I think everyone but you has accepted the fact that this whole line of arguing is based on conjecture. For you to maintain such a false claim to intellectual superiority is the height of lunacy.
On the contrary, my intelligence is vastly superior to those of anyone and everyone on this board.
We are all playing the "what if" game, so its quite impossible to show our work.
That is absurd. How can one arrive at a conclusion in the "what if" game
without making some calculations or assumptions concerning the state of their own respective basketball model? The very idea of the game necessitates such things.
You didn't understand my out-grind reference, which is partly my fault for overestimating your intelligence.
That's not entirely true. I knew that since it contained the word "grind", it had to be pretty fucking stupid and arbitrary and would more than likely contain at least one overly-subjective measure of a player that may or may not have a tangential impact on something peripheral to scoring points. I just wanted you to make your case more clearly.
Trust me, I won't make the same mistake again and I will try to use only small words in future responses to the mental midgets of this site such as yourself.
There are a lot worse on this site, believe you me. Have you met waldo, by chance? Fine fellow, a bit flighty, but all the same, fine fellow.
Out-grind means out-rebounding, out-hustling, and out-defending your opponent.
Called it.
Offensive teams like the Mavericks, Suns, and Lakers could outscore pretty much anyone during the regular season, but in the playoffs they would have really tough games against grinding teams such as the Spurs and Pistons.
That's pretty subjective. Can you isolate the defensive aspect of the Spurs and Pistons and show me that they bothered the above teams because of it, and that were it to be taken away or replaced by only "average" (by regular season or post-season standards, your choice) defense, the above teams would have scored significantly more points? Also, can you clearly define "really tough games" so we can apply it to all of the games played between those respective teams to see if there actually was some "tough" phenomena emanating from those "grindy" locker rooms, or if the apparent differences in scoring average/ability between the regular and post-season for those offensively-charged teams can just be attributed to the small sample sizes we see in the playoffs.
Perhaps the Bulls would have a better chance against the Heat if they relied on rebounding and defense instead of offense? Thats all I was saying.
But what is the net difference in defense in going from Deng-Noah to Melo-X? If we expand out on that position, the argument essentially becomes that Joakim Noah's defense and rebounding at the 5 is the deciding factor between the Bulls having a chance and decidedly not having one, as everything else is pretty much a wash. Which, I don't think is all that great of an argument. I mean, what is it really that Noah does well that will limit what the Heat do well? He contests inside shots well, but the Heat are a team with at least two players that are
really, really good at hitting contested shots. He can deny position to their inside man, but the Heat don't really work inside to their big men, and is Noah really going to be that good of a defender when he leaves the paint to take on someone like Bosh? Even if he is, the Heat still have two other very viable scoring options, and with Mike Miller being healthy (I'm assuming here that he stays healthy through the playoffs) and patrolling the outside, those two players will still be able to get the matchups they want.
So really, it's not that I see a problem (I guess, though my research may indicate otherwise) with the "let's play defense and board" option, just that I don't think the Bulls have the proper personnel to execute such a plan with great effectiveness against the Heat, and the gains via defense and rebounding over a more scoring-oriented squad with Melo would be marginal at best.
