Perk vs. Steamer

I wonder if KG could handle Charlie Villuenueva?

I was just watching the "block party" video posted by Bob H. on the Bobcats' post-game thread. This is a montage of Steamer's defensive moves, but I think he has potential for post-up offense, shades of McHale. if he works hard on footwork.
He has good timing and he's long enough that he'd be a nightmare to guard if he had a couple of quick moves and maybe a baby sky hook.

hawksnestbeach wrote:I was just watching the "block party" video posted by Bob H. on the Bobcats' post-game thread. This is a montage of Steamer's defensive moves, but I think he has potential for post-up offense, shades of McHale. if he works hard on footwork.
He has good timing and he's long enough that he'd be a nightmare to guard if he had a couple of quick moves and maybe a baby sky hook.

Key word

Potential.

He has NO offensive moves other than the outside jumper and at this age to start to develop a low post game will be tough, McHale?? Not even gonna go down that road, ain't gonna happen.

He does and has gotten out on the break a few times but low post does not appear to be what he is suited for.

beat

cowens/oldschool wrote:bob h

You made a point of did we win before 08, I'm done with the Steamer vs Perk crap, in 07 I feel we played to lose, Pierce missed 30 games or so with a bad foot, Doc was playing to showcase Big Al....what frustrated me was he hardly played Perk and Big Al together and whenever he did I loved what I was seeing. If he really really tried to win that year, pairing up the two of them would have been a great starting point. I realize we may have been going for best draft position on a team with many odd pieces, but I don't think we were really ideally commited that year, thats all.

cow

cow,

2008 = Championship
2007, let's say you were right about that year.
In 2006 we were 33-49 (.402)
In 2005 we were 45-37 (.549)
In 2004 we were 36-46 (.439) - Perk's rookie year
In 2003 we were 44-38 (.547) - Pre-Perk

My point here is that we weren't very good, overall before the Three Amigos. Yeah, we overachieved a bit with Walker etc, but we really had no chance of going anywhere and Perk was not a difference maker. He's a supportive player, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Beat says Steamer has no offense other than his 16-foot jumpshot and at this point it's hard to develop a low post game. For one thing, I've noticed Steamer rolling to the hoop more lately. He's also swatting at rebounds from behind, trying to kick it out to a Celtic. Both of those are new things for him, not seen earlier this season. You can still teach a 26-year old dog a few new tricks, apparently. That's not the same as an un-ignorable post-up move, but it works out the same. It forces the defense to collapse or give up a bunny. Maybe even better than a post-up move since, if the defense rotates slowly you can pick up a foul on a smaller player too, which has happened a few times in the past few games. Do you think the Turkish team Steamer played for had an NBA quality Big Man's coach? Now that it looks like Steamer has a future in the NBA, he's a qualified entrant for the famous Pete Newell's Big Man Camp http://www.petenewellbigmancamp.net/. His first. I don't know how many Perk has been to, if any. Think he'll only get better from something like that? Think they might teach him a thing or two about the low post? If Cedric Maxwell can learn to hit a flat-footed 16 footer late in his career, why can't Steamer learn the old one-dribble-two-dribble-drop-step/babyhook/flipshot at the ripe old age of 26? He's 260#, it's not like he needs to bulk up, he just needs someone to teach him the mechanics. As a rookie now playing significant quality minutes, with Doc's complex playbook, he has shown he can learn quickly.

bob
P.S. I could handle Charlie Villaneuva. How about LaMarcus Aldridge? How about covering the inside/outside game of Boozer instead of Noah? The extremely quick and athletic Ibaka instead of the offensively limited Kendrick Perkins? Amar'e instead of Chandler? Nowitski instead of Brendan Haywood? Zack Randolph instead of Marc Gasol? Dalembert instead of Luis Scola? In every case, I'd prefer KG matching up with the 5 instead of the 4. He's more likely have a "break even" game against those 4s while he will dominate the 5s and create matchup nightmares for the opposing coaching staff.

.

Hi, Beat,
I agree that "potential" is what we're talking about and I don't think Steamer is going to turn into McHale. But if he had a couple McHalish moves, I think he could score in close. True, he's no teenager, but he does seem to be a late bloomer. And he may have a move or two, an up-fake or something we haven't seen yet because he's staying within his defined role and doesn't want to blow it.
Look at how much Bradley has improved with p.t. and some confidence. A couple of months ago, it seemed he couldn't hit the broad side of barn; now he's knocking down 3s.

hawksnestbeach wrote:Hi, Beat,
I agree that "potential" is what we're talking about and I don't think Steamer is going to turn into McHale. But if he had a couple McHalish moves, I think he could score in close. True, he's no teenager, but he does seem to be a late bloomer. And he may have a move or two, an up-fake or something we haven't seen yet because he's staying within his defined role and doesn't want to blow it.
Look at how much Bradley has improved with p.t. and some confidence. A couple of months ago, it seemed he couldn't hit the broad side of barn; now he's knocking down 3s.

hawk,

I agree with every point.

1. He's not going to turn into a HOFer.
2. He could score in close if he developed a few moves inside. He has the size.
3. He is staying within his game and doesn't want to blow it. This is a HUGE break for him.
4. Both he and Bradley have improved significantly with P.T.
5. He is a late bloomer.

Here is his 4 year college stat sheet, from Wisconsin. Notice he never averages even 12mpg in college. He was on the team, pretty much, just because you can't teach size. He has come a LONG way from there, baby.

http://statsheet.com/mcb/players/player/wisconsin/greg-stiemsma


bob


.

AB to Steamer = apples to oranges

AB did many of the things we see now in college against good college competition.... he never had to relearn these things but rather how to use those skills at this level against MUCH better competition, the skills were always there.

Steamer's college carrier ( i posted this earlier)(10 mpg over 4 years and 95 games) and post college carrier basically would ammount to a hill of beans or that of being a backup QB in the NFL, just holding a clipboard.

He's never played much really anywher prior to the past 4-5 weeks here. So the sample is so small. Can he continue to get better with more minutes? Perhaps. Couple of weeks ago some on here said teams would figure out Bradley and he'd struggle. Well appears the struggling is in trying to figure him out.

Steamer has a jumper and is not afraid to take it. And as BobH has mentioned he does get his hands on balls and keeps them alive. He does need to add to his very limited arsenal however. Rome was not built in a day neither will this happen. C's wil go as far as the vets take them with the aide of the kids. We can't afford off nights esp when we ge to the playoffs.

The off season will be very interesting as we jockey with our current players we have and have released. Also resigning who and at what price?

the crystal ball is sort of blank. Anyones guess as to where head. Steamer will have an off season to work and get better. I think he realizes he now can play in the NBA, I doubt he really truly felt that way before and must have wondered if he would really ever get a chance as all the other times in the NBA he was cut or waived.

Oh well to much rambling now.

I do hope he does improve, team will need him to moving forward.

beat.

beat,

You are right about the team needing him to move forward. You said this team will go as far as the vets take them with the help of the kids. Due to our thinness at 5, I think we'll go as far as Steamer will carry us. We NEED him to be an effective backup in the playoffs, if only because there's nobody behind him on the depth chart. I don't see any team going deep into the playoffs only playing "small ball" and with KG only playing 30-35mpg and without an effective Steamer, that's what we'd be stuck with.

Everybody wants Steamer to excel, including the die-hard Perk fans. This is just a "what if" exercise, because Perk isn't coming back.

bob


.

Bob

I'd still take Perk next year and beyond but we all know that ain't happining.

I'd like to win the lottery tomorrow too.

Just so much unknown swirling around this team regardless how we do this as this season draws to a close. As interesting as the playoffs may be for us the summer and fall promise even more.

And we can all put our 2 cents in and see who come closest to what we actually end up with.

That should be a poll question now. what current Celtics will be wearing the green when next season begins?

Be interesting to see how many savants we have on board.

beat

I've obviously argued for Stiemsma over Perk, but advocating for a particular side can make an opinion appear more lopsided than it actually is. Someone reading my posts might think I'm 80-20 in favor of Stiemsma, but I'm actually more like 60-40 (or 57-43, or... you get the point).

So much depends on the future development of Stiemsma and how well he fits into the future style of the Celtics that it's entirely justifiable to vote for Perk. With a GM hat on, assuming a player will improve significantly is risky, because sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Likewise, undervaluing the potential for improvement can also backfire. For my money, being a GM is a tougher job than being a player because so much is outside of your control. We're guessing what type of player Stiemsma will be as part of a hypothetical exercise, but at some point, the Celtics likely will have to make a real decision about how good they think he will be. Fortunately, they'll have a lot more games, including playoffs, to base that decision on.

One thing that's clear is that, despite his deficiencies, Perk's playing style and character engendered a deep and lasting loyalty from many Celtic fans. Stiemsma hasn't risen anywhere near that level yet, but it's to both players' credit that they have both have passionate defenders and the poll voting is so close.

I do agree with BobH's point that Stiemsma is key to the Celtics' performance in the playoffs, and that means that he'll have another opportunity on a bigger stage to show his character as well as his ability.

Outside

gyso wrote:cow,

I believe that Ray and Bass cannot score in a variety of ways anymore, at least not enough of the time. Once in a while perhaps, but not as a rule. Ray is no longer quick enough and Bass doesn't have a good enough handle in traffic. Neither play with their backs to the basket with great success, neither face up and take their defenders off the dribble with great success. Both depend on screens or an open look to get the majority of their shots.

To say that we never have seen Steimsma create his own shot doesn't ring true either. Never means not once, not ever. Hardly ever or not as a rule, but not never.

Just like Ray and Bass.

Or am I missing something

gyso

I don't know what your missing or not seeing, watch the games, both can and do score with other options than the 15 ft spot up jumper.

Steamer had a really good pass to Rondo leading to an ally opp dunk by Bradley, wonder why Doc didn't run any plays for Steamer tonite?

bobheckler wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:bob h

You made a point of did we win before 08, I'm done with the Steamer vs Perk crap, in 07 I feel we played to lose, Pierce missed 30 games or so with a bad foot, Doc was playing to showcase Big Al....what frustrated me was he hardly played Perk and Big Al together and whenever he did I loved what I was seeing. If he really really tried to win that year, pairing up the two of them would have been a great starting point. I realize we may have been going for best draft position on a team with many odd pieces, but I don't think we were really ideally commited that year, thats all.

cow

cow,

2008 = Championship
2007, let's say you were right about that year.
In 2006 we were 33-49 (.402)
In 2005 we were 45-37 (.549)
In 2004 we were 36-46 (.439) - Perk's rookie year
In 2003 we were 44-38 (.547) - Pre-Perk

My point here is that we weren't very good, overall before the Three Amigos. Yeah, we overachieved a bit with Walker etc, but we really had no chance of going anywhere and Perk was not a difference maker. He's a supportive player, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Beat says Steamer has no offense other than his 16-foot jumpshot and at this point it's hard to develop a low post game. For one thing, I've noticed Steamer rolling to the hoop more lately. He's also swatting at rebounds from behind, trying to kick it out to a Celtic. Both of those are new things for him, not seen earlier this season. You can still teach a 26-year old dog a few new tricks, apparently. That's not the same as an un-ignorable post-up move, but it works out the same. It forces the defense to collapse or give up a bunny. Maybe even better than a post-up move since, if the defense rotates slowly you can pick up a foul on a smaller player too, which has happened a few times in the past few games. Do you think the Turkish team Steamer played for had an NBA quality Big Man's coach? Now that it looks like Steamer has a future in the NBA, he's a qualified entrant for the famous Pete Newell's Big Man Camp http://www.petenewellbigmancamp.net/. His first. I don't know how many Perk has been to, if any. Think he'll only get better from something like that? Think they might teach him a thing or two about the low post? If Cedric Maxwell can learn to hit a flat-footed 16 footer late in his career, why can't Steamer learn the old one-dribble-two-dribble-drop-step/babyhook/flipshot at the ripe old age of 26? He's 260#, it's not like he needs to bulk up, he just needs someone to teach him the mechanics. As a rookie now playing significant quality minutes, with Doc's complex playbook, he has shown he can learn quickly.

bob
P.S. I could handle Charlie Villaneuva. How about LaMarcus Aldridge? How about covering the inside/outside game of Boozer instead of Noah? The extremely quick and athletic Ibaka instead of the offensively limited Kendrick Perkins? Amar'e instead of Chandler? Nowitski instead of Brendan Haywood? Zack Randolph instead of Marc Gasol? Dalembert instead of Luis Scola? In every case, I'd prefer KG matching up with the 5 instead of the 4. He's more likely have a "break even" game against those 4s while he will dominate the 5s and create matchup nightmares for the opposing coaching staff.

.

Bob are you sure you could handle Villanueva? I brought him up because he and KG had a beef a while ago, supposedly KG called him a disgrace well Joe Dumars it was a disgrace you siqned him. LaMarcus Aldridge can give anybody a problem, teams generally put their best big defender on him regardless of 4 or 5. The Boozer with the effective inside outside game was on the Jazz about 5 years ago, now that guy shows once every 4 or 5 games. When teams ganged up on D Rose last year in playoffs, I was really disappointed Boozer couldn't do more scoring, not to go stat on you, but he only avg 12 ppg in last years playoffs. When you play the Bulls what troubles me is the depth and tenacity of the whole frontline, wish we had more beef in the middle, our lack of a true hulking enforcer really shows up against the Bulls.

KG can handle Amare, when Amare is right he can get his on anyone, but I feel good with KG on him, same thing with Dirk, KG is one of the few with the length and mobility to dog and handle Dirk, but if Dirk is on his A game, he'll get it going on anyone, theres a reason these two have multiple all NBA team on their resume.....you'd rather have Bass on them to conserve KG's energy, okay I can live with that, but KG is if anything a defensive demon and force that can handle any 4's, look at all he's done with this years team despite our injuries and lack of beef/size next to him and our defense has still been so good, though not against Knicks.....Perk would really help us vs this years Bulls. I would hope in the draft we can get a couple 7 foot bangers with those 4 picks, get 2 maybe one pans out, if your lucky they both are capable to contribute, theres more speed in todays game according to Tommy from gyso, but the top teams will still need that balance of size and heft.

anybody see the Thunder- Mavs game? on a night Durant was off, the team willed a victory in a hardnosed tight playoff intense game. Perk was great doing his thing and he actually came through with some offense as took a total team effort with Durant off his stellar game.

cowens/oldschool wrote:anybody see the Thunder- Mavs game? on a night Durant was off, the team willed a victory in a hardnosed tight playoff intense game. Perk was great doing his thing and he actually came through with some offense as took a total team effort with Durant off his stellar game.

Cow, going into tonights sort of important game.......... I'd take Perk over Steamer in a heartbeat. HOWEVER that is not happining, I do hope Steamer does well for we do need him to preform if we are to move on.

beat

Hope our old loyal friend Perk can get healthy and best wishes to a speedy recovery, did anyone notice all the great legal picks that Perk did to get Durant and Westbrook open last game? it was the key to their offense as Bynum couldn't come out fast enough and Perk constantly stopped Artest in his tracks. Perk put on a clinic, need a big body to shield Artest, Perk made it look really easy.

.....if you want to see what I'm talking about go to si.com, Zach Lowe, the Point Forward.

cowens/oldschool wrote:Hope our old loyal friend Perk can get healthy and best wishes to a speedy recovery, did anyone notice all the great legal picks that Perk did to get Durant and Westbrook open last game? it was the key to their offense as Bynum couldn't come out fast enough and Perk constantly stopped Artest in his tracks. Perk put on a clinic, need a big body to shield Artest, Perk made it look really easy.

Wish he had set those legal picks when he was here.

bob

.

Bob:

They were legal picks, just as legal as Legal Seafood!-Stern's henchmen just didn't see it that way!

MD!

MDCelticsFan wrote:Bob:

They were legal picks, just as legal as Legal Seafood!-Stern's henchmen just didn't see it that way!

MD!

MD,

If they just happened occasionally I might agree, but we could count on at least one or more a game, every game.

And why aren't Stern's henchmen calling them now?

bob

.

Bob:

Simply, Perk is no longer a Celtic. Stern has in in for Boston and has had it in for Boston since Red and Stern butted heads back in the 80's when Stern assumed his present position of Mr Potato head commissioner.

MD!

I always thought Perk got alot of cheap calls, his screens looked good to me, was alot of acting by guys like Derek Fisher that since he was some head douchebag on the Players Asssociation must have kissed enough ass to always get calls......still remember him mugging Ray from behind grabbing his arms so he couldn't retrieve the ball at the end of the game as Laker, how do refs let someone blatently foul like that.......Stern sucks do I make myself clear?

Perk had amother great Perk-like game, his defense and bone crunching picks essential in being a cog in the machine for Thunders success. If Steamer was there in his place does anybody think they would be nearly this good?

Cow, I voted for Steemer...unwisely these playoffs now corrorborate. Perk's doing a fine job for the Thunder and Steemer has disappeared. Too bad Jeff Greene is not providing value for the Celts. Next year!