POLL - Possible Replacements for Andre Miller

[Skates]

I saw that Fagan was having a chat today and just knew tk would be there, this is serious crush time if you ask me.   tk loves him some Kate Fagan.    Hopefully what she means is that Speights might be ready to start, oh say around the trade deadline this year.

[jemagee]

Has her writing gotten any better - i wasn't too impressed with it during the pre season

[tk76-]

At the risk of taking further abuse...

Her writing is good, but not great.  I do appreciate that she actually gives her observations, as opposed to rehashing whatever the lame Sixers media person provides.  The staff writers for the Sixers were talentless lackeys for the last few years, so it doesn't take much to see some improvement.

The answers we get in the chats don't seem to give all that much insight, but if there is a specific thing you want to know (and it is a reasonable request) she will usually do the necessary legwork to come back with an answer at the next chat.  Definitely the hardest working and most accessable beat write the Sixers have had.

[Derek Bodner]

Yeah.  She's not so much a beat writer, it seems she tries more to be an analyst, which I'm not sure she is.  But still, it's at least refreshing to see a columnist actually have an opinion, and not basically just an employee of the team.

[DuckyNinja]

So I decided to look up the Andres' month-by-month splits.  There is reason to believe Iguodala will get much better after November, as he seems to be a slow starter based on the last two years.  However, there is no reason to believe Miller is going to get any better unless you think it's taking him a lot longer to get into shape than previous years.  Mo needs to remind him that he's a PG, not a SG.

[Skates]

Iggy started last year and this year thinking that he was a go to guy offensively and both years he has struggled.  Hopefully, as it becomes established that his role is third scoring option behing Brand and Thad and that he is expected to play a powerful floor game each game he will become comfortable in what he needs to do and more importantly not do.  He is not as bad of a shooter (faint praise) as he has shown, but he loses confidence easily in his shot.  Once his floor game becomes his focus I think his shot will get better too.  Without such huge team personnel changes next year I hope he can start out knowing his role and playing it well from the start. 

[Derek Bodner]

You think he's trying to be a #1 option?

I don't think he's forcing many shots.  Since the first game of the season, he hasn't had a game where he's had more than 13 shots.  I don't necessarily like his shot selection all the time, but I don't think he's trying to force himself as the top option, either.

[tk76-]

Once Thad and Mo are ready to run the offense through Thad then I think it will be easier to Iguodala to get into a comfort zone.  He might even get some of the easy chances Thad has seen be playing on the weakside and being an afterthought in the offensive schemes.

We all know how great Thad has looked.  Do you think he is ready to have the perimeter offense run through him?  Or is that too much given he is still learning the wing and working on his handle.  At times I wonder if there is anything that kid can't learn in a week.  He is like the McGyever of the rapid NBA learning curve.

[Skates]

You think he's trying to be a #1 option?

I don't think he's forcing many shots.  Since the first game of the season, he hasn't had a game where he's had more than 13 shots.  I don't necessarily like his shot selection all the time, but I don't think he's trying to force himself as the top option, either.

I do think he forces shots early and then quickly loses confidence when they don't go down.  He does not keep shooting (that would be Lou Williams) when he is off, but early in games he does force things.  His floor game is so good I thing he needs to simply go with that and let the offense come to him in the flow.  Sometimes when he shoots a few errant shots early it seems to affect him mentally and his defense suffers.

[Skates]

I found our new PG:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Too-much-Rod-Benson-5-year-old-s-crazy-handles?urn=nba,122939

 

[tk76-]

I found our new PG:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_dont_lie/post/Too-much-Rod-Benson-5-year-old-s-crazy-handles?urn=nba,122939

 

She's a ball hog.

[Skates]

IIRC, Isiah Thomas was some sort of a basketball handling prodigy at a similarly young age and did shows and demonstrations of his skills.  So there might be precedent there.  We just need a Dumars type to pair her up with.