I will grant you this: Boogie was a superstar in terms of raw production. But do you want to win or do you want a guy who posts a lot of raw stats? (This is rhetorical question.)
53% TS and 0.8 assist to turnover and sporadic defense does NOT qualify as a superstar. It qualifies more as a ball hog than hall of famer.
You can't win more than 35-40 games with your main weapon playing this way unless you have a Top 5 defense. If you dispute this assertion, compare his offensive efficiency to other dominant scorers of this era and you will see Boogie ranks at bottom. This ranking corresponds not uncoincidentally to our win ratio during his tenure.
Now the good news:
Boogie could have wallowed in finger-pointing and self-pity with half a decade of team failure over the summer. He didn't. He worked his butt off and went to hot yoga.
I am one of the most critical fans on this board, and if I can recognize the undeniable incremental improvement I would like to think there is a basis to it, since if the opposite occurred I would be the first to point it out!
The guy is better. Plain and simple.
He's actually damn fun to watch like never before because he can slice and dice like never before and embarrass fools. There's a new level of chew up and spit out opponents unwitnessed over the course of his career. And if you think otherwise I don't believe you. He's just a better player including low post moves, and patiently abusing edges and lanes and space he commands on the floor. If Boogie keeps up this current pace, he becomes a legitimate superstar for the first time.
His offseason regimen leading to Olympics included dropping 20-30 pounds, variables you do not wish acknowledge, disingenuously so. These are exciting developments for passionate fans. This is a ray of hope with Willie playing like garbage, Koufos wearing same oven mitts as last year, Lawson scoring 5 PPG before last night's "explosion", Tolliver getting $8 million to sit on bench, us getting punked by LAL on our home floor, Omri going from contributor to the doghouse....and Matt Barnes becoming our best PF.
Boogie is 58% TS and 1.2 assist to turnover over 13 games.....versus 53% TS and 0.8 assist to turnover for his career. That's a dramatic uptick. All of the sudden his usage rate of 35% is justified.
In previous six years, Boogie was a guy who shot a lot turned it over a lot with occasional hot streaks. Now he's a guy you wouldn't mind see shoot more. You couldn't say that before. This is a more prominent development than anything you want to assert about his relationship with Vlade.
Let me ask you:
What did Vlade do for Boogie to get him a PF to play next to? What did he do so damn special but draft a bunch of guys playing in Reno? Vlade also brought in vets but unfortunately these vets are mediocrity personified. I don't think this engenders loyalty. It engenders frustration and status quo.
Vlade may represent family. But sometimes you want to get away from your family and form new alliances. It's like Durant going from OKC to GSW. Let's see what else is out there when current conditions are suboptimal. In the case of KD, he had a PG who wanted to dominate the ball and spotlight. In the case of Boogie, he has a GM who swung and missed a disconcerting amount of time. At some point, a sense of loyalty defers to a sense of competence. F**k loyalty, I wanna win. This is Boogie's mindset, and guys likes A-Slow-0, Willie and Koufos do nothing to appease it.
