Barea

Nor'easter cuts J. Thompson, picks up Juan Jose

Jason Thompson, the rookie sensation SAC PF, has seen his stock fall a bit with the emergence of Spencer Hawes and the returns of Francisco Garcia and Li'l K-Mart. He's lost his starting gig, and his minutes have declined as well - in his last game he only played 11 minutes, scoring no points (only one FGA). His medium-term outlook is not great, but again, he's worth keeping an eye on, as he's got fine scoring and rebounding skills, and there are a lot of injury-prone types ahead of him.

Juan Jose Barea has always looked great in limited minutes, and his minutes are on the rise. The diminutive Puerto Rican PG is mostly a quickness-based penetration type scorer, not a 'handles' guy (more Barbosa circa 2006, less Arroyo). He shoots 3s well, but doesn't take them often - we suspect his lack of height requires him to be wide open to get a good look. He can fill it up, in any event, and put up a lovely 18/3/4 line tonight in his first start at SG. With J-How injured, and the many other tryouts at SG having shown little (G-Green, B-Bass, A-Wright), we might see more of Juan Jose, though I suspect that playing against an undersized PHX team is the main reason he started and throve tonight.

Judgment: We like J.J. - ad J-Thomp is probably useless for a while. Though the recent additions of Gordon, Barea, and McCants will surely provide some points and 3s, we are concerned that Nor'Easter has overshot the mark, and is now rather weak in the BigManCats, despite Dwight and T-Dunc.