The other point Demo made was that Batum has looked impressive in SL practices (faint praise, considering the quality of the other Blazer bigs)

If Outlaw can continue to hit 3 pointers at a good percentage, it will cut into Webster’s PT. I thought it was interesting that Travis was used more “down the stretch” of games last year, even though Martell is the better defender of the two. With Rudy coming on board, the minutes crunch at SF will get even tighter (because there won’t be any “swing” minutes leftover for Webster at the 2, and Nate says he’ll use Outlaw exclusively at the 3)

It certainly made me sit up when I heard him say that …

He comment on two things: his athleticism and his clutch play.
He noted that for trout the first bucket and the last were no different and he wanted to take the shot for both.

I used to think that Pryz was next most valuable. Sounds like trout is 4.

Cheers Alistair

I went back and listened to Dean’s comments again (Joel Meyers in parentheses) my implied words in italics and offer the following part of the interview:

Travis Outlaw too is a huuuge part of what we do. He’s one of the better…(it’s a shame the guy’s not an athlete)...Yeah ha ha .. yeah he does some things where you just like whoa did he really do that but but you know he’s one of the great clutch players – I mean young players in the league. I mean the shot at the beginning of the game is the same one to win the game at the end and uh you know, he takes it and wants to take it and makes it so uh that’s rare too so we’re real happy with him and I would consider us to have the big four and not a big three.

(Yeah and how do you slice up the pot?) That’s heh (that’s going to be the difficult aspect: minutes, rotation and how many .. the L*kers and I bring that up because I was with them this year and I’ve been with them for many years now.. they went deep – they went nine guys on a regular basis and a lot of coaches don’t like to go that deep) Yeah no question. But um it’s confusing at the moment when you have that many possibilities but you know eventually we’ll – this all will shake out. There will be real good competition and we still have a lot to learn about these guys ha ha you know cause they’re so young and you know last year with Greg being hurt – that really was our fact finding year – how does everybody play with him, you know and with him being hurt its kind of set us back but then we had such a productive year the expectations rise along with it so uh you knw this should be the fact finding year, really to find out exactly who these guys are with Greg in the lineup and uh – but its not going to be we’re going to be considered to be a team that’s on the bubble to make the playoffs and should make the playoffs and that would be our goal as I said. We want to make the playoffs. You can’t win it if you are not in it.

Travis is absolutely a key player. After all, he averaged 14.3 ppg over the last 66 games coming off the bench while playing both SF and PF. And this year, he dropped the fishing to stay in shape and improve. We tend to forget that Champions aren’t just about the stars. Coaches routinely say that the next most valuable players on teams are those that can put points on the board, and cover two positions, as opposed to one. This is why if Frye, who’s been working all summer to improve his shot, can add more points when playing, that you may not see him traded in the future as well. He gives us a credible bench player at both the C and PF spots.

KP has made comments that also back up these observations. Travis may not be “ideal” in some ways, but he brings offensive talents to the table that equally cause all kinds of problems for competitors in other ways. How many SF’s can actually guard the guy – for example (not many). And if he starts tearing up the opposing teams SF, it forces the PF or Center to double over – because no SG can have much of an impact on Travis. And that, with our front line, creates all kinds of mismatches. He’s a great piece to have on a team.