Official Game Thread: Hawks at Pacers

[Thomas]

Trae truly does not have a choice at this point. He has gotta do everything he can and more for us to be in games late right now. Hearing bitching about him is becoming more and more irritating. Just a mind numbing amount of obtainable assists which are points for us are just dropped or missed by our secondary guys. Biting my tongue for a few minutes now.  

[bleachkit]

8 minutes ago, benhillboy said:

Trae simply isn’t equipped to expend the energy nor take the punishment required to have a plus off ball game.  Steph (I try not to mention dude so much here, my bad Spud) started out on trash teams and still posted heavy assisted numbers on his 2 and 3 point shots (.321 and .621 for his career, respectively).   Trae is at .204 and .398.  He probably hasn’t set a decent screen in his career.  I saw him run the baseline for an open three once (of course he hit it)  

I’m a huge proponent of role players being able to play make at least some time.  Your best player has to make it easier on them by creating space and passing lanes.  Bruno, Evan, and Drippy are all better playmakers than their assist to turn would suggest.  When on the floor with Trae they only have 3 real options to find in scoring position.
 

Not knocking Trae at all, he’s a master entertainer with historic skill level and horse nuts. But he isn’t all of a sudden gonna expand his shoulders, lower/ strengthen his center of gravity, or wire himself to play well off the ball after it being foreign to him all his life.  
 

I never really bought into the notion of “hiding” a player on defense, it takes a special coach and elite defenders alongside him to do so.  There’s no solution to a player applying 0 pressure without the ball and his already challenged teammates playing 4 on 5.  It’s hard enough to find his extremely small target area for passes, which is why we see him running toward a pressured ball handler near halfcourt to basically get the ball handed to him as the clock dwindles.  It was an oversight by Schlenk and his scouting team wishing on a star that Trae could grow to be serviceable off the ball, let alone good.  Not as big as the oversight of not backing Trae up with a tough, floor-game minded PG.

Is he even trying to play off the ball? I have never really seen him even try to do it.

[marco102]

33 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Is he even trying to play off the ball? I have never really seen him even try to do it.

I don't know what your definition of off the ball is, but he plays off the ball every game when he's not bringing the ball up.  Just watch, he'll run around a bit and then get the ball eventually.  I mean it's not much, but  it's off the ball.

[Watchman]

12 hours ago, gurpilo said:

I think Trae is a great player but he needs to stop playing hero ball. There are a lot of possessions that is just him touching the ball until he shoots, no ball movement, nothing else until he gets the shot or the amazing assist. We will lose all games if we play like that. That is something for CLP to deal with, same happen to him and team mates at college.

It's not his fault if his teammates don't move without the ball.  It's not his fault that none of his teammates could hit the side of a barn with a bass fiddle.  It's not his fault that Schlenk assembled such a poor roster, with huge holes at backup PG and at C.  It's not his fault that Collins didn't understand or didn't care about the consequences of random drug tests.

[Spud2nique]

2 hours ago, benhillboy said:

 Steph (I try not to mention dude so much here, my bad Spud)

hell its the holidays. I was even on some Ayesha cooking show. For about 3 seconds.

[Cwell]

6 hours ago, High5 said:

Having a choice is what free agency is about. I assume at least one other team would be interested. We would rarely if ever play the 2 of them together so he'd see a significant drop in minutes. He played well as a playoff starter just last season. We could always overpay on a short deal, though.

Free Agency? Its the first half of the season. We're speaking on trades, so no he wouldn't have a choice

[Spud2nique]

2 hours ago, Thomas said:

Trae truly does not have a choice at this point. He has gotta do everything he can and more for us to be in games late right now. Hearing bitching about him is becoming more and more irritating. Just a mind numbing amount of obtainable assists which are points for us are just dropped or missed by our secondary guys. Biting my tongue for a few minutes now.  

No I agree. It’s hard to fathom searching for a point guard forever and now people pointing the finger at a guy whose pulling his weight along with entire team. I’m sorry nitpicking at Trae is not right imo.

[High5]

7 minutes ago, Cwell said:

Free Agency? Its the first half of the season. We're speaking on trades, so no he wouldn't have a choice

You're dreaming if you think we're going to make any noteworthy trades during the season.