nathan2331

I'd do it if I knew Delon would be healthy moving forward. Delon to me is about as good as it gets as a backup PG without acquiring and benching someone else who was starting like the Celtics did with Brogdon.

14 hours ago, MarylandHawk said:

Does anybody think that Bogi is low-key being selfish because he was told he was going to be a bench player this year?  He seems to scoff at that assertion every-time someone brings it up to him. I think as long as he thought he was competing for a starting role, he was ok with putting his body on the line. Now that he has be relegated to a bench role, he is playing it super safe. 

I think he should take as long as he needs to get fully healthy. Having him 100% for the playoffs is more important than these early regular season games.

3 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

When Supes starts cussing at you, you posted something good. 

The fact that he's at the bottom percentile of ALL of those advanced metrics you just listed, means that Dre isn't great at anything.  Nada.  He's that B- / C+ student in high school that teachers see potential in, and tries to encourage him to try harder to make better grades.  But Dre is content with being that B- student, because it's a passing grade, and he's not willing to put in the extra effort to be great at even one thing.

So once again, great post.

 

Just accept that he's a low energy player that just tries to do his job.  Nothing more.  He's going to make very few game changing plays on both ends of the floor.  He's just going to be solid on most nights.  And he doesn't strive to be great at anything.

As long as we have 3 - 4 other players who are capable to play at a high level on any given night, what Dre is doing is OK.

Cherish what you see here, because you may never see this out of Dre ever again.  AJ will have a game like this before Dre ever does in the future.

 

 

 

 

This is such a bad take. Hunter doesn't get the ball enough to do anything more in the offense on a regular basis. Obviously Dre isn't going to start averaging 30 points if he played on a different team, but he could do more if this offense diversified. So long as our offense remains heliocentric, playing next to Trae will diminish players because their opportunities become dependent on what Trae is able to generate for everyone. And that's not a criticism of Trae, that's on coaching.

Supes already pointed it out, but we are dead last in passes per game. That's the biggest problem holding us back. The offense relies too much on Trae and Murray to create scoring opportunities and everyone is suffering for it. Despite the talent we have, we're not generating enough good looks with ball movement. Our evolution from having a heliocentric revolving around Trae was to just add a second Sun in Murray, and it's not working.

1 minute ago, terrell said:

Poor JC is an absolute trainwreck... Good luck getting rid of that contract..

He's never shot this bad before in his career. He'll turn it around.

23 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

It's crazy how many GMs either flat out missed, or didn't want to take a chance on AJ.  He showed flashes of this at Duke.  Did they not think this would translate on the NBA level?

GMs probably focused on his diminished athleticism and looked past the skillset he brings to the table. Granted there were a lot of talented wings in this past draft, but there's a reason a lot of bad teams stay bad for a while.

37 minutes ago, Sothron said:

Hunter does two things. He shoots catch and shoot threes at a good clip. He plays good man defense. He literally does nothing else. He has a career of multiple seasons where he has shown he only does two things. He is the literal definition of a 3&D player. I don't honestly know how anyone could possibly think higher of him than that.

He's been more aggressive attacking the rim recently and he can put the ball on the floor to get good looks for himself. The list of things Hunter doesn't do is longer, so I get your frustration, but considering he shares the court with two high usage guards, I really don't think we need more from him in that position. Making Griffin a starter now won't make us a better team, even if he does have a wider skillset. We need defense the most which Hunter provides.

3 minutes ago, terrell said:

What did Capela do tonight to play more then OO , and what did the Holidays do to play more than Jalen?

And John Collins didn’t grab 1 defensive rebound all game. Not 1. Wow. Other than those made 3’s he did nothing.

Cavs were on a back to back and outworked us..

The Cavs only had 3 offensive rebounds... Do you want Collins to outrebound his teammates? Our bigs played well enough tonight. We however can't have Murray playing as awful as he did tonight. Just one of those games.

3 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

It was always a pipe dream and lip service when it comes to Trae ever developing off the ball.  I don’t fault him at all either it’s hard af, no one demands any from him, and he got paid for being on it all the damn time anyway.  
 

As far as the other dude I was skeptical of DJ’s off ball game coming here based on his shot types and offensive rating, and he’s done nothing to ease my doubts.  His movement off the ball to create attack space for his teammates is mediocre, I don’t even expect him to space with his shot threat.  I haven’t seen him set a single solid screen.  And his cut game is all but non-existent.  He should be a cutting machine for Trae but no.  Kevin and Bogi did it seldomly but still more than he.
 

I’d give him an off ball grade of 3 out of 10 and that’s generous.

I put it on coaching. When we run sets we're not getting quality looks and then somebody is forced to create something off the fly. As talented as we are, we shouldn't be having so many possessions where the best shot we can generate is a contested midrange shot. McMillan has got to get the ball moving in different hands. JJ is the biggest glaring example of this. As gifted as he is he has nothing drawn up for him in this offense which is a travesty. Completely uncreative coaching that's being buoyed by a very talented squad.

The Cavs guards work way harder off the ball to create opportunities for themselves. Our offense is too stagnant in comparison. Trae & Murray do not need to be always be initiating our offense. We can get them easier looks by involving other players even if it comes at the cost at more turnovers. We improvise way too much because we make ourselves easy to defend.

It's too early to make Griffin a starter. He's still a bad defender. Coming off the bench it's less of an issue because he's not on the floor against team's strongest lineups. But if you asked him to start full time, he'd be exposed consistently, especially next to Trae.

16 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

I would like to see a compilation of his 3 points shots for the season: makes vs misses.

Here you go. It gets ugly, he's going through a really bad slump right now.

8 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

Those numbers favor Clint and OO tho.

His preference doesn't work when spacing is congested. That's not his fault. That's on Murray and Trae. 

Any potential replacement is highly unlikely to be as good as JC in thar specific department as he's the best 4 in the NBA in that department. 

They are running wing actions. They are making a lot of attempts. That's always been JC game in the post, hunting for mismatches but those are a lot harder to come by with poor spacing. 

Trae usage is up because he has little consequences this year with Murray by him but his spaces is worse as well. So his on ball game is better but his shooting and off ball game is worse and it wasn't any good last year. Well the shooting was not not year. Trae could shoot his ass off last year. I said so many times, that floater is more important to Trae than his jumper. 

Those wing actions are evidence of the bad coaching I'm talking about specifically because we're not doing anything else with JC. Trying to add new wrinkles to the offense is a great thing. But when John is struggling with his shot why not play more through the post? It's not as efficient but the point is to get the ball out of our guard's hands so we can generate a good shot a different way. You can even use Collins to get the ball into the paint for someone else to score. Hunter with his size is somebody who should be able to pin smaller defenders under the basket for easy buckets like Joe Johnson used to do. But we don't try and exploit that consistently. That's just a hypothetical combination, my point is that this is too simple of an offense and I think that's what is holding us back as much as the spacing issues. 

10 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

The reason they are used more for screens is that there screens connect. JC flairs, when spacing is jacked, flairing doesn't work as we saw with Horford in Philadelphia. JC struggles is due to Murray lack of range and teams realizing Trae needs space so don't give him any. As a result, Trae is struggling offensively as is JC. Capela and OO don't need any space. They are finishers with size and bulk. JC is smaller, he needs space too. Anthony Edwards is dealing with the same shit in Minnesota after the Gobert trade.

Capela and OO are not scoring that much more effectively than Collins and the stats back that up. Collins slipping the screen quickly is just a timing/preference thing. If that was causing issues he could change that up. I don't think he sets the greatest screens ever to be sure, but that's not the problem because again any potential replacement most likely wouldn't excel in that department either. 

16 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

His touches is at Kevin level in Atlanta. He's not getting into rhythm. He's struggling because of this on offense. 

Which goes back to coaching. There are other ways to get the ball in his hands besides PnR or running JC off a screen, but coaching doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything more than that unless JC has a mismatch in the post. We're not doing enough on offense to generate better shots and it's hurting everyone besides our centers who have extra offensive rebounding opportunities lol. Trae's usage is up this season because there's less action happening when the ball is out of his hands. This coaching staff needs to steal some plays and get everyone on the court involved. We've upgraded in talent, but you can hardly see it because we're more heliocentric than ever, we just have a second sun now in Murray.

6 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

JC defense has been good, probably the best its been but not that good. 

He still struggles against size + talent. He doesn't guard Giannis or any very good PF well and he's doesn't have the same impact with OO or JJ that he had with Gallo. More than anything, we are just too small on defense, I know JJ,  Crowder, or Cam Johnson doesn't change that either, they aren't making 125 million. Who else can we replace? Capela? Why would we replace a top 3 defensive center and get better doing it. 

Offensively, that's not his fault, his impact died the minute Murray came. He gets limited touches and both Murray and Trae prefer Capela and even OO screens to JC. Hell, we running wing actions for JC just to get touches. He's the odd man out. Last year, it was either Bogi or Kevin. This year, it's JC. He's good. Hell, I really like him even if it seems I'm a hater but when we got Murray, it was the death of JC in Atlanta. He's still a good player. Damn good I should add and better than Kevin. The lack of spacing really hurts JC probably more than anyone outside of Trae. 

I don't think you're a JC hater, I just think your wrong about your critique of his fit on this team. The reason Capela and OO are used more to screen is that neither can space the floor as well as JC if JC is used in the PnR. Opposing teams are selling out to stop the lob at the rim and they're correct to do it because we haven't been able to take and make 3 point shots with any consistency this season. Replacing JC won't change that.

Murray's addition to this team doesn't make JC redundant, but it does require us to do other things outside of PnR to generate good shots because we don't have the same shooting on the perimeter. I think our offensive struggles are most highlighted when the bench comes in the game. The majority of the season so far our bench has played with very little synergy. We've got JJ who's  clearly talented, but we use him like JC when he's got a different skillset. That's on coaching, McMillan has reduced our offense to Trae/Murray PnR and off-ball screens to free up a shooter. Our talent level is getting us points, but we're having a harder time generating good shots than we should be seeing.

2 minutes ago, NBASupes said:

It's actually obvious why we would choose him to be gone. The most obvious on the team. Because he don't fit no more and his contract is impact level so he has to be an impact at least on one side of the court. He was an impact for us but we had a limit for our team's success. Sadly, JC is another casualty of Trae's horrendous defense like Kevin was.

The defense has been good this year with Trae and JC so you can't use that as an excuse. JC fits this team better than any PF you could hope to replace him with in a trade. If his shot was falling like it usually does, there would be no complaints with his game. He's doing everything else as well as you could hope besides shoot.

18 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

JC though, he’s a good player and great off the floor but in which stretch has he dominated (not even statistically) but with all the little things to a point that that we’ve gone on win streaks.

The answer to this question is that he has never dominated in that way. But with this team's current composition, which PF could? Capela is always around the rim, meaning whoever the PF is has to stay around the perimeter. That will reduce you into being a role player because the majority of PFs cannot be relied upon to create their own shot. There's no secondary action in this offense to get anyone else involved. If the PnR doesn't genreate a shot, somebody has to improvise. The most we're doing off the ball is setting screens to try and get a shooter open. The players on this team individually have improved, but this offense does little to maximize anybody's talent.

Y'all gonna call this heresy, but I think Reddish would be a better starting SF for us than Hunter right now...

8 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

He was playing in CP not sitting on the bench

And he went there because McMillan wasn't going to play him. If he was part of McMillan's plans we would've seen more of him with the Hawks. The coach has made it clear he's not interested in developing players, and I think he's a fool for that. No team is too good to incorporate rookies until they give you a reason not to.

28 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

He's better than Jalen.   He is better than Jalen right now, he is miles better than Jalen at this point in Jalen's rookie year.    Maybe Nate does know what he's doing?

Or maybe he should've played Jalen more because rookies don't improve just by sitting on the bench. A rookie shouldn't have to be playing at a high level right out the gate before they can contribute.

7 minutes ago, theheroatl said:

I don’t think Nate trusts his dribble yet and neither should you. AJ on the other hand is proving his is NBA material instantly.

We're early in the season. This is the time to figure out what JJ can and can't handle. Nate has to play him whether he likes it or not. At least put the ball in his hands in positions where he can actually make some plays. His best attributes need him to have the ball in his hands.

1 minute ago, NBASupes said:

I don't think JJ knows what he is yet at this level. He's gonna need time to figure it out.

JJ can't do anything if we don't have a role for him. We know he's got passing ability but we don't utilize it.  He's athletic, but the most we'll do is use him as a roll man. As talented as this team is, the majority of our offense is only PnR or iso. We could do a lot more.

Just now, NBASupes said:

JJ got a lot of talent. A lot of talent.

Too bad McMillan doesn't know what to do with him. JJ has no role in the offense right now besides setting screens.