Thursday, May 28, 2009

No Kidding

I've talked myself into Jason Kidd this summer. Why wouldn't he take a little less money for a two year deal to be the starting point guard on a great young team? He was actually pretty good again this year on offense, and played better defense than he's played for a while. The biggest reason I would have been against it was that he isn't a very good shooter, but his true-shooting percentage – which takes into account twos, threes, and free throws – was the highest it's been in his career, at .550. And his effective field goal percentage – which only looks at twos and threes and values threes more highly because they're worth more – was .522, also the highest of his career (by a LOT!). If he could do that in an offense with no real low-post presence, just other threats to shoot, I think he could be even better with Roy, Aldridge, and Oden. Also, his usage percentage was at the lowest of his career, meaning he actually had the ball less than he has in the past. It was a significant drop, too, so that it wouldn't be a huge adjustment to be the fourth option on offense in Portland. In fact, he's probably a pretty great fourth option at this point. He still averaged 9 points, 8.7 assists, and 6.2 rebounds per game this year. Oh yeah, he also averaged the fewest turnovers per game for his career. That probably has something to do with the usage percentage, but that's still pretty good.

So yeah, I've talked myself into Kidd, perhaps even over Nash.

We could then either trade Blake as part of a deal and develop one of the two young PGs, or we could keep him as the solid back up and move some of the potential. Of course, that's only if we decide to make a move. But if we sign a PG we MUST do something with at least one of the other three already on the roster.

1 comment:

Lewis said...

It'll be an interesting summer in the NBA...