zach lowe saying it. agree?

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8866347/lebron-james-carmelo-anthony-more-nba-all-star-selections

• Two things on Holiday getting the starting nod over Irving and Rondo:

1. It's very hard to argue Rondo has been better than Holiday this season. The only pieces of evidence are these: Rondo is shooting 48.7 percent, compared to 45.8 percent for Holiday, and he's dishing two more assists per game.

Beyond that, it's all Holiday. The shooting percentage gap vanishes when you consider Holiday is hitting 37 percent from deep — an above-average number — on three attempts per game, grabbing a much larger scoring role in Philadelphia's offense,1 and getting to the line more than Rondo. That last thing is damning for Rondo as Boston desperately seeks more assertiveness from him; it's hard to find a heavy-minutes point guard who gets to the line significantly less often than Holiday, but Rondo is one such player.

Holiday has also been especially good in the clutch, shooting 20-of-45 in the last five minutes of close games as Philly's only reliable creator. He single-handedly destroyed Toronto on Friday at the end of regulation and in overtime to cement his case.

2. Rondo's defense has slipped into Kobe Bryant/Kyle Lowry aimless freelancing territory, while Holiday continues to soundly hound guys at both guard positions. Rondo is still a worthy All-Star, obviously. He combines Andre Miller's professorial understanding of spacing, angles, and timing with turbo speed and creative finishing — when he actually chooses to finish. But Holiday has been better this season.

Irving has probably been better than both of them, but he's missed 11 of Cleveland's 42 games and is still a subpar defender. He's getting better on that end, and had he played more this season, he'd probably deserve to start.

i'm not sure jrue deserves to start over rondo, but the argument isn't ironclad either way.

it's shit like this that gets hoops analysts in trouble.

Brandon Jennings gets not even a SNIFF?


Has anyone watched the Bucks(I know the answer).Having Monta next to him is fucking Brandon's game up,and he's still been great.
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Behold my works,ye mighty

he know what he used to say about brandon while defending bogut.

He's still shooting 40%.You walk back Iverson fans for that shit.

Kids having a good year and is finally helping the Bucks win
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Behold my works,ye mighty

>Kid...is finally helping the Bucks win

and rightly so

As a Bucks fan,the most I get to root for is hoping for 45 wins and maybe a 7 game series.So its not like I was asking Brandon for much.
____________________

Behold my works,ye mighty

And he's helping my team win finally.

If him,Henson and Larry can keep getting better,thats a good core
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Behold my works,ye mighty

Rondo-hate aside, he hasn't been better than Jrue, Jennings or Kyrie so far.
He leads the league in assists, which is a plus, but that's about it. He's getting the fan vote however

bol done went from 'not being worth 10 mil a yr' (c) guinness
to everybody favorite young PG
sheesh
kyrie is the better offensive talent right now and may have a higher ceiling (who knows both are young)
but accounting for distributing and defense jrue is clearly the all around better PG right now

and zach lowe agrees with me that josh smith is probably headed to houston, smh
he described a team with lin, asik, and smith as "bricky" lmao. should be interesting trade deadline/offseason

i said holiday wasn't worth $10m based on his performance coming into this year. fuck dude, he wasn't!

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/holidjr01.html

real shit, though: he's not much *better* than he was two years ago, he's just duplicating the same numbers with increased responsibility/usage. still wish he took more threes and went to the line more, but definitely liking the IMAGINARY POSSIBILITY of him and bynum as a core.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/andrew-bynum-return-health-being-hamstrung-76ers-broken-175517299--nba.html

it's not a new concept
see the 8 mil cap hit Lin is for houston
last yr he regressed for whatever reason (short season? lou willz/iggy taking the ball out his hands? young and dumb still?)
but 10 mil per for a allstar caliber PG for the next 4 yrs is a bargain
especially when u peep the market and see what dudes like taj gibson and derozan got

i was saying to wait and see what he does this season -- but getting the deal done early probably saved them $4 a year. if they can get *some* kind of discount on bynum due to giving a long contract to a guy with health concerns, they could be looking at two marquee players who are relatively underpaid.

absolutely don't like ducksauce for (roughly) $7 mil next season and $9 the year after. at least the second of those is a team option. considering hawes and kwame also come off after next season, i would say the 2014 offseason is when the sixers would be able to make a real move.

jrue, thad and bynum is a good foundation, just too bad the cash saved on jrue is more or less going to jrich for the next two seasons after this one.

i ain't buying the idea he better passer than kyrie.

he a beast tho.

>1. It's very hard to argue Rondo has been better than Holiday
>this season. The only pieces of evidence are these: Rondo is
>shooting 48.7 percent, compared to 45.8 percent for Holiday,
>and he's dishing two more assists per game.

A:T ratio also...lol.

>Beyond that, it's all Holiday. The shooting percentage gap
>vanishes when you consider Holiday is hitting 37 percent from
>deep — an above-average number — on three attempts per game,
>grabbing a much larger scoring role in Philadelphia's
>offense,1 and getting to the line more than Rondo.

like, say, TS% records? they're practically equal (.52 to .526) and we're talking about 1 more FT per game here. considering Holliday also attempts 5-6 more shots than rondo, per shot, they get to the line the same amount.

>Holiday has also been especially good in the clutch, shooting
>20-of-45 in the last five minutes of close games as Philly's
>only reliable creator. He single-handedly destroyed Toronto on
>Friday at the end of regulation and in overtime to cement his
>case.

rondo's "clutch" stats are actually better (net points + 11 vs. +4. Worse O-rating, but much better D-rating), even as his team has a worse record. rondo's shooting is equal in both fg% and TS% in the clutch and has better passing numbers. small sample sizes, this is effectively a push, although rondo's not the clutch scorer, he's the overall equal as a player on the floor during "clutch" time. sorry he's got Pierce as the main scorer.

holiday's deserving. but this argument is kinda bad.

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It's only funny till someone gets mad. Then it's hilarious.

rondo also rebounds and steals a bit better. i can see an argument for both, but those should have been mentioned.

You know one vet is going to make it based on name alone.

I can't see all three going. I've resigned myself to thinking jrue get snubbed this year over last year's ROY.


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Same as it ever was!

If not, just glad he's in the conversation. Coming in to this season I didn't think he could get in the conversation at all.


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Same as it ever was!

There are not a lot of teams with a bigger dropoff from their top player to the next guy down, there may be none. You could make that argument for Irving, too, but he's missed time and his team has won very few games. Holiday has kept a pretty lousy Sixers team more or less afloat.