Better Trade for Magic

…most of that, really. Carter does NOT need to drive the lane more — he’s forced way too many drives to the basket already, and regularly ends up trying to make low-percentage lay-ups over one or more players. What Carter needs to do is pass. If you start trying to focus on him driving now, you’re not going to convey the underlying message to him, which is “you’re the second-least efficient scorer on this team. If you have the ball, try to find the open man before you think about your own shot.”

Both Jameer and Pietrus are much more effective as three-point shooters than driving the lane. (They’re also both injury-prone.) Not saying they need to STOP driving, but I certainly wouldn’t encourage it from them.

As for Howard… he gets the ball kind of a lot already. Yes, less than last year, but a decent amount. And what do we see as a result? A lot of turnovers. And a decent amount of scoring, but at what cost? By putting the ball in to Howard, you’re inviting opponents to beat on him at will. That’s going to wear down Howard, and it’s going to make refs more likely to call “break-even” foul calls on Howard at the other end. Howard’s a threat even if he’s not shooting the ball all the time… teams know this. If they forget it, or if it turns out they can’t stop Howard, go in to Howard. But if they’ve got Howard defended, that’s good. It means someone else is probably open on the perimeter. Find an open three and shoot it.

I understand that Vince carried more of that load when Jameer was out. That was natural. But Jameer is back. And when Jameer and Vince are on the floor, Jameer should be running the point. I don’t see that happening nearly enough right now — they continue to give the ball to Vince and tell him to make the decisions. Well, Jameer’s simply better at that. Whatever you may think of Vince right now, he’s not a point guard, and he hasn’t spent the last five years with this team. Jameer is and has.