U r completely wrong on this one.
First of all, we have Diaw, who is a good offensive player. He actually averaged 14.6 points in the Spurs series, far more than Barbosa, with a very respectable 54.7%. And, ironically, a lot more assists, too.
Second. We DO NOT trust Barbosa to play PG at all! That's why we r here in this thread! By whatever way possible, we r going to get a real PG who can really play the point. That new guy is going to provide off bench offense, in a better way than Barbosa did.
I'm not suggesting we give up Barbosa for nothing! Delonte West averaged 10.8 points and 4.2 assists in last playoff. And he defends way better than Barbosa. U should also check Pargo's stats.
Third. We have been talking about developing young players. Tucker was great in summer league, scored a lot with great efficiency. Given necessary minutes and games to develop, there is a good chance he becomes a decent backup SG/SF. Or, u don't want to see that happen? Keep playing Barbosa for 30mpg and leaving Tucker and Strawberry as a bench warmer?
Fourth. We have been complaining about D'Antoni's 7 men rotation. We wanted to add depth. Barbosa was given consistent 30mpg to reach his 15ppg. IT IS DOOMED to drop, and maybe a lot. His role as main off-bench scorer is going to reduce ANYWAY.
Fifth. In order to win in playoff, we all know what change has to be made to this team. We don't need to remain as one of the highest scoring team in the league. We can afford to score a few points less every game. But if we don't upgrade our defence for a level or 2, we r going nowhere. And we also desperately need to balance the roster.
Sixth. We added Barnes, might move Hill to lead the bench. If so, the new PG + Hill + Diaw, I don't know which team has a bench better than this one.
After all, Leandro Barbosa is a typical fun to watch regular season wonder. BUT, he chokes on big stage. His career playoff stats is just 11.2ppg with 42.4 FG% and 34.0 3P%, look at the figures and accept the facts. More than that, he is absolutely one dimenson, does nothing else beside score. We r lucky there r GMs in the league like him. Sell him if there is something good on table!
as usual you are fabricating stats and making arguments that make absolutely no sense.
How did diaw average "far more" points in the playoffs last year than barbosa did? diaw had 14, barbosa had 10. how about the 82 games of the season where barbosa averaged nearly double diaw's points? do those not count?
How do you expect our new pg to provide offense better than barbosa? Do you really think a guy like dragic is going to come in and come anywhere near barbosa's production in his first year? there is no way in hell. I should go check pargo's stats, huh? his stats in last years playoffs are nearly identical to barbosa's. He also shot a whopping 38.8% from the field and plays defense just as terrible as barbosa. he's older too.
if we trade barbosa for a guy like delonte west, as you mentioned, our bench would suck completely. as a starter west got 11 ppg, so we can assume he'd get about 8 in a bench role,maybe even less. 8 for him, 9 from diaw (last year's regular season number) is a grand total of 17 points per game off the bench. do you really think that's going to cut it? seriously? our bench has always been pretty weak, and barbosa's scoring is the only thing that really makes it acceptable. 16 ppg is double what west would be able to give us, even if barbosa isn't a point guard. west himself is not much more than a combo guard.
Also, Diaw got his 14 ppg in the spurs series playing SF. He was being guarded by wings and guards, i would expect him to take advantage of those situations. if we played barbosa at center, he would get a hugely inflated scoring number as well.
It isn't "ironic", as you pointed out, that diaw averages more assists than barbosa. He is the superior passer, we already know that. barbosa's job is to go out there and put the ball in the basket while diaw's job (at least with D'antoni) was to create offense for others.
wtf do you mean you don't know a team with a better bench than hill, diaw, and whatever pg we get? even the spurs can top that bench with ginobili alone. How about the Lakers bench with farmar, vujacic, ariza, walton, etc etc? that's far superior to a 3-man combo of diaw, hill, and a backup pg. On top of that, there is almost no chance barnes starts over hill. probably none whatsoever. Part of hill coming here was the guarantee of starter's minutes which is what he deserves anyway. another better bench would be the pistons. Boston got a solid contribution from their bench last year, even.
okay so we need defense like you say, so what? barbosa doesn't play defense but as i stated earlier that is not his job. but you're a smart guy, let's do what you think is right. Let's ship out players who can't play defense. good bye nash, good bye amare, good bye injured Hill. You can't play defense so we can't have you on this team.
