I'm not gonna lie. I had no idea losing Trevor and Luc would hurt us this bad. Trevor was so inconsistent and Luc was only good pre shoulder injury. I think those losses hurt more because we went cheap and tried to replace them with guys who barely belong in the league.
Slightly worried. Still too early and the CP3 suspension really hurt us, the narrative would be different if we were on a 3 game winning streak with him. I liked the defence yesterday for most of the game and hope Gordon won't go 1 for a million from 3 again, but I do admit we look much further then the Warriors than last year, this sucks. The best scenario is that the team is just taking more time to gel, since we have more new players in key positions. The worst scenario is that we have gotten old, unathletic and we peaked last year. Someone in another thread mentioned the 2011 Mavs. This is my main worry, there is a real possibility that last year was ours to be, everything just worked perfectly and now we have been passed by younger and even hungrier teams (it's hard to have a chip on your shoulder for consecutive years).
Well if you bought into Thaddeus' "Run it back" garbage and expect another WCF run & expect to compete with the Warriors, you should be worried. Spoiler This team? Vs. the Warriors?
We're probably not winning 60 games this year or getting a 1 seed. But the more important thing will be playing our best basketball by season's end and entering the playoffs health and fresh. So getting off to a slow start really doesn't concern me at all. The season is just too long to be bothered by the outcomes of games in October.
I am meh. I figured last year was the window and did not assume we'd get back there again -- so relative to those expectations, I guess I'm not "worried." I did think we'd look better than this, though. I am worried about my sanity if the rest of the season continues along this trajectory.
Y'all are making this too complicated. Just look at the roster. We're not as talented. You saved money but the talent level dropped. Simple as that. You lost rotation players and Melton for 2 fringe NBA guys & Melo (who in a vacuum isn't a bad gamble). You have MLE money wasting away. And then you have Capela coming in out of shape, so he's not as good as last year's version (although he may eventually be). And if you're one of these people all excited about Knight & Chriss. Sorry, I cant help you.
This is the thing. If getting the #1 see is important, you probably should be worried. I felt it was important. So worried in that aspect. Then again, if you step back, adjust your expectations, they can recover and get a high seed and make a run. But....getting that #1 seed is important in my mind in beating GSW when you have a team with low margin for error vis-a-vis GSW who has a high margin for error because of the roster.
Tilman say if a first-round game is a struggle, I'm going to find me a new general manager. What if one of Tucker or Gordon is injured in the first round?
2 years ago we had signed Gordon and Ryno to the rotation, and the team wasn't very good defensively, and we were better than this in practically every facet of the game. A James Harden led team is good enough to win 40-45 games with 5-6 mediocre players.
I just really don’t think this team is that good. This team is 4-5 seed good. Let’s be clear, it’s not Melo since he’s way better than Ryno was. EG, Tucker and Capela have all regressed, Ennis hasn’t proven to be a starter or close to what Ariza was for this team and MCW shouldn’t even be in the league. I know it wasn’t possible since Ariza was trying to get paid, but re-sign Luc, sign Ellington and then sign Melo for the minimum, instead we decide to expirement with Ennis and MCW, it wasn’t the time for that. Tucker has like 9 points in the past two games, if we held Ariza accountable for his lackluster offensive output at times, Tucker should be held accountable as well. I haven’t been impressed with CP at all either tbh, he was good vs LAL but was trash against NOP so i’m not seeing his return as something biblical. Like someone else said in game thread, this is a 3 point shooting team with players that don’t shoot the 3 well. If we have to rely on Brandon freakin’ Knight to come save this team (in terms of shortening the workload on CP/James and taking minutes away from MCW) then somewhere along the lines, we messed up. Also, why is Nene even on the team.
unpopular opinion Spurs are able to defeat us in the playoffs. MDA is going to play CP3 and Gordon too many minutes in regular season.
if you're going to be clear then you should acknowledge melo isn't even giving the rockets what ryno did while he was here. melo has shot terribly. Even in ryno's "down year" he was giving hou 38% from the perimeter. that would be career level best for melo. so yes melo is very much a reason for the regression thus far. to act like he is just free from any of the rockets struggles is just delusional
I think Ariza did have a couple of 30 pt games when he was a Rocket the first time. Although his handle was terrible, he had at least some scoring potential. Tucker was never known to score more than 8-9 pts, he outdid himself last season with multiple double digit scoring games, and couple 20+ pt scoring games. Cherry on top of a cake but you dun have that much icing or cherries to begin with.
