John A.: Atlanta Dream happy with Tiff

[VAMike23]

As Scotter pointed out, Geno has been saying that Kelly is the team's best pure athlete for awhile now. If she were that much of an offensive liability then she would fall into the late 2nd or 3rd round. But even in the 'downside' scenario she is not that much of an offensive liability because she can both score and assist in transition, consistently, even against top competition. You simply have got to be able to do that in the W.

The 'upside' scenario for her is a team that has a motion offense and/or likes to really run. OTOH, some teams rely more on having their stars create offense on their own - probably not such a good fit for Kelly there.

She can make an 11-player roster, IMO, as long as she continues to sharpen up her offensive toolkit. She is a great rebounding guard/wing but in the W she is not going to be playing (by design) down low very much, so she will need to keep honing her midrange game and get more consistent with a few good scoring moves. She can do that.

 

[Scotter]

Bruce Bown isn't really right. She's not that limited. Nate McMillan is probably a better comparison for capturing what she is, along with some other big defensive guards that weren't scorers, but could defend 3 positions and had the handles and passing ability to play point.

I do agree that Artest and Rodman are not good comparisons insomuch as Artest was a skilled offensive player in his heyday and Rodman was an historically great rebounder. I'd suggest Bruce Bowen might be a better analogy.

 

[MilfordHusky]

Actually, Cam, Kelly's SPARQ scores are emendous.

Emendous? Constantly being changed? Is there forgery?

 

[OneTrickPony]

Rodman is one of the best rebounders in the history of the game. He led the NBA in rebounds per game for a record seven consecutive years. His career average of 13.1 rebounds per game is better than Dwight Howard, Charles Barkley, Tim Duncan, etc. He was not just a lock-down defender; he was the best rebounder in the NBA looking back at the last 40 years.

Artest/MWP, for all of his mental issues and off-court (and on-court) shenanigans, is a supreme athlete (with tremendous upper body strength) who was a scorer before he went to the Lakers (he averaged over 18 points per game for the previous seven seasons before joining the Lakers).

Solely being a defender without bringing a professional level skillset in another area is not usually enough. And with the roster size limited to 11 players, there is no room for someone to only be a defender, "irrespective of their offensive contributions."

Regarding your statement that "she can be an effective shooter if she doesn't have to play 35 minutes at the 4 against much bigger players," last year, when she was the de factor four, was actually Kelly's best year as far as shooting percentages (43.8 percent from the floor, 31.5 percent from three).

Nevertheless, teams do keep certain players on the roster who are only "shooters" who really cannot do much of anything else, as far as a professional skillset is concerned (Laurie Koehn and Erin Thorn come to mind, though Thorn did learn to diversify her game at some ponit with the Liberty). So there is always a chance.

By the way...1974...very good year!

My comparison of Kelly Faris with Rodman and Artest occurred to me because in his Detroit Piston days...before the heavy rebounding stats...Rodman had the unenviable task of covering Michael Jordan. He made Jordan work so hard that Jordan lobbied to get Rodman on the Bull's roster...Jackson concurred. Same scenario with Kobe Bryant...he lobbied to pull a well-known head-case onto the Lakers, because he knew first-hand what he could do on the defensive end. Phil Jackson concurred again, and is probably still gritting his teeth thinking about Artest's shot selection.

 

[Icebear]

Emendous? Constantly being changed? Is there forgery?

Trrrrrrrrr.