I'm confused

[NBASupes]

28 minutes ago, AHF said:

Here is how I see our defenders by minutes played:

Prince - Below average defender.  Shows some promise for the future.

Dennis - Below average defender.  Decent on ball defender and terrible off the ball defender.  

Bazemore - Average defender.  Very active but too often wasted motion and bad fouls.  Best wing/guard defender.

Beli - Below average defender.  Offense drives his value.

Collins - Below average defender.  Lots to learn.  Strong and athletic enough to improve significantly but length limits long-term upside on D.

Ilya - Below average defender.  Kind of a Korver equivalent in the frontcourt.

Delaney - Below average defender.  Can't say where his value lies.  His 39% / 35% shooting is a real improvement over last year?

Babbit - Below average defender.  Spreads the floor but doesn't do much on D.  Rotates as expected but just very limited.

Dedmon - Plus defender.  Downside is he is #9 on the team in minutes played due to injuries.

Taylor- Below average defender.

Cavanaugh - Below average defender.

Plumlee - Average defender.  Gives you near nothing on offense which makes him tough to play.  Nothing great on D but strong enough to man up on the interior.

Bembry - Average to below average defender.  Has shown flashes of being a plus defender but has struggled at other times.  Seems to vary game to game more than most of our team.  Overall probably below average at this point.

Muscala - Below average.  

Dorsey - Below average.

 

Add up a bunch of below average players and you get a pretty dismal defense.

 

I mainly just disagree on Bazemore. He's a good defender based on his responsibilities that he can handle and versatility. That said, his decision making and inconsistencies drop from plus to above average for me.

[sturt]

Just sayin, my working theory accommodates that observation @Peoriabird.

[lethalweapon3]

 "I'm Just Telling You I'm Trying To Win So I Don't Get Fined."

~budshawn

[Peoriabird]

The game was managed well tonight by Bud...What happened to the tank plan?

[nathan2331]

The game was managed well tonight by Bud...What happened to the tank plan?

You can only "retool" for so long before you have to " remain competitive" again.

[Peoriabird]

3 minutes ago, nathan2331 said:

6 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

The game was managed well tonight by Bud...What happened to the tank plan?

 

You can only "retool" for so long before you have to " remain competitive" again.

Is this what politicians call spin?

[nathan2331]

Is this what politicians call spin?

More or less.

[sturt]

10 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

The game was managed well tonight by Bud...What happened to the tank plan?

I'm getting the feeling my working theory has been dismissed as a rational option.

But I'm okay with that.

[HawkItus]

You still need to instill the correct way to play even if you aren't trying to win.  You instruct to foul when the game is close and a poor foul shooter is out there.  You still place guys in teachable situations.   This team sucks though so we will lose if try to or not..

[AHF]

11 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

The game was managed well tonight by Bud...What happened to the tank plan?

Less about what Bud did and more about what Denver didn't do (come to play).  Bud isn't going to put Dennis on the bench for 2 months or anything but I strongly think he is on board with generally losing a #$* ton of games by design.  We aren't going to lose them all.

For me, it is the difference between being a really bad team (which we would be anyway with this talent) and going for the #1 pick.   That might be an additional 5-10 losses over the course of the entire season.

[lethalweapon3]

As a fence-straddling Sixers fan in the 90s, it grated my ears to no end to hear Larry Brown incessantly preaching about Playing The Right Way, usually in reference to an oft-flustered A.I., After it paid off with the Sixers, Brown took his PTRW show on the road from one coaching gig after another, for a decade more. As @HawkItus suggested, I find similar PTRW allusions to Mike Budenholzer's lineup and sub choices, specifically when it comes to those he sees as part of the Hawks' future core.

Coach Bud is giving Schröder the similar treatment a 19-year-old low-first-rounder, Tony Parker, got under Coach Pop's watch, thrown in as a rookie starter for Antonio Daniels after less than five games and sparking a seven-game winning streak. Although, while the Frenchmen's penance involved frequently riding the pine and taking notes from 38-year-old former NBA Finalist Terry Porter, on a 58-win veteran-laden title contender, Schro gets to watch as a 28-year-old Euroball journeyman demonstrates, at least, what not to do, on a team that would do well to reach 30 wins by this season's end.

A late NBA bloomer and a brief Larry Brown disciple, Bruce Bowen wasn't even starting in the league until he neared age 30, earning All-Defensive honors in Miami and then joining sophomore Parker on the Spurs' top line in 2002-03. But if he wasn't putting in the effort demanded at both ends, he would also catch splinters, while the likes of Danny Ferry, Steve Smith, and Malik Rose presented more of what Pop and Bud were looking for on the floor on a given night.

Being in The Spurs Crucible paid off dividends just one season later. Bowen was an inconsistent perimeter shooter, but that next season, he led the whole NBA in 3-point accuracy. His 3-and-D and Parker's relentless offensive attack helped Timmy and The Admiral win 60 games and thwart the reign of Kobe and Shaq's Lakers, in LA, in a six-game semifinal, along the way to earning their first NBA rings (the franchise's 2nd in 5 years) against Jason Kidd's Nets.

You can take more risks developing unproven talents on the fly when you have a secure staff, and when they're bookended by Springfield-bound dudes like Duncan and Robinson. Leading the way off the bench for San An as they closed the curtain on the Lakers? A 25-year-old late-second-round rookie named Emmanuel Ginobili. Forget making it to age 40 in the NBA, we don't even know his name outside of the Olympics, had the Argentinian not PTRW'd to Pop and his top lieutenants' specifications. It was easy for all to see the Hall of Fame credentials of Duncan and Robinson coming. Not so much for Parker, or Ginobili, or even a distant shot for Bowen, before they got a hold of The Spurs Way.

Thanks to a near-perfect storm of franchise (mis)fortune and personal commitment, Bud knows he has job security in Atlanta, regardless of the results in the W-L column, this year and at least the next one. He no longer has mythical NBA title contention dreams, or even ill-conceived Playoff Guarantees, by his bosses hanging in the balance, while his current staff develops players for the future.

Inexperienced playing together, relative to most of their peers, those players will take their lumps and win games if they can. But when it comes to game-to-game victory, it's a matter of How -- not How Many -- that matters right now.

So if Dennis is having a Bad Hair Day when it comes to effort as a defender, and/or decision-making as a ballhandler, there's no skin off Bud's back if he rides Malcolm Delaney in the clutch to a 1-point loss on a random January in L.A. Alternatively, if Dennis gets back in and saves the day, does he learn the PTRW lessons Bud wanted to convey, or is his mind clouded by his own momentary highlights and news clippings?

If Taurean, or Johnny Bap, or even Baze, is falling short of PTRW with inexcusable lapses, why wait months and years, until our franchise's future Statues and Retired Jerseys get here, to sit them down? Their replacements come in, and another hard-earned lead evaporates into thin air... sure, it's disappointing to the players, but does the world fall off its axis, really? Appearances in Conference Finals aren't up for grabs, and won't be for some time. By the time they are, though, Bud wants those subjected to The Hawks Crucible, now and in the near future, to be steeled, ready to Win The Right Way.

~lw3

[Peoriabird]

Bud seems to allow Prince to get away with a lot more than others...Prince is a turnover waiting to happen when he turns into a dribble machine. He was particularly determined last night and Bud did nothing!

[Peoriabird]

Why can't y'all admit that you are wrong about Bud...There is very little evidence to support the notion that he is not trying to win games. He plays the players he thinks gives him the best chance to win each and every game. You can't assume he is not because you don't agree with his personnel decisions.

[AHF]

2 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Why can't y'all admit that you are wrong about Bud...There is very little evidence to support the notion that he is not trying to win games. He plays the players he thinks gives him the best chance to win each and every game. You can't assume he is not because you don't agree with his personnel decisions.

You see everything through the worst lens with Bud.  I agree with some of your criticisms but I don't buy in at all that he is doing everything he can to win every game like you seem to think.

[Peoriabird]

26 minutes ago, AHF said:

You see everything through the worst lens with Bud.  I agree with some of your criticisms but I don't buy in at all that he is doing everything he can to win every game like you seem to think.

Where is the evidence that he isn't?

[Peoriabird]

I want this to sink in for those who are a tad bit confused about Bud's desire to purposefully lose games.

Ultimately they, the Front offices might “tank” for the lottery in the way they build the roster, but coaches and players don’t tank. It’s against their financial self-interest to do so and, in nearly every case, it also runs counter to their pride and sense of professionalism.

Budenholzer’s job is clear: Win games and develop his young players. Really, that’s always been his job. It’s just that the organizational focus has shifted more to the latter. Whether that’s what Budenholzer would rather do is beside the point because it’s what he’s being paid to do.

 

 

[AHF]

50 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

I want this to sink in for those who are a tad bit confused about Bud's desire to purposefully lose games.

Ultimately they, the Front offices might “tank” for the lottery in the way they build the roster, but coaches and players don’t tank. It’s against their financial self-interest to do so and, in nearly every case, it also runs counter to their pride and sense of professionalism.

Budenholzer’s job is clear: Win games and develop his young players. Really, that’s always been his job. It’s just that the organizational focus has shifted more to the latter. Whether that’s what Budenholzer would rather do is beside the point because it’s what he’s being paid to do.

 

 

Disagree.  I expect he has been told in no uncertain terms that his job is not to win the most games possible this season.  Bud's financial future will be much better off getting a star with one of the league's worst records so he can nurture that star than it would be winning another 8 games this season and being stuck with a worse roster next year.  Unless you think Bud's next contract will be based more on his team's W/L record this season than it will be where the team is at when he is up for a new deal, then the incentive is actually the opposite.

If Bud coaches a contender, he will be in a position to make a lot more money than by coaching an also-ran or lottery team that exceeds expectations but doesn't have the star talent to be particularly good.

[Peoriabird]

3 minutes ago, AHF said:

Disagree.  I expect he has been told in no uncertain terms that his job is not to win the most games possible this season.  Bud's financial future will be much better off getting a star with one of the league's worst records so he can nurture that star than it would be winning another 8 games this season and being stuck with a worse roster next year.  Unless you think Bud's next contract will be based more on his team's W/L record this season than it will be where the team is at when he is up for a new deal, then the incentive is actually the opposite.

If Bud coaches a contender, he will be in a position to make a lot more money than by coaching an also-ran or lottery team that exceeds expectations but doesn't have the star talent to be particularly good.

1st of all, those 2 paragraphs came from an article written by the AJC not me. Secondly, when does all this winning start? Next year? Your argument is flawed because there is no guarantee that any rookie will make you a "contender" in the very near future so why would a coach allow his future to be determined by a draft pick? Only fans think like that.

[AHF]

5 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

1st of all, those 2 paragraphs came from an article written by the AJC not me. Secondly, when does all this winning start? Next year? Your argument is flawed because there is no guarantee that any rookie will make you a "contender" in the very near future so why would a coach allow his future to be determined by a draft pick? Only fans think like that.

That is fine.  I disagree with the AJC on that.

 

Second, when does the winning start?  For Brad Stevens, it was 1 year after he "led" the team to 25 wins.

For Brett Brown it was after 4 years of losing.  

 

Brown could never have done much with those rosters so he will only be a desirable commodity if he gets them to turn the corner into a dramatically better team.  Winning 23 games instead of 10 or 15 would have done nothing for him other than maybe cause him to miss out on Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid.  Bud's reputation will be what it is based not on whether he wins 15, 20, or 25 games this season but on what the team looks like at the end and on what he did with the team before they tanked.

[Peoriabird]

7 minutes ago, AHF said:

That is fine.  I disagree with the AJC on that.

 

Second, when does the winning start?  For Brad Stevens, it was 1 year after he "led" the team to 25 wins.

For Brett Brown it was after 4 years of losing.  

 

Brown could never have done much with those rosters so he will only be a desirable commodity if he gets them to turn the corner into a dramatically better team.  Winning 23 games instead of 10 or 15 would have done nothing for him other than maybe cause him to miss out on Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid.  Bud's reputation will be what it is based not on whether he wins 15, 20, or 25 games this season but on what the team looks like at the end and on what he did with the team before they tanked.

That's your opinion but tell that to the many coaches like Larry Drew who went thru a rebuild and hasn't coached since.