Blake is a pass first kind of player, he has been since his portland days, it's in his playstyle to drive the lane and pass it to a wide open 2(see Shannon Brown) that was his job. Goudelock got to the rim for a floater, but if a guy played him man to man defense he rarely was able to truly get that floater off and he seems to have regressed a bit in that aspect. He turned the ball over more trying to put the ball on the ground than he had success with the floater. Like I said, when you made him put the ball on the ground he struggled. Goudelock found creases sometimes but more often than not, making him put the ball down resulted in a turnover.
Blake has been a pass always kind of player in his time here. I can't recall the last time I saw a player so tentative when it came to shooting or being aggressive on the offensive end. Blake does NOT drive the lane, collapse the defense, or find open shooters. He doesn't do this at all.
Goudleock turned the ball over that often? Funny, I'm looking through his boxscores through that stretch he was playing big minutes and contributing to the team and I see an average of 0.8 turnovers per game. One turnover per game doesn't hurt us in the least if the guy is scoring 8 ppg for us and actually contributing offensively.
yeah but here's the thing, when teams double teamed him, he struggled. When he tried to play off the pick and roll of someone else(to set up the shot for himself) he struggled. When he was asked to DISH or set people up when he drew defensive attention the "one or two" times he drove to the paint you mentioned, he struggled and it resulted in a forced shot. Not to mention on top of it all he couldn't play a lick of defense against any other backup 2. Blake being the better defender and having more aspects to his game are why he got the nod over Goudelock.
You could count the number of times Andrew Goudelock was double-teamed last season on a single hand. It did not happen often enough to qualify as a weakness for us on the offensive end during his time on the floor. Forced shooting? If Goudelock averaging nearly 49% from the field is from forced shooting, I wonder what Blake's season average of shooting 38% falls under. He certainly wasn't forcing anything, just bricking everything in sight.
Again, stop mentioning defense because they were equally as bad. Saying that Goudelock played no defense does nothing in the argument for Blake because he was just as terrible on that end. There is no nod defensively towards Blake, he does NOTHING of note defensively at either guard position.
Like I said, Goudelock's inability to dribble, pass or play defense are the reason he was sat over Blake. Unless you are gonna make an argument that Goudelock was a better defender, passer and defender than Goudelock.
That hurt us so much more than Blake's inability to shoot, play defense, drive the lane, facilitate for others or establish any legitimate presence for much of the year, right?
I'm not gonna stop bringing it up because the fact of the matter is, Blake is a better defender than Goudelock. Point blank. You can try to ignore it all you want to but that is a large reason why he got minutes over Goudelock. Aside from him being a better passer and dribbler than Goudelock as well.
So we're just going to roll with the myth that Steve Blake was somehow a halfway decent defender at the 2 guard? Despite the fact that he was consistently burned on that end all year long, couldn't stay in front of anyone, and he was routinely picked off on high picks? We should just ignore that completely because by some unseen metric, he's a better defender than Goudelock. They are both terrible defenders, there is no nod towards Blake. There are zero facts to back up this absurd claim and I'm pretty sure you are the only person on these entire boards who thinks Blake actually played good defense at the 2 guard position.
And yet and still Goudelock is a worse defender. Which is my point pretty much. No matter how bad you say Blake is at defender, Goudelock was worse.
Bring actual facts instead of asserting this claim time and time again with no basis whatsoever. You have no numbers and no explanations while I can point to countless possessions from last season where Blake played terrible defense. Hell, I can point to Wednesday's game against the Clippers as all the proof I need of Blake's defensive abilities.
Case in point like I said and my point of entirety being.
Despite being a better "offensive" player than Blake.
He was not a better defender, nor a better passer, nor a better dribbler. And unless you can make a case that Goudelock was, he wasn't gonna get the backup 2 spot time over the likes of Blake, or Metta, or Barnes and that's all there is to it.
You haven't made any legitimate points whatsoever in regards to Goudelock vs. Steve Blake at the backup 2 position last year. Steve Blake put up horrid shooting numbers all year long and was a ghost on that end most nights. Obviously, he's not a better offensive player.
Defensively? You haven't provided me with anything yet except this claim that Blake is somehow a better defender at the 2 guard with no evidence despite dozens upon dozens of possessions last year where Blake was completely useless on that end.
Better passer? Sure, I'm not going to deny that, but it doesn't make much of a difference when the only "creating" Blake does is passing along the perimeter due to have zero ability in breaking down opposing defenses. I'd expect a 10 year veteran PG to be a better passer than a rookie SG from the 2nd round. I'd also expect him to contribute more when given the minutes, but you can't have everything I guess.
Dribbler? That's actually a criteria between judging the two? Newsflash: neither is particularly good at handling the ball. Steve Blake isn't some super composed guard directing the offense ala Steve Nash. He doesn't keep his dribble alive throughout a possession, nor does he doing anything special while handling the ball. He doesn't penetrate the paint, dribbles along the perimeter, and he often has trouble bringing the ball up the court if a man is putting pressure upon him. How exactly is he so superior that this is a point of emphasis in his advantage over Goudelock at backup 2 guard?
It made perfect sense to not give minutes to the guy that has actually played SG throughout his career. The same guy who put up better numbers on much greater efficiency and actually provided a scoring punch when given the minutes. That 7 game stretch by Goudelock had higher efficiency and better offensive output than any similar stretch from Blake for the entirety of last season. Mike Brown, gotta love what goes on in the mind of an offensive genius.
and there's a thread for that
