We need forward(s)

Here comes the classic kneejerk.

Our guards are OK . Thin ... But if healthy then our 3 man guard unit is up there with the league's elite.

Our centers are also OK. Clint and nene and Harrell are not elite by any means , but they accept and know their roles .... Defensively they are solid individual defenders but could stand to improve as rim protectors .

Here comes the problem .... Forwards .

Ariza is what he is , a bottom tier starter and looks to be declining on the end that makes him his money .

Brewer . Probably one of the worst players in the NBA. Absolutely detrimental to playing as a cohesive 5 man unit .

Dekker . I think he's got great potential , but he is far away from putting it together as a CONSISTENT NBA player. He makes too many mistakes ( understandable) and doesn't have an elite skill to compensate yet.

Anderson .. He has been incredibly disappointing . Not as great a shooter as I've hoped and at times he seems timid with the ball . Aside from shooting provides limited defense and negligble passing or other types of scoring

In sum , we need a new forward

 

Once again our forwards are doing nothing . It's frustrating seeing the same 4 players consistently be inconsistent . Dekker has some excuse given he's rookie . But Anderson has such a little girl mentality that he won't even do the one thing we brought him on to do ... ( shoot)

Ariza is what he is . He would be incredibly potent if we could limit him to ~ 25 minutes a game .

Won't even comment on Brewer

 

I'm not sure DMO is the answer . Im not sold on his athleticism right now and we need someone who can stay in front of their man . Dmo WAS a good defender once up one a time because he knew where to be and was fairly quick .

I haven't watched that much of him this year , but he doesn't have his athleticism back yet . He would be no better than Ryan Anderson defensively right now . Sure he's a better passer , but also a worse shooter.

 

Is he ? Or is this just who he is ?

He's always been a chucker , but this season is interesting . He's shooting the 3 point percentage in his career on high attempts , yet his overall scoring is down .

He's not getting any boards .

He doesn't have the physical tools to play defense.

What can we do to maximize him ? His dirk shot was a thought , but he can't buy one this year.

 

I think we are going to wait till the deadline. The potential of our forwards and how our forwards have preformed is not equivalent.... but we need to make some changes and maybe take a chance or two. Its worth looking at in-house options before trying to trade ( of course excluding brewer )

Dekker's a real prospect. He's got athleticism, IQ, and a shot. How consistent is the shot ? Can he learn from defensive mistakes ? I don't think he's ready to start at any point this year, but I love playing him with Harden and Bev.

Ariza is still 100 percent serviceable. If we could somehow get him down to 30 per game ( preferably high 20's ) then he's got a chance to be an elite role player for his 3 and D role....... Rested Ariza shoots so much better than tired Ariza.

That alone wouldn't be a huge issue, because its a slight disadvantage at the 3, but if you could play Ariza 28 mpg and Dekker 20 I feel that the spot would be fine.

The problem comes from the 4. Now, I said forwards in the OP because adding to either spot would help given how we play.

Anderson has his own 18 mil thread for a reason. This guy has really been disappointing. He's shooting a fine percentage from 3.... but I DO NOT trust him at all. He's either hot or cold, its like the quality of looks almost doesn't matter. He's awful on D and doesn't provide any other offensive skills.

I'm not going to talk about brewer. Either he gives everyone a massive surprise and magically plays well or he continues down his path of being one of the worst players in the league .... love him as a person, but that's how it is.

Here are our In- house solutions and they may involve tinkering with linueps... we have to provide enough space, but Harden is good enough in the PnR to generate great looks of all types. D'antoni should be able to come up with a Spurs type movement offense that can function if we don't absolutely maximize spacing. We've got to try and put stronger players on the floor at the forwards.

Its clear that Harrell is the next best man up. Great 1-on-1 defender due to physical tools. Nice midrange jumper and overall solid BB IQ. Can he play the 4 ? Do we have a 5 he can play with ?

The answer is of course yes .... but how effective will it be. People repeat spacing spacing spacing, but we've lost games to teams that can pound us inside and wear us down on the glass over the course of the game. It almost happened tonight. The tipping point will be can Harrell and Nene be effective enough on D and in the paint to overcome shooting woes ? Can Nene shoot 35 % from 3 ? If he misses can Harrell get the board ? Same Q Vice Versa ?

Maybe Harrell can grow into a shooter. That's our best case scenario. That then allows us to play dekker at backup 2-3 which can soften the load on trevor and perhaps even one of our guards on an off night.

Accuiring a forward is going to be tough and I don't think we have much choice but to keep Anderson.

An interesting idea ... although one I think has 0 chance is to go bev/james/dekk/trez/clint ... much lower skill than current starters, lower team D skills because Arizas not out there. That's a lineup that's got our best hustle players in it and maybe there's enough off ball movement to compensate for shooting ... or maybe we get hot. Ego/ryan/trev/nene is a bench unit that would decimate other benches worse than our starters might lose.