Wednesday, February 28, 2007

"I Respectfully Request To Not Fully Agree, Sir."

I don’t “disagree” with the Martell take ... I simply don’t fully agree with it.  

Call me Sweden.

Alright, I am not saying that Martell Webster is “a good player” right now. Clearly he is not. At all.  What I think is that for a high school player who goes straight to the NBA, the first 2+ years are a "pass".  Plain and simple.   And if you’re talking about a PG, the first 3 years are a pass.  I believe you should see marked improvement in year 3 for most players, and I won’t yet go into “bust” or “panic” mode until we’re halfway through the player’s third year and he hasn’t shown much progress.  We’re 2/3 of the way through Martell’s second year; he’s played 119 games that don’t include cheerleaders with braces.  I’m willing to be a bit more patient.

I will admit that the lack of improvement is concerning. You could make the argument that the same stats on a better team is an improvement, but that is really only applicable to counting stats like PPG, RPG, etc. --  not shooting percent.  So while it is "concerning", I am not ready to count him out yet.

Hey – you gotta give him this, his defense has improved. Instead of "total abomination” he's merely "bad".

No comments: