Gilbert Arenas was/is a great player because of his combination of outside shooting, first step, and ability to finish or draw contact at the rim.  Using those skills, he became a superstar by shooting a lot of threes, layups, and free throws. 

But what do you think happens to that type of player when the opponent is able to pack the paint?  Goodbye layups and free throws.  The only shots left are threes, but without the threat of the drive to the basket, those are now contested shots.

So, why is the opponent able to pack the paint now?  Simple - our bigs are worthless away from the basket, so the opponent's bigs are free to just hang around the paint, ready to stop Gilbert's drives.

The crowded paint is also a stifling problem for Blatche, Thornton, and Wall.

One solution is for our guys to get better at the pick and roll.  They should work on this anyway, because there's a lot of potential there.  A good pick and roll gives our bigs something constructive to do away from the basket and opens up the paint for drives and cuts.

Another solution is for one or more of our bigs to develop a decent outside shot.  Booker is showing some promise.  They're not dropping yet, but hopefully they will soon.

Putting Yi on the court fixes the problem but introduces a bunch of different ones.

The bad news is that with our current personnel, we currently have no viable solution.  The good news is that we have lots of different player development routes to explore to find a solution. 

Have patience.

Editor's Note: Front-paged, because to me, this is one of the ultimate what-if scenarios out there.  Let's go back to 2008 for a second.  Antawn Jamison has a $16 million expiring contract, and the Grizzlies are cutting costs and putting Pau Gasol on the market.  Let's say Ernie Grunfeld tried to make Jamison the centerpiece of a package to get Gasol (maybe something like Jamison/Nick Young/first-rounder for Gasol and a bad contract).  How would that have affected the entire way these last two seasons happened?  Was Gasol the perfect fit for Eddie Jordan's offense?  Would he have worked with Gilbert?

It's a cool topic to think about on a Friday, that's for sure.

I was thinking about the Eddie Jordan teams and how we could never find a good center for his Princeton offense.  In hindsight, who would have been great in that offense that might have been gettable?  Best answer I could come up with is Pau Gasol.  What if the Wizards had been the beneficiaries of that ridiculous trade with Memphis?  (And if Gilbert hadn't happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when an out of control Gerald Wallace went sprawling through the lane.)  Would it have increased our chances at getting Gasol if we had kept Juan Carlos Navarro instead of DeShawn?  (As an aside, do scruffy beards somehow improve big men's court vision?  Pau and Marc Gasol, Vlade Divac, Bill Walton, Brad Miller....)

[Editor's Note: Bumped, because I agree (and because it's interesting to discuss).  I'll have more on this game later - real work calls. -MP].

Our problem is simple:  too many scorers.  Gilbert has a usage rate of 30.2%, Antawn is at 24.7%, and Caron 22.2%.  Brendan is a relatively modest 13.9%, but that's probably just because the other players don't pass him the ball that often.  For those keeping score at home, the total usage rate for those four players comes out to 91.0%.  Mike Miller was our fifth starter with a rate of 12.7%, so the total for the starting lineup came out to a reasonable 103.7%.  Unfortunately, Miller got hurt, so Flip has been scrambling to find a replacement.  Also unfortunately, we don't have a good replacement.

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for Keyon Dooling, Eduardo Najera, and Brook Lopez.  We get extra depth where we need it at point guard, power forward, and center.  The Nets get Dooling and Najera's salaries off their books to get extra cap space for 2010.  The teams swap young, talented centers: Lopez is more polished and a better fit for a "win now" team like us, while JaVale is more exciting and has more upside for a rebuilding team like the Nets.