The way he played last season is pretty much a summary of his whole career. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

When we signed Barnes I had such high hopes….

Over the season, which was marked by outside turmoil, Barnes was wholly inconsistent. It was this inconsistency that was infuriating. You described effectively that he was used out of position late in the year, but even then, he just couldn’t find any rhythm

And if you can’t find rhythm in a wide-open system, then I’m not sure how he’ll succeed in Orlando

is not only wildly inconsistent, but his best play is usually when it doesn’t matter, and he is the anti-Raja Bell as far as clutch play. I laughed when the wire copy said he was coming off his best season. Yeah, if all you see are box scores. Roland catches a glimpse of this. His rating is worse than Boris. Remember how Boris always had the worst on-court effect? Barnes is worse. Orland has to be kicking themselves for trading Ariza to the Lakers. He is now Houston’s best player. So they have Matt Barnes. Whoop-tee-doo.

There’s a reason why I approached you to talk about Barnes, because I knew you would cut to the nitty gritty.

Matt brings the good/bad, as does every player. I think some of the things you highlighted as “problems” shouldn’t be issues when he plays with the Magic, due to how the leadership/team structure is setup.

In any case, thanks for chiming in with your thoughts. Always good to have an outside perspective.

Granted Matt Barnes was turnover prone, and often took poor shots. But I still think that the Suns should have resigned him.

Someone who averages 10 ppg is a solid pickup for any team. He had a great arm for throwing outlet passes (albeit sometimes they were picked off of rattled out of bounds). He plays tough and is a decent rebounder and weak side shot blocker.

I’ve mentioned before that Gentry told Barnes in the exit interview that he has “always wanted to coach a player like him”. While some of you may chalk that up to just being polite, you can’t assume Gentry was lying. I think he saw the overall good Barnes brought to the team.

And Hawk 42, how can you say he was the ‘anti Raja Bell’ in terms of clutch play. As far as I can recollect, Barnes knocked down the game winning 3 against OKC. Give him a break.

is the key, in my opinion. when (if) the playoffs come around, id rather have a guy with slightly lower averages that you can count on than a loose cannon who does a good job 50% of the time. thats seriously what barnes was for us last season: a heads-or-tails tossup every night. there was no middle ground, so thats why his averages were misleading..