Ok but I can dismiss any enforcer you recommend this way so it's not reasonable. "Don't need Adams to pick people up" is not a reasonable take. If he can pick you up like a child, you're going to stfu and walk back to your bench. That's more terrifying than some dude who you can bait into a detrimental fight. Friend, do you think it's possible you just have an anomalistic desire for toughness that exceeds what's necessary to win? Perhaps it's something you enjoy on and off the court and you're imparting your own personality on it? Steven Adams is far beyond an enforcer. He's like an enforcer who doesn't lose control at any moment. Enforcers decide not to enforce around him. Do a YouTube search of what current and former players say about him. If enforcement can happen with a stare instead of an elbow, we receive the same value of it without the technicals and fouls.
He's just going to bully Draymond exactly as he's done after Draymond kicked him in the nuts: And Draymond will just cry about it:
To me, this looks like the textbook of a guy trying to think before doing something rather than reacting. Considering Tari provided most of his value reacting based on how he's trained/played for years, short-term, there will likely be a reduction in value. Hopefully, he finds a happy medium that he can provide his chaos defense/ aggressive cutting with playing sound defense, hanging around in the corner or having ball more.
We’re too nice. We need someone in the Mad Max/Draymond mold. Brooks provided that and Ime was like that when he played.
I just don't see any logic to the fact that we're an elite defense, we bulldoze everyone on the boards, everyone is scared of us... While we're too nice? Just seems like a massive exaggeration. Brooks is not that tough, certainly not tougher than Amen or Adams. Anyone would rather elbow Brooks before any of those two.
Tari isn't programmed that way. He closer to being a goofball than an enforcer. IMO, the best guy on the roster for that role is DFS and he's not stupid about it as DB. It's good he's also a key reserve instead of a starter, so it won't cripple the team if he's ejected.
My eye test says this: we desperately need a point guard. When Reed performs even half of the point guard role we expect from him, we can finally breathe. Remember the Spurs game — Reed sparked something toward the end, but it wasn’t enough. However, in the Bucks game, that spark from Reed actually made a difference. KD and Alpi didn’t miss their shots, and we won the game. Here’s the situation: Alpi scores around 22–23 points per game. KD contributes between 25–30, sometimes around 35. If Jabari and Amen can each add 15 points, that’s about 80–90 points total. The rest comes from the bench players. But this year, we haven’t been using our bench very effectively. Steven Adams can bring great energy off the bench, but we still need scoring support from the point guard. If even one of our starters gets injured, we’re in trouble. We’ve already lost the defensive toughness we had last year — Moreover, we lost Brooks' and Jalen's defensive toughness. That’s why the point guard position is so critical for the Rockets right now. We need to keep developing Reed without risking injury. We’ll make the playoffs either way, but Reed has to be ready. If he is, we might actually have a shot at the championship. (We need DFS, too.)
^ I'd say you're about right in terms of needing our starters healthy, although it may not matter TOO terribly much for the regular season, depending who gets hurt or for how long... But the only way we have a shot at a title, no matter how good Reed becomes, is if we are close to fully healthy by playoffs, including Kevin Durant. And unfortunately, I would not take that bet right now.
If one of our stars just got dropped by an elbow and all Adams does is just is pick the offender up and move him away, then Adams is useless to me as an enforcer. You think Draymond cares if Adams picks him up after he gives one of our stars a concussion? Dray will take that trade any day and any night. He just took our star out of his rhythm for that game and the potentially the rest of the playoff series, and the reason he did that is because he knows the best Adams can do is "pick him up like a child" after he already delivered his cheapshot.
Josh's impact doesn't get the attention it deserves. He will ultimately make DFS expendable. Reed (if not traded ) will be in the discussion for 6MOTY
Personally I don't think Okogie is better Cod. I just think DFS was a luxury to begin with then we added Okogie as another luxury at a fraction of the cost. So when we discover this is all just too much and we're suffering with the tax implications, we probably stick with Okogie because he gives you 90% of the production at half the salary. DFS is much more switchable than Okogie. He can guard the 4 and 5 as well at times. He's competing more with Jabari I'd say. Bari DFS Tari Okogie Tate Does our team really need 5 of these more than it needs a hybrid guard? See this alleged coaching "strategy" of offensive rebounding is just coming from an imbalanced roster, which is leaving some areas lacking (shooting, rim protection and guard depth). This will be bad when we discover that it's not the ideal roster construction for all the different playoff opponents we'll face. What if we face a team who's strength is guard and C scoring with not a lot of emphasis on the wing (I.e. Denver)? I think we've already seen a couple of less talented teams than us take advantage of this. We definitely have to cash in 1-2 of those guys before the deadline.
