Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Al harrington 6th man or not?

One of the classic things coaches like to do around training Camp time is involve debate around any certain topic. Last year Nellie tried to make us believe Dunleavy could play a serious role on this team which didn't happen. Now this year after Sundays dissapointment he's opened up talk of who will start for the golden State Warriors at PF.

Al Harrington has been talked about as a 6th man before which makes sense. He plays three different positions, be a big time scorer and fit in Nellie ball perfectly coming off the bench. However Nellie has been quoted as saying Matt Barnes, Mickael Pietrus and Austin Croshere were all candidates to start at power forward. Depite the fact we're stacked in this position there is seemingly no advantage to starting Barnes, Croshere or Pietrus over Harrington .Neither rebound well, neither are better Shooters and both lack a decent midrange game e.g. Barnes is just like stephen Jackson both commite silly Turnovers by Dribbles. However his stats are identical to harrington e.g. Rebounds etc.. New acquistion Austin Croshere probably won't get much PT even though he looks like he can crash the boards he's been cold right from the start of exhibtion.

The other debate this has caused is Azuibuke and Monta Ellis. Both primarily are SG yet despite lesser expereince Azuibuke has probably forced himself into a starters spot. Azuibuke has the Rebounding and physicality Ellis lacked last year and was obvious in the playoffs where he played scared lacking some of the confidence with the Jazz series showing that particulary. An obvious reason would be much of the freedom he was allowed during the regular season was gone because in close games any sort of mental lapse was inexcusable. Now that Keleena is on his back it will be interesting to watch. At this stage the three things Monts needs to work on are his ball handling, Vision and Character. Do this and the starting position here could be more interesting.

No comments: