't have a person to stay in front of them, apply pressure, and play solid D. Anthony Carter, with his limited game appearances, has been the best defender on his limited playing time in the near recent.

I think TD, should learn a little bit more from the sidelines, from Iman and watching the games with Chandler and notice the difference. I think he has the tools to be a good defender but he isn't very smart and always cheats too much. He has to mix it up, know how to guard a shooter, don't give them room don't let them easily get the ball by playing the passing lane. He is suited better playing the 2nd unit and after Iman has given the first units huffing and puffing, TD can come in help. In the future, I think they can be a good combo together, however, in certain matchups, in the end of the games, it would be nice to have another good wing defender like

Players that probably, could be tradeable, if they don't look like they are in contention for playoffs at deadline
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Wilson Chandler I miss this fella, I know many would welcome him back, I think we can give a decent package for him, *i dont know if Denver can trade him because if they give him
QO, he comes back around the deadline. Does it have to be a sign and trade with QO or for a couple of years extended.

Ariza He didn't play last preseason game, not sure if he is hurt. If Iman can hold the PG spot well enough, having these 2 on the backcourt will be sick defensively.

Grant Hill * not sure about at his age, he looked great last year*

Dunleavy *doubt they will trade him, with father n son united*

I don't believe he is a pure PG, however, if we add someone with the skills of Joe Johnson, Odom, Grant Hill, or someone that can play the PG as well. It would be ideal for Dantoni's offense. He prefers 2 players playing together that can penetrate and handle the ball, and surrounded by players that can hit the 3.
His system prefers a lot of skill sets, Joe Johnson's year there, it showed how Nash, Joe Johnson, and Barbosa's ability to penetrate helped create room to shoot wide open shots.
I think Amare/Boris Diaw also helped a lot. His system, might need some tweaking with Tyson Chandler, inability to shoot a consistent shot *preferably a step behind free throw*, clogging the paint. However, what he brings on the offensive end, and his pick's will leave a lot of guys open as well.

I wish everyone here a Merry Xmas Eve and be safe driving/with a lot of drunk drivers during the holidays. I am looking forward for Xmas and our Knicks to earn respect from one of the toughest defense of the league. I wouldn't want to disrespect KG, Ray Allen, and the Celtics in anyway, I look forward to the possibility to recruiting them this summer.

Don't like categorizing a young player and dropping him into a pigeon hole marked combo guard. Look at Chauncey Billups bouncing around from team to team as a virtual failure until the right situation occurred in Detroit and in 2004 he helped win a championship. He very easily could have become a combo guard, and lost that opportunity.

Iman Shumpert is not easy to pigeon hole, because there are so few point guards players with his freakish athleticism, and extremely long frame. Also importantly he personally sees himself as a point guard. I strongly believe through personal experience, that if you think you can do it, you are already a long way toward acquiring your goal. Certainly, Shump already has the confidence and the physical talent to turn himself into who he wants to be.

There may be better pure point guards in the NBA than the Iman. But he will create considerable value for the Knicks on both sides of the ball. His defensive ability combined with his speed and length, provide a very valuable commodity for the Knicks. (Don't forget MDA has put JJ in to guard the other team's point guard, because he felt that it upsets an opponent's offensive execution.) The Iman can provide the same tough defense that JJ did, along with strong scoring and passing compared to JJ's meager offensive contributions.

The particular value of Shump as a point guard is that he is much more of a mismatch against the size of the league's point guards, than against the size of the leagues shooting guards. With Landry Fields in at shooting guard, the Knicks will have finished their transition from being an undersized team, into becoming one of the larger teams in the league.

MDA is on the right track letting Shumpert accumulate minutes at the point and lets all find out what kind of talent he has at the point. Certainly he is the ideal Knick to guard Rajon Rondo on Sunday. I have a feeling that MDA will start Shump Shump at the point.

nixluva wrote:Iman is a COMBO GUARD!!! He's used to doing both things and so it's not really a stretch for him to do a little distributing and a lot of scoring. He's the prototypical Combo guard. He's got enough handle to play point and he's a capable scorer inside and out.

personally, I hope he turns into a great SG. I don't think he'll be a great PG. I've never heard "combo guard" being used as a compliment

SupremeCommander wrote:

nixluva wrote:Iman is a COMBO GUARD!!! He's used to doing both things and so it's not really a stretch for him to do a little distributing and a lot of scoring. He's the prototypical Combo guard. He's got enough handle to play point and he's a capable scorer inside and out.

personally, I hope he turns into a great SG. I don't think he'll be a great PG. I've never heard "combo guard" being used as a compliment

Prototypical combo guard? Someone who is too confused to play either guard position effectively? Is there such a thing?

What we don't need are more TD/Nate types. Granted this dude is bigger but I hope he finds a role and becomes a specialist 1 or 2, I don't want combo anything.

"I hope he finds a role and becomes a specialist 1 or 2, I don't want combo anything."

Iman thinks he will turn into an NBA point guard. I personally wouldn't bet against Shump Shump once he has set his mind on something.

Can he be a Chris Paul point guard? I doubt it. How about a point guard in the mold of Chauncey Billups? One would think that might end up being a workable proposition. Do you agree?

rvwink wrote:"I hope he finds a role and becomes a specialist 1 or 2, I don't want combo anything."

Iman thinks he will turn into an NBA point guard. I personally wouldn't bet against Shump Shump once he has set his mind on something.

Can he be a Chris Paul point guard? I doubt it. How about a point guard in the mold of Chauncey Billups? One would think that might end up being a workable proposition. Do you agree?

Like I said before, if he can play the point I'll root for him as much as I root for any other Knick. And I don't think you have to be CP3 to measure up as a point guard. What this team needs is someone who can set up the offense without always looking for his own shot first but be enough of a threat to score that defenses have to respect him. I had no issues with Billups running the point except he never got enough time to really get in the flow.

Agreed. A combo guard is usually a SG too small or too poor a shooter to play the position but not enough court vision or playmaking ability to play the point. SHump's decsion making doesn't seem to be the greatest. If he can turn into a good shooter he could be our SG for years to come. If he can learn to be good distributor it would be a bigger boon for us than SG but I think it's less likley.

loweyecue wrote:

SupremeCommander wrote:

nixluva wrote:Iman is a COMBO GUARD!!! He's used to doing both things and so it's not really a stretch for him to do a little distributing and a lot of scoring. He's the prototypical Combo guard. He's got enough handle to play point and he's a capable scorer inside and out.

personally, I hope he turns into a great SG. I don't think he'll be a great PG. I've never heard "combo guard" being used as a compliment

Prototypical combo guard? Someone who is too confused to play either guard position effectively? Is there such a thing?

What we don't need are more TD/Nate types. Granted this dude is bigger but I hope he finds a role and becomes a specialist 1 or 2, I don't want combo anything.

One of the things that has encouraged most of our posters to believe in Shump is his confidence. When he walks up to Melo and says something like: "I hear you are good with your spin moves, but you are not going to spin me", we are impressed with the rookie's confidence. Actually, its not hard to build confidence when you are a freak athlete like he is. You can run faster, and jump higher than the competition and you are taller and longer than they are as well.

There is a downside to confidence of course. When you play on a weak college team, and most of your team mates are not good shooters, it is easy to convince yourself that even from this distance, I am the team's best scoring alternative So I think in college, he simply had too much confidence and not good team mates. It seems to me that Mike has told him what shots have the green light, and what shots don't. I just can't wait to see Rondo and Iman go at it on Sunday.

There are lots of scoring guards who have PG size, but a SG mentality. Iman is a SG that is capable of playing the point and has played the point for years. He's not a pure PG like CP3 or Nash, but he's not a pure SG like H2O or Ray Allen. Iman is a bit of both and that designation doesn't have to be a negative. Iman could certainly limit his game to just being a SG and be just fine, but since he's capable of doing more than that, there's no reason to limit his contributions to just being a SG. It gives the team more flexibility with the lineups they can put on the court.

"Since he's capable of doing more than that, there's no reason to limit his contributions to just being a SG. It gives the team more flexibility with the lineups they can put on the court".

I think your statement is accurate. But it downplays the potential benefit that Iman may contribute to the Knicks from playing point guard as opposed to shooting guard. His more substantial length advantage over other point guards, could increase the value of his defensive contribution to the Knicks far beyond what Baron Davis provides at the point from the defensive side. When you total their contributions on both side of the ball, I believe the Iman has the potential to become a more valuable point guard contributor, than Baron Davis is in time for this year's playoffs.

I realize that this statement is heresy for almost everyone else at this forum. But I still believe it could come true. We will know a lot more by Monday.

nixluva wrote:There are lots of scoring guards who have PG size, but a SG mentality. Iman is a SG that is capable of playing the point and has played the point for years. He's not a pure PG like CP3 or Nash, but he's not a pure SG like H2O or Ray Allen. Iman is a bit of both and that designation doesn't have to be a negative. Iman could certainly limit his game to just being a SG and be just fine, but since he's capable of doing more than that, there's no reason to limit his contributions to just being a SG. It gives the team more flexibility with the lineups they can put on the court.

Everybody seems to always look at the offensive side. It's his defensive impact that allows MDA to play him as a pointguard. (Fellas, keep in mind, the PG position doesn't exist anymore. The NBA is nothing but guards and postmen / forwards.) But the key with Iman is that he can guard 3 positions. So whenever you have a pick and roll, and he has to guard a big, he does that better than TD or Bibby.

This is why I think the best guard combination is Barron and Iman. Both guys can guard multiple positions. This is going to be key all season, as a defensive team. Personally, I like Iman as the Point Shooting Guard....similar to Melo's Point Small Forward role. The more players you have on the floor that can run the point, the better. If Melo or Iman gets the rebound, they can both start the offense which allows more time in half court offensive sets.

What Iman brings to the team defensively, is enough to allow some growing pains while he learns how to run the point in MDA's system...The plus side to this strategy is that you can potentially develop a defensive stopper to also be a full time PG. This is exactly what we need. And Barron Davis might be the most important Knick on the team, because of his leadership and mentoring with Iman.

Guys, guys... I know about Iman's value on D. Remember i'm the one who 1st posted that Walsh felt Iman could run the point along with Billups in the backcourt. The main thrust being that Iman could defend the quicker PG's and at the same time it frees up Billups to be more of a SG, which is his main skill at this point. The biggest thing that attracted Iman to MDA and Walsh were his size at PG and being able to actually defend with enough quickness and length. Guys with Iman's size usually aren't quick enough laterally to defend PG's, but that's a huge plus for this team that he can.

So I guess Kobe Bryant is a comboguard then?

Most of you don't remember Walt Frazier during the Knix glory days. He was a point guard (distributor) until crunch time and then it SG first. He had the ability to do what was needed. The same was true of the Pearl and Oscar and West-they did what was necessary for the situation. There is no such thing as a pure point but the mentality of setting up the rest of the team is the common ingredient and Shump seems to embrace it-whether he has the ability will be seen.

Willis once said "The ball is his (Frazier)-he let's us play with it sometimes"

"but since he's capable of doing more than that, there's no reason to limit his contributions to just being a SG. It gives the team more flexibility with the lineups they can put on the court."

I responded recently not to your entire body of work, which is quite excellent, but to a recently written quote. I wonder how many times a year do you think Deron Williams has a ball stolen by an opponent, who then adds insult to injury by taking the ball the length of the court and scoring. Because of both length and explosive speed, I think Iman is going to find some way to decrease Rondo's offensive contribution to the Celtics cause today. I think you will agree that crediting Iman with "explosive defense" is more than a single step past your "flexibility in lineups" suggestion. LOl.

You guys sound like you have fallen in love with a solution and you are doing everything you can to fit the problem to it. So Clyde could hit threes and that proves there is no such thing as a point guard? I guess Chris Paul just needs to give his money back. Being able to hit from outside is now considered something a pure point guard is unable to do?

We NEED a guard with high IQ, excellent court vision and a pass first mindset. All the other qualities being extolled here are great but doesn't address the main need and neither do they compensate for having a gap on that need. I am not denying Iman can fill that need, I have barely seen him play. But size and athleticism and great defense are all excellent qualities that don't address our primary need.

SupremeCommander wrote:So I guess Kobe Bryant is a comboguard then?

Most guys who get labelled as "combo guards" are really just players who don't fit either position well. If you define a combo guard as someone who has very good PG and SG skills and would be very good at either position, then only guys like Kobe and Wade qualify.