but marco isn’t a point guard and (unless we trade him or he opts out) crawford is going to get minutes at the point, too. i’m not advocating that situation; it just seems very likely that it will be the case. i’m not a big marco guy and don’t even see a place for him on the team, but i do think he’s better than crawford…

oh and if there are 3 guys competing for backup point guard minutes, you’ve got 2 of them anchored to the bench. there really aren’t that many backup point guard minutes to go around and very few teams employ a 3rd string point guard who gets much burn. best case scenario, whoever is declared our 3rd string point guard gets about 5 minutes a game.

+111111111111111
he was the fresh breath of air from Jackson being the main ball handler. A guy who enjoyed passing and shot a decent percentage. What do you know?

i think “bigger version of ricky rubio” needs a lot of explanation. you acknowledge that he’s not a point guard and ricky is about as close to a “pure” point guard as you’ll ever find. what about their games is similar?

when I talk to all of my non-white friends they always bash him but then say stuff like,’ Crawford plays alot better D than him. Monta is a better defender than him. Monta is a better 3 point shooter. Jackson is a better dribbler. Maggette, Azubuike, and Turiaf are better passers than him."

Honestly, your friends have some things inaccurate, and some accurate – and it matters more to you that they’re non-white than to most of the rest of us. Maybe that’s a function of your choice of friends?

People on this site practically despise all euros beside biedrins.

At best not true, and at worst a grotesque over generalization. Recall that there’s a lot of love on this site for Hedo, and other Euros who are good players. Not a month goes by that someone on this site isn’t trying to hoist Maggette onto Utah for Kirilenko, despite the fact that Coach Sloan values defense as much or more than any other NBA coach and that trade would make Utah significantly worse defensively.

Since you wished to retract your comments about Marco as a PG, we’ll move to a more direct comparison with KAz, since the comparison with Morrow has been done below.

Nelson, who wants to win even at the expense of developing young players during an obviously lost season, chose to play KAz more than Marco for most of the season. He thinks KAz is helping the team more.

Even factoring the disparity in minutes played, and with a tip of the cap to rtgunn‘s point above, we still have to recognize that KAz FG% (.464) is higher than Marco’s (.442) and even more so 3PTFG: .448 to .397. KAz is also a better FT% shooter. This is pretty damning in light of the fact that Marco was drafted in the first round for his shooting acumen while KAz was an undrafted find. Regardless of how they got onto the roster, KAz is shooting better than Marco and they play positions that value that skill.

Additionally, KAz rebounds at a higher rate per minute than Marco – a skill most on this site have come to agree is a critically important area of concern for this club. Lastly, if I’m reading the stats correctly, KAz turns the ball over less on a per-minute basis than Marco, though Marco seems to have higher asst per min. – a validating point for your “court vision” argument, but mitigated against by the turnovers. Overall, I see Nelson’s logic so far.

Defensively, someone else who is more facile with the plus/minus stats might be helpful in this comparison but I’d be surprised if Marco’s defense was shown to be statistically better than KAz.

Yes, KAz is more expensive – because he was considered valuable by another team and we matched his RFA offer because he was that valuable to us. The market set the value. I will concede your point that Marco’s value may be even be a bit higher than the trade offer, but his value to Nelson is less than KAz. Marco’s peak performance during the season coincided with our injuries – and he made the most of the opportunity. But that also gave the rest of the league a chance to scout, prepare, and evaluate him. His performance dropped thereafter and we might find his “true” value if another trade offer is in the offing.

If we trade KAz and improve as a club, with Marco taking his minutes – great. But it’s pretty clear that given the choice between the two, Nelson’s choice makes sense to many of us.

Marco would be a key part of the bobcats. He would back up 3 positions(if Felton leaves which i am expecting). Azubuike would be Wallaces Backup. Explain that. Larry Brown see potential in Marco based off his limited playing time. He shines whenever he gets the opportunity.

morrow is also a great rebounder for his position. that seems to get left out in many of the discussions of the guy.

On the otherhand,

Morrow is a better rebounder (I realize that isn’t saying much) 4.7 per 36 vs 2.9 per 36.
Morrow turns the ball over a lot less 1.2 vs 2.4 per 36 which is why his Assist to TO ratio is slightly better than Marco’s.
Morrow’s TS% of 58.8% led the team last season (Marco 54.7%).

and from Steinmetz over on his Warriorsworld interview.

Who is the hardest working Warrior? The biggest gym rat? Who should be more dedicated?
The hard worker is easy and it’s no contest: Anthony Morrow…..

Morrow > Belinelli…really?

Yeah. Morrow is a much more efficient scorer, and a much better rebounder. Morrow doesn’t create much for others but he rarely turns it over so I won’t hold that against him too much. I also don’t think Morrow is that bad at defense. He was a rookie, and he played defense like a rookie. I think it’s one of the areas that a player is most likely to improve in his first couple years (see Marco). I read a lot about how he doesn’t have good enough handles, but if he doesn’t turn it over and he still manages to get his shot off (about as often as Marco) why exactly are his handles a problem?

Marco is better at creating for others, but he turns the ball over quite a bit. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that Morrow has a better assist to turnover ratio would you? Check it out, he does. Marco, though improved, is still a very poor rebounder. He’s not as good of a shooter, or scorer. Marco does have a significant edge in defense, but other than that I’ll take Morrow.

As for the idea that Morrow is a product of the system, a mirage waiting to be exposed, well I don’t really buy that. We saw him play. Those didn’t come out of some gimmicky trick play. When he was open for three he shot it (he doesn’t need a lot of space), and he made them at a better rate than any other player in the NBA. Besides, even if it were true that he was a product of Nelson’s system, that wouldn’t really help your case for Marco being the better player, seeing as they both play in the same system…

i mean i am a huge belinelli fan and might be a little bias but the only thing morrow is better at is shooting and marco is almost up there with him

I’m saying the guys doing the hardest perimeter defense get the least ammount of rebounds unless they are like Lebron. So when Marco gets less rebounds the Morrow it is most likely that.

They played scrappy and were blue collar type of guys. None of them were getting 20 points and 6 or 7 assists while guarding the other teams top player. He was doing that pretty consistently for about a month until he went down.