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There are plenty of players how can't be shut down...Dirk for one. You can't just say "ok, tighten up on Dirk now"..he'll still kill you. Jamison isn't like that. He gets a lot of points by catching you off guard with his flip shots.
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Well, of course it's easier to stop AJ than Dirk. That's the essence of why Dirk's a franchise player and AJ isn't. But it's not as simple as just saying: okay, we're going to stop AJ now. If it was teams would do it all the time.
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Understand my argument. I’m saying I’d rather have an on Walker than an on Jamison. Walker is only going to be on certain nights, but when he is he affects a game more because he can do more than Jamison. Jamison is a pure scorer and a good offensive rebounder because he’s a quick leaper. But even that’s negated when the game gets tight.
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An on Walker is better than an on AJ not because Walker can do more. An on Walker is better than an on AJ because Walker TRIES to do more. Of course, none of that changes the fact that AJ had a +/- of +2.9 and Walker had a +/- of -7.6.
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Jamison was fortunate to come to a winning team last year, but he didn’t really help us much. Hell, he shot 49% in games we lost.
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I'll site the above noted +/- stats and the study I did last year of the AJ/Dirk on-court pairing. As for the 49% bit, that might mean something if AJ were a 49% shooter, but the fact of the matter is that he was a 53.5% shooter with us, meaning he almost certainly shot better than 54% in our wins. IMO it's quite easy to put together a case for him having been a winning player for us.
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He’s in the East now, do you think he’ll help Washington make the playoffs?
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Honestly, I haven't given the Wizards enough consideration to feel comfortable opining about their post-season chances and how AJ will fit, though it's obviously no secret that I think well of him as a player. I will say this: I doubt AJ will ever again be on a team that fits his gifts as well as the Mavs did last year, and if we'd had a healthy Raef instead of Walker I think the match would have been even better.