We have several people that can not shoot (Amen, Adams, Sengun, Capela) our line up at times have no spacing. (Sengun, Adams, Thompson) What the hell are we doing with our bench?
Well Reed's shot is completely MIA and Tari and DFS are hurt. There's the bench production right there I guess.
Reed's shot is more of a rhythm issue and not knowing when his next move will get him benched. He defeinitely plays scared as a de facto rookie but the FO can't seem to understand there is a formula to developing players. Reed's shot magically got worse when he started getting pulled and thrown into random lineups regardless of his own faults. Player development is not what Ime is doing. If curry was on this team he'd be riding the bench most of hte game.
I think this is partly true but Reed started playing noticeably worse scoring wise the moment they started him. Lost all his mojo then, should have never went away from what was working. He had the 6th man role and they just took it away from him although he was filling it perfectly. Since then it feels like he's been a lot more passive, almost as if they've told him to be more passive because I remember he came into the season hunting shots and he doesn't do it anymore. My conspiracy theory is that the coaching staff as told him to be less aggressive. I have no evidence on this of course but he's back to hesitating and he comes in looking to pass whereas before he was coming in looking to drop 20.
He played better as a 6th man, the issue wasn't starting, it was starting with KD since all he did was dump the ball off and was glorified in the corner. I think if htey tried again it would work...it would just take real discipline from Fraudoka who panics at every defensive slight and lets be 100% real, pins it all on Reed. If you look at my post in the Reed thread, I said they shouldn't start him because constantly moving him in and out of lineups/benching him is terrible for a shooter and young player. I called this from the get go He played a great overall game today, much better than the last ones. He controlled the pace, had 7 assists and 0 turnovers. The game had his mark on it and it showed because we went from being down to up 25 when he came in. If KD and jabari are going to continue turning the ball over that isn't a sign to get frazzled and yank Reed. Ime is just a bad coach, and its insane we are gambling player development with him. I wasn't kidding about Curry. He is not the defensive player Ime wants and has no role in his lineups. It would be the same thing Reed is doing and the warriors would have squandered Curry if he was there
Is it time for me to bump the posts of the people who told me last season spacing is not a problem we just need to acquire a star shooter? I thought that was an excuse? We had more non-shooters and poorer positioning last season. Because it seems spacing has become everyone's excuse for their favorite player struggling. It's actually not spacing that's the problem this season. Our entire offensive concept is flawed. We take the fewest 3's in the NBA so teams will just take more of those and beat us without bothering to come fight in the paint. Even if their efficiency on those is mediocre and our efficiency on them is high, they're crushing us. Meanwhile, every point we score is a world war 2 level battle and it's ****ing exhausting - even for a young/athletic/hardworking team. We're supposed to be tough, not make things tough on ourselves.
I agree with most of this post but not that Ime is a bad coach. I think that's unfair, he took a team that many had not even touching the finals, to the finals. He then took a team that many of us had well in the lottery, to being 2nd in the West. We'll see what he does this season, at the end of the day, a random December game in January is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things and while people are right that MDA for example would be a great coach for Reed...he'd also be the opposite for Amen. Amen would be rotting on the bench for MDA because he's not playing a wing that can't shoot, period, end of, he's not doing it. Ime is the opposite, he got triggered seeing Reed gamble and give up a layup and thought to punish him. People can say whether it's fair or not, but Jalen was a defensive sieve before Ime arrived here and turned into a really solid defensive player. I think his positives are that players respect him so there's less of a chance at a team falling apart and he's the unquestioned leader of the team. I think he does have tough teams that usually do well over the long term of an 82 game season and I think he doesn't often overthink things which means the floor for his teams are lower. His faults are that he's damned stubborn and its going to take him half a season at least for him to realize double big is fine in certain situations, others situations its not....he also is not trusting young players much, where MDA it wasn't an issue, with Adelman it certainly was and JVG. Some coaches are just like that. Until Reed has his full 82 games under Ime he's just not going to trust him and pull him for any reason. Which is a shame because Reed playing well is the only way we compete against the other top teams in the west.
I doubt they told him to be more passive. Every post-game interview shows Ime, Amen, KD, and others begging Reed to be more aggressive. He's jacking shots, but he's not hitting at an elite rate or is inconsistently doing it. It may just be part of the growing process - especially when moving into playing with starters and getting starter minutes. With the 2nd team, he basically was option #1 or maybe #1b for a while there. When you play with the varsity team, you have to balance the "should I shoot this ball now that I'm open, or should I be passing the ball to KD?" lines of thought. But in any case, I'm guessing he's having to make more decisions now more than them telling him to be passive. They've been saying they want him to be more aggressive since last year.
A trade with pelicans could help this issue Poole. Looney and Matkovic for FVV, Clint, Tari and Tate. It helps Pelicans defense improve and give them a potential Zion replacement in Tari (if they trade Zion I'm assuming highly likely since they don't own they 1st rounder this year) or just a somewhat local player they probably familiar with. Not sure if it makes them better to become a potential playin (I assume they shooting for). I think it would slightly help us spread the floor with Matkovic shooting . Poole might can be a decent 6th manner here and help leviate some of the pressure for Reed. Plus he's like a 30 million expiring next year. Sengun Bari KD Amen Okogi DFS Reed Poole Adams Aaron Holiday Looney Matkovic Being the main contributors might be something to look into. Might have to throw in the additional second rounder we got this year.
I watched that Reed and Adams interview and Reed made a comment to the effect of he expected to be at Kentucky for 4 years, but the lottery talk started and he felt like he needed to take a shot at it. Is it possible that his confidence is tied to this all being a little OVERWHELMING for him?
When we get DFS and Tari back and rounded into shape, this team will look a lot better. The defensive rotations will be much smoother and the offense will have two more shooters. They will be able to switch almost everything. That is, only if Ime can figure out how to use them.
