What can we say any one of the power forwards does very well? Do we have one that's a very good 3 point shooter? A very good rebounder? Pick and pop? Post-defender? The closest is Josh Smith being a passer and I don't think we can say he is very good at that any more.
The lack of a complimentary PF to Harden is the biggest problem with this team. The offseason focused on a complimentary backcourt weapon, when it should have focused on a complimentary PF option that did any two of the below things really well: - Stretch shooting - Ballhandling - Versatile defense - Rebounding Obviously, doing all 4 great would be awesome, but just excelling in two of the four would work... since our current PFs are good at none. All of our PFs might have small stretches, like 5 minutes, where they start to do some of the above well... BUT they mix in being horrible in other areas, and its very sporadic. I thought Smith played ok for a 3-5 minutes stretch in the 3rd quarter last night and the rockets did well. I mean he still had some boneheaded plays, no doubt, but he hit a couple threes, was somewhat active, etc. And the Rockets were +7 before he was taken out. it seems especially true of Smith... when he has a decent stretch, the team can be REALLY good. He's like a bad version of Green, who occasionally has stretches where he is 60% of what Green normally is, and the team runs smoothly then. I don't know what the answer is... Al Horford would be a nice get in FA, and probably the best actually possible option, but i think he is a bit overrated. He's just a solid PF, but he's no longer a great rebounder, and is an average defender... but not the new age versatile NBA PF. I'd prefer Millsap... whom the Hawks aren't trading. Blake Griffin or Anthony Davis would be the perfect answer, but that isn't happening.
Its half on the players, but there is also at least 50% or even more on the team and the scheme. Look around at the PF of most of the teams PF positions : Draymond Green Duncun / LMA Griffen Randolf Dirk Ibaka Love Bosh Millsap those are considered the top teams in the league and most of them are heavily invested and committed to the PF position with max or close to max players (Duncan and Dirk were max players for decades), and most of them were either the first or second option on offense most of the time. While in this team, we are paying peanuts on this position and more than often, they are also the options on offense of a broken play or go get your own offense with an off board only. Its not a fair comparison anyway.
Well DMo is a good 3 point shooter and post defender, Harrell is a great energy player with a lot of potential defensively, Smith is good at being Dwight Howard's friend, and Jones is good at stomping homeless people.
I'm pretty sure DM would be happy to pay max contracts to any of those players mentioned. He tried to get Bosh (and I guess at this point, good that he didn't, but you get the idea).
While I never doubted Morey's analytics and the style of basketball, I do not believe he is a good talent evaluator. And I also believe that signing Dwight is a mistake or this could be more of a Les move than his decision. Morey is an analytic guy and he sure knows the game is changed in nowadays basketball. Look around the league in the last decade or so, which team actually won anything with a dominated C? Even big guys like Duncan and Bosh were switched to a more versatile PF position and most team are just paying average to below average salary on the C position but rather go heavy on the more versatile PF position for talented big guys. While I like Dwight being a good player, but I don't think its a good decision to sign him under the current salary to build a team. This is not the way to spend your money under the modern style of basketball.
He's courted Bosh (heavily), Carmelo, Love, and Aldridge. Whiffed each time. He also tried to get Gasol. His failure in landing his super star PF will haunt his legacy. Gotta give him credit for getting Josh Smith though.
I think this is apparent now, but I'm calling your bluff on being the nostradamus 3 years ago that called it a mistake. Moreover, everyone would have certainly had his head and he probably WOULD have been fired had he not chosen that approach and instead tried to compete with the role players they currently had. And moreover to that, they DID make the WCF last year, and lost to what is apparently an all-time dominant type team. And moreover to ALL that, it's not like GMs in this league have the ability to say give me those 10 players and we're good to go. Yes, ultimately it rests on their shoulders. They're drafting, they're hiring coaches. They're making free agent pitches and signings. And they're effectuating trades. I'm just not seeing what obvious move DM could have made, that the other side involved (trading team, free agent, etc.) would have also agreed to, that clearly result in a better outcome. I mean there are basically only three things. (1) value coaching more. From McHale to JB... it's not good, (2) draft Kawhi instead of Marcus Morris, (3) Draft Draymond Green Tough pills to swallow, but misses in the draft happen to everyone. The ones that nail it once in a blue moon... well, they go on to win championships. But even that is rare. The Clippers have drafted great, and added Chris Paul. the Thunder struck gold in the draft multiple years in a row. And the difference between the Warriors being "perfect" with their draft choices was and not was a Steph Curry ankle that began to hold up and the perfect coaching change. It's INCREDIBLY tough to win a championship in the NBA. Every NBA Finals of the last 25 years has included either Lebron, Duncan, Wade, Nowitzki, Kobe, Jordan or Hakeem in it. 7 players. Consider that you can be a 25 year old person, a huge NBA fan, and if your team didn't have one of those 7 players on it you've not really been a contender. This isn't to excuse DM. He REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY needs to nail this next coach choice. And he does need to adjust the roster to reflect the modern NBA. And... he needs to hit it in the draft again. Getting a Durant + another big/solid free agent this offseason helps in all those areas... It's fun... and funny... to laugh at the ipad campaigns, and Melo championship banners, etc. hanging in the rafters. But that said... what has DM suppose to have done? He's courted the players he should court. he can't make them sign. I'd agree with a criticism which is he's tried to find those star players in FA's so heavily, perhaps at the expense of focusing on other items. Particularly coaching. Which he had historically openly admitted to not valuing supremely highly. but it's not like he's been trying to whiff on PFs in the draft. I guess its fair to say, since he has "whiffed" on them, he's not the "best" evaluator of that position in the draft. Conversely, TJones, DMo, PPat, Montrell... these are all NBA PFs, even flawed as they are. They are NOT Draymond Green, and that sucks, and Royce White was horrible (though I blame that almost entirely on McHale).
^ forgetting all that DM has/hasn't done historically. Here's the question... how do we address this position going forward???? Does anybody have any thoughts/options that are reasonable?
Personally I think they need to start over at that position like Morey has tried to do these past two off seasons in going after Bosh a couple of years ago and LMA this past off season. But if you ask me getting a real good coach may be more important than addressing this position at this time.
Actually its bullcrap to blame it on Morey for missing out guys like Kawhi and Green. They are not like the lottery picks and there are many other teams passing on both. Tom Brady got drafted on the 6th round also. No one should judge Morey on this kind of picks, but rather the other signing and picks are the issues. Such as picking Royce White, holding on TJ and Dmo till too late when its clear than none of them will be in his future plan, Parsons situation, and other questionable FA signings or keeping old guys like Terry ect.
In the short term a smart move would be to play Harrell and DMo if available as much as possible. In the longer term, it depends on Harrell's progression.
Point guard and power forward are notorious areas of weakness for this team. Anyone remember this reach? We have never had a dominant power forward. Ever. And it honestly didn't dawn on me until watch Derrick Favors handle Dwight last night
So what you're saying is he tried and that should be good enough? if we can't fault him for players signing elsewhere then we can't credit him when players do sign here. If we can't fault him for not able to get a good trade, then we can't credit him when he is able to pull off a good one. Then how do you assess the job of a GM? To be clear, I don't think Morey is a bad GM. I just think it is fair to mention his failures along with his successes when assessing the job he has done.
- Let Dwight go, sign a serviceable defensive mindset C with much lower salary. - Look for an upgrade on PF with more money to spend. - Draft better, hope to hit a jackpot there. - This team needs another defensive PG and let go of Lawson and Terry. - Try to dump Brewer if you can. None of the above will matter if Harden will play like this next season. And even Harden will be back to the form like a year ago, we are still probably the 3rd or 4th best team in the west. So hope you hit the jackpot in the draft, or you can be very lucky and get to the second round of the playoffs and that's it. Things won't get much better in the next 3-5 years.
Horford Anderson P Gasol My preference is to get specialists. Even if they don't do everything well, get players that are very good at what they do. For instance, a rotation with a PF that crashes the board and a PF that spreads the floor. This team desperately needs rebounders and shooters. They don't have to be the same player.
Well, in a big picture way, I think you can judge a body of work after x number of years. So, for example, we can give him credit for being in position to sign player x,y, or z when they do actually sign, and we can try to fault him for when they don't sign, if it seems like such a move was otherwise detrimental to the team. Like the Bosh offseason 2 years ago. He made a bunch of moves to get the cap space. Famously, he let Chandler go. He paid to have someone take Lin. He trade Asik and got back a pick that ultimately was just so so. Bosh didn't work out, and those moves seemed dumb. But then he salvaged it by adding Ariza and making mid-season moves that ultimately resulted in the WCF trip. In HINDSIGHT, I can fault him. he could have added Ariza, and kept Parsons... I think. But I also give him a lot of credit because of the backup plans that seemed to work well. Same thing on mid-season trades. You just have to judge them in time, relative to the info you know, to see what makes sense. And on the whole, at the time, DM seems to make very smart moves. But he's also getting dangerously close to the point of "you've been here a while, you seem to make smart moves, but you undervalued coaching and chemistry... and for whatever other reason, luck, changing NBA styles, injury... the team hasn't gotten there so it's time to try a different direction." Dangerously close, but not there. Seems like the team is on the verge of another "rebuild". Every summer is key for DM, but this summer more than ever?
If we get Durant he'll be our PF. There's no chance we go with Durant/Harden as SG/SF they can't defend anyone at all. Durant at PF would really change the game. Would work well with Dwight at C.
