He's not a defensive stopper though. He's a weakside shot blocker, like a Marcus Camby. Camby's not stopping anyone. The issue with his shot is that it does take a little while to get it off, he does keep double-teams somewhat honest though because he can shoot it and if given the space will. He just isn't looking for it unless he's pretty damn open, and most of the time "double teams" aren't coming from Cooper's man, unless... funnily enough, he's on the weakside and Ballinger or Schensch is posting up... and in those situtions its the same exact thing as if it were Schensch or Ballinger over there, the D is gong to help from there regardless. Because that's not a double team by definition, its help D and coaches would rip strips if the D DIDN'T go and help, regardless who their man is. You pressure the immediate threat. The burden falls on the ball-handler to try and hit the open man or finish. The funny thing is, most of the time Balinger can finish in there, in fact I'd say he's a better bet to finish than his vision is for finding the open man.
Any time I see Ballinger creating stuff with the pass I'm pretty damn pleased because its about the only weakness (and its not blatantly obvious) to probably the most rounded player in the league. I was thrilled a couple of weeks back to see him and Schensch hook up on a high-low, purely because he managed to make the pass, despite the fact that if Schensch were any other player, and not a 7'1" tree with a mile long armspan, the ball would have sailed out the western gate and into the parking lot... More thrilled that he saw the pass and managed to get it to the man at all than how good the pass was.
