Size Matters

In watching the NBA and our hometown team the last few months; I have come to the conclusion that "Size Does Matter".

I am not necessarily talking about having a 7'-0", 300 pound center. I am talking about being bigger then the opposition at "any" position.

We are small at pretty much every position except point guard where you want to be smaller and quicker.

Rip has to rely on constant movement to "wear" his opponent out. He is not big enough to back his man down to the block and score through him.

Tay is too soft and has to rely on his length but is easily bumped out of position.

Dice and Sheed have the height but am not sure they have the strength of their opponents. Then when you take into account they shoot a lot of jump shots and fade-aways; they play smaller then they are.

When it comes to the bench; Max has the weight but not the height and AJ is a little light in the pants still. I think the only player we have right now that has size for his position is Spellcheck; he just doesn't have the offensive skills yet.

When you look around the league and see the "mass" of the players and then look at our roster; we look like a bunch of tooth picks running around.

It just dawned on me a couple of days ago that we have a roster of "light" players. When the game slows down in the play offs and you have to pound the ball in the hoop; we have lighter hammers in the toolbox then our competition.

Hopefully it isn't an issue.

Detroit 116, phoenix 86...I know how we get sometimes but we'll get it back. we just need our coach to stay with our rotation and not be afraid to run!1 If we can run of Phoenix, we should be able to smoke Boston and Cleveland...stay tuned

If we are at such a disadvantage, then why are we a contender and why do we have the best D (or at least top 3 defense) in the league?

CB- his size is a huge advantage. The positives outweigh the negatives by 2:1. There are at most 5 better point guards in the entire World.

Rip- The coaches seem to think he's one of the best shooting guards in the Eastern conference. He's tall and uses his light weight to dart around with the best stamina in the league. Our leading scorer.

Tay- His height and length enable him to bother the league's best shooting SF's. He's a post threat b/c of his length. Surprisingly, he can also handle the ball.

Sheed- One of the most nimble and coordinated 6'11" players ever. Also, in the post, he plays taller than he is because of his high release.

Dyess- Undersize for a C, but not for a PF. He and sheed are both strong enough to guard centers.

Maybe it just gets back to the old "jumpshooting team". If our jumpshots aren't falling; we dont have the "power" at any position to score "through" someone.

I look at Paul Pierce (even though I can't stand him), Lebron, Staudemire (sp), Deng and some of the bigger bodies in the league and wonder if that is something we will be missing if the J's stop falling in the play offs.

The Nash-Stoudemire era Phoenix Suns: one of the worst defensive teams ever to play the game.

The Cavs and Celtics: two of the best.

I think DET is athletically disadvantaged especially at the wings. CB, Tay and Rip are all good players, but for their positions they don't measure up in speed and jumping against their counterparts. Theoretically speaking only, if you swapped Tay for say Caron Butler it would add a whole other dimension to their attack. They got a lot of the same there now.

The glass is 75% full.

CB- he has a huge strength advantage.
Rip- speed and endurance advantage.
Tay- length advantage
Sheed- coordination advantage. Heavy enough. Strong enough.
Dyess- strength

Flip has a huge advantage in fast-twitch muscle.

We may have a few underweight players but no lenght issues. If quicker they should be able to go around a guy. Spurs aren't heavy but they get over.
Could you imagine Maxi with that much power at 6'10" ? But then he would be slow.
Good thing we passed on Blaylock...

If Maxiell was close to 7', then we wouldn't have him on the team, cause he would have been a top 5 pick.

Also, Maxiell has a very short neck. If he had a normal neck, then he'd be 6'9+ and he would still play exactly the same.

Last nite was a perfect example of bigger players hurting us. Reggie Evans and A.I. gave us some problems.

What about all the talk about how we can't stop the dribble penetration of traditional point guards?

Are we too big, too small, or too medium?

Perhaps with a longer neck, J-Max would posses greater court vision. He would have the perspective of a giraffe; being able to see over opposing players.

Maybe Arnie can whip up some form of cucumber-mango-cilantro neck-growth potion for Max!

You don't need court vision to not pass.

I thought the Philly game was a good example of the redundancy of DET's slower wings struggling against stronger athletic players. They had a hard time getting shots. Rip had 3 of his 7 shots blocked. CB's game winner was bottled up.

We are too big at the point guard spot where most of our opponents are small and quick while we are long but weak at the more traditional "power" positions. Sometimes this works in our favor and sometimes it doesn't. The "doesn't" is usually when our jump shots aren't falling and we don't have the strength to "pound the paint" for buckets.

Our style of play is kind of like the Suns and Warriors only slower. We still shoot jumpshots instead of powering to the bucket but we let the defense set up first, instead of beating them down the floor for easy scores.

I say that we dominate teams with our oversized point guard and outmaneuver them with our nimble bigs.

Just because we are different doesn't mean we are wrong. Joe has a formula and it's working amazingly well.

I think the formula is right, but the coach is wrong (plus the starters lost their hunger), and that is why we are driving down a dead end. To me, the more bench infusion the better.