Coaches in Washington & Dallas have asked their point guards to shoot more. Boy, have things changed!! To me, point guard has long been synonymous with shot hog!

~Adam

My gripe is that some point guards are ball hogs and tend to over dribble the ball. Damon Stoudamire used to do this a lot. Steve Nash & Steve Francis tend to over dribble and Stephon Marbury and Baron Davis like to monopolize the ball.

But, on the other hand, some point guards are the best scoring options on their team (B.Davis and G.Arenas; G.Payton when he was with Seattle). I think Van Gundy is getting Steve Francis to give up the ball more.

And the masters like Jason Kidd and John Stockton now/knew that the point guard has to mix it up, and score when necessary.

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Related to scoring... heard an interview with Mark Cuban when the Mavs were in Toronto last week. He was asked why he thought there have been so many dreadfully low scoring games this season. He had some good points:

- coaches coaching not to lose, rather than to win
- emphasis on half-court offense; slowing the game down to get a good shot often just wastes time and you still don't get a good shot; quick shots are frowned upon
- salary cap and luxury cap: teams can't afford to have veterans shooters on their bench (guys like Dell Curry) and so stock up on young, unproven players

The Raptors used to have this promotion where if they score over 100points, fans can redeem their ticket stub for a free pizza slice. Yet in 6 games, their highest score is 90 (their lowest is 56). 100 looks like Mt. Everest. Apparently they're now drawing a number before the game.