Randy,
So, because Nowitzki is more effective playing the outside game than the inside game, he obviously should not be bad-mouthed for not going to the goal more often. That's what you're arguing.
I'm with WayOut - I'd rather have Duncan and the jump-hook at 3 feet than Duncan's bank shot at 18.
Perhaps being a Laker fan for so long (or perhaps just the necessity of defending the selection of Kobe over Shaq) has blinded you to the fact that post basketball is dominant basketball. I'm sorry, but I'm a Jazz fan. I watched two sets of Finals where Karl Malone, a dominant interior presence, decided to (try to) prove he was a good perimeter shooter. Shot us clean out of the 1997 Finals, and did a pretty good job of the same in 1998. I still remember Skander and me screaming at the TV in 1997, "Take it to the goal!" (Followed it up by watching 5 years of Finals where the dominance of an inside big man led his team to the championship. Then watched a year of a dominant inside big man being looked off in favor of the outside shooter, and losing because of it.) Duncan falling in love with the outside shot is bad news for Duncan and bad news for the Spurs just the same way that Malone falling in love with it was bad news for the Jazz.
If you've got an elite-level big man who is elite-level in the post, you're most successful if you use him in the post - even if he's better as an elite-level perimeter player than he is as an elitel-level post player. That's because perimeter players are a dime a dozen, and elite post players are rare, rare, rare.
If Andrew Bynum develops a nice 18-foot bank shot, but still has his nice post moves, there's no way I'll hear you saying, "We need to move Andrew Bynum to the perimeter. After all, we've got Chris Mihm we can use in the post."
