It is official, only Mr. Beno Udrih is out for another week with a broken finger... so he cannot seek revenge for Gregg Popovich's capitalist obsessions with "hard work" and "performance-based incentives."
I do have to smirk to myself in reading Geoff Petrie's statement on the move:
Here's John Hollinger, talking about the same player:
We know Petrie's ideal point guard does not fit the traditional definition of 'point guard,' so whatever. I actually do err on the side of Petrie here, though, because San Antonio's system just doesn't allow for many assists from the point guard (or period, actually).
So how can we tell how much of a gunner mentality Udrih will bring to Sacramento? Let's look at how many shots he takes per minute compared to PGs we know a little better (all figures over the last three seasons where applicable).
Name FGA/40 FTA/40 Shots/40
Beno Udrih 14.4 2.5 15.5
Mike Bibby 16.9 5.2 19.2
Bobby Jackson 17.2 4.2 19.1
Jason Hart 11.2 3.0 12.5
Orien Greene 8.5 2.5 9.6
Shots/40 = (0.44 x FTA/40) + FGA/40 to account for number of possessions which end in FTAs
While Bibby and Jackson are certainly shoot-first point guards, Udrih is certainly a step closer to pure based on his NBA numbers to date. He will shoot more frequently than Jason Hart and Orien Greene, however -- and I'd say these numbers may additionally underestimate the difference between Udrih and Hart, because Hart has played in high-pace systems while Udrih has been on one of the slower teams. We might expect an adjustment (which is not worth computing at this point) to make it more 16.5 to 12.
We'll see about the assists. But at least we know the guy will try to shoot it a little. Whether that's good (like his .549 eFG his rookie year) or bad (like his .459 eFG last year), we'll find out.