12/19 - 1/1 Games Discussion Thread

[ProfessaPackMan]

Quote: Originally Posted by ojandpizza

They’ve shown that Bron has enough juice left that if he and AD are healthy they can be a problem for anybody, and fixed their earlier season bench problems by moving Reaves to 6th man and subbing out LeBron early to bring him back in so most of their bench minutes feature Bron+AR.. Everything else from them is just up in the air. The DLo-Cam-Prince trio as the other starters isn’t horrible, but it’s not contender level either. None of them do anything at an above average level so none of them really feel a specific role or need. Even looking back to last years group, you knew Vando was going to defend the best player, crash the glass, play the cutter/dunker spot. You knew Dennis was going to check all the quick guards. Reaves was the secondary play-maker. Rui would play the 5 spot on defense and allow AD roam. The 3 guys out there for them now are just sorta out there. Ham doesn’t do a good job at all of staggering his offensive/defensive oriented guys and every night it feels like it’s a puzzle to figure out if they are going to try to win a game with defense and controlling pace, or by going shot for shot hoping to just out score the other team. Ham can’t decide if he wants to play Wood or not, doesn’t know how to manage Rui’s minutes at all since basically just making him a LeBron backup, hasn’t been able to find a role for Vando since he got back. Some games Christie starts some games he gets DNPs. Vincent being out basically the whole year leaves a little uncertainty of what issues could be resolved by him being available but overall they feel like a team that really really needs to be able to consolidate 3-4 of these players into 1 or 2 players who actually fill need for them. Only issue is with how little impact DLo has had I’m not sure there is a realistic trade for them to make. I don’t believe there is a team in the league that would want him as a starting PG right now other than possibly bottom of the standings teams like San Antonio or Detroit. I realize 90% of the league has all these same issues the first 20-30 games into the season. Injuries, roster turnover, figuring out rotations, etc.. but for a team that made the conference finals and then supposedly “won the off-season” they look like a giant mess of uncertainty. They have zero identity outside of AD looks motivated and Bron still has juice left. Which of course comes crashing down the moment one/both of them misses a couple weeks straight. Ham as a head coach still feels a bit shaky to me as well, at least the front office didn’t give him 3-4 guys under 6’4 he could play at the same time this year.

*100% of the league has these same issues.

[ojandpizza]

Quote: Originally Posted by ProfessaPackMan

*100% of the league has these same issues.

I don't believe the good teams have this issue, at least not at the rotation/role/identity level, maybe the other stuff. I don't believe Ham truly knows from a game to game level what he should expect from Prince/Cam/DLo or what he even expects from himself to ask of them. No good team has 3 of their 5 starters with what looks like undefined roles on a game to game basis..

Players have good/bad nights, and hot/cold streaks, but Boston knows the role guys like White, Porzingis, Horford, Jrue have to fill for them to win games. Milwaukee knows what Lopez, Portis, Middleton, Beasley, Crowder need to do for them to win games even if Gainnis and Dame are still figuring out chemistry. Oubre is a bit of a wildcard but outside of him Philly knows the exact role everyone else in that rotation needs to fill for them to win games. Nuggets, Thunder, T-Wolves, all in the same boat.

Lakers don't have that. They know what to expect from Bron/AD/Reaves and that's about it. Half the other rotation guys probably couldn't even honestly answer if they knew if they were going to play 30 minutes the next game or 8 minutes the next game.

DLo-Reaves-Vando-Bron-AD have played exactly 1 minute together this year.. That staring 5 made the conference finals just 6 months ago.. Rui playing the 6th man role played about the first half of these games this year only seeing the floor when LeBron sat. That has changed a bit since letting Bron play with the bench unit but the two of them still only see about 6 minutes a night together. The "closing" line-up from last year that featured Reaves-Bron-Rui-AD and one of DLo/Dennis, those 4 have seen exactly 32 minutes of court time together this entire season.

They feel like a team in desperate need of a trade even if it's a lateral trade in terms of "talent" just to get one role player who does at least something well and a team that is dangerously close to finding a new coach/promoting Phil Handy.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Lol the good teams definitely have those issues, especially over the course of an 82 game season.

Denver might be the exception but everything else you said, those same fans are saying about their teams. ESPECIALLY Rotations because fans will ALWAYS have an issue with that, minutes distribution, what to run/not run, etc lol

You focus on the Lakers more, for obvious reasons, to the point where you’re pretty much a fan at this point so your views on them will be way more “in depth” compared to a team you don’t watch as much. Now if you were to switch the Lakers out with the Bucks/Boston or any other “good team”, you’d have similar thoughts about them as well.

[ggsimmonds]

Most commonly cited by fans as reason for a loss:
NFL: playcalling
NBA: rotation

Hell even after a win you'll still see fans critiquing those items. "Glad we won but our (playcalling or rotation) in the second half almost gave the game away"

[ojandpizza]

Quote: Originally Posted by ProfessaPackMan

Lol the good teams definitely have those issues, especially over the course of an 82 game season. Denver might be the exception but everything else you said, those same fans are saying about their teams. ESPECIALLY Rotations because fans will ALWAYS have an issue with that, minutes distribution, what to run/not run, etc lol You focus on the Lakers more, for obvious reasons, to the point where you’re pretty much a fan at this point so your views on them will be way more “in depth” compared to a team you don’t watch as much. Now if you were to switch the Lakers out with the Bucks/Boston or any other “good team”, you’d have similar thoughts about them as well.

idk Pack.. You're right I'm going to follow/notice the Lakers more than most teams because I watch them more than probably all of but 4-5 teams. And You're right that at some point in the season every team will have issues similar, and you're right that fans are always going to point to things like rotations when things look rough..

But... I don't know how many teams with championship aspirations are willingly bringing it on to themselves to this magnitude.. Like Joe Mazzulla isn't going to wake up tomorrow and be like "this Brown, Tatum, White, Horford combo has won us a lot of games the past couple of years. I think maybe I should stop playing them together.".. Milwaukee isn't going to bench Lopez when they know they need his rim-protection to let Giannis be Giannis on defense and his floor spacing to keep the floor open for Giannis. Lakers made it their primary objective to bring back 6 of their main 7 rotation players from last year. Everyone but Dennis. Despite that the 5-man rotation of DLo/Reaves/Vando/Bron/AD has logged literally 1 minute together, the 5-man rotation of DLo/Reaves/Rui/Bron/AD has logged zero minutes together.. That was a conference finals rotation.

Ham mentioned he didn't want to tweak line-ups too much because of chemistry but that IS their established chemistry. I understand splitting minutes some. He had to fix the bench woes because Bron's on/off splits was sitting at like +40 the first month into the season. So I get that. But he's still starting Cam, who has had some decent games, but there is also a reason he never even cracked rotations on lottery teams too. He's a starting SG who can't shoot but he's there to defend, but that's also why they start Prince. And Vando is their best defender, Rui is better all around than either of them..

It just doesn't make sense. And I don't have the confidence in him to figure out how to manage having 5-6 guys who can all play on the "wing" just like he couldn't manage having 5-6 guys who were all "guards" last year. They have to trade off of redundancy to save Ham from himself, again, or just let the dude go.

Regardless there is too much decent talent on the team for them to have a starting line-up that barely breaks positive, one their best rotations shouldn't be Bron/Reaves/Rui/Hayes/Reddish but Ham refusing to have AD in that Hayes spot for even a single minute this year to see how he could maximize that even more when he has a conference finals from last year featuring those main 4 in his closing line-ups to fall back on as well.

Call it armchair GM/armchair coach whatever but it's just incompetence to a degree. We had voice clips of Bron having to tell Phil Handy that he can play PG too and he wants to see the floor with Reaves and Rui before Ham even made that change. It just shouldn't come to that. It's like watching the Blatt team, or the team Frank coached after they traded away all his bigs and defensive players knowing he was a defensive coach.

[jeebs9]

Sixers turnover after turnover vs the Raptors

[jeebs9]

All that and Philly is only down 2 points

[jeebs9]

Quote: Originally Posted by ggsimmonds

I'm ashamed to admit that I have not caught one Thunder game yet this season. I need to change that.

One of the things I've loved about the Thunder the last 3 years. It's been their fight in games most would think is over. I will always remember the 2 games they faced the Lakers came back from 20 point leads. SGA hitting that logo 3 pointer at the Lakers. They are never out of a game.