I dont understand how y'all can look at our young guys and say development has been poor. Look at all the rookies from last year aside from Franz Wagner who has been having a meteoric rise? Cade Cunningham? Scottie Barnes? Evan Mobley? Even Josh Giddey? If you compare the amount of improvement KPJ, Green, Sengun, Garuba and even Bari has displayed its a joke to say development has been poor. If you think Stone needs to go then you are the one who needs to go.
This is true. I was not counting on Green/Porter getting tired and hitting a rookie wall at approximately game 30...and teams trying to win by playing zone to slow us down at this point of the season (everyone tanking....Spurs/Orlando) Still hoping we can string some wins together. Hope you and all your loved ones are safe and enjoying a happy holiday.
For all the pissing and complaining about Silas - "we need a better coach": The garbage about "they aren't being developed" - 81.5% of the team's minutes played are by players 22 or younger. No other teams is above 40%. But Sengun .... The complaint about "they ISO too much" - they are ~#9 in the league in percentage of possessions in isolation which might seem high but the total number of with possessions per game in ISO is 8.5. That works out to about 7% of the total possessions - not anywhere remotely close to the volume perceived around here. Crying about KPJ ISO's too much - He uses 3.5 possessions per game in isolation or about 13% of his total usage & Jalen Green another 3 possessions, 10.8% of his total possessions. That's 6.5 of the total 8.5 between the two. They have the 4th best shot selection profile in the NBA. They get a high percentage of great shots. Consider that, with such a young roster - the 4th most open / wide open shots in the entire league. But the narrative is they don't have an offensive system. They get to the charity stripe more often than any other team .... But again, the narrative is they don't have an offensive system. What they don't do is shoot the ball well.... they have the worst shooting percentage in the league. Silas can get them open shots, he can't shoot for them .... I really don't think many realize what a rebuild looks like and how long it takes players to develop into something resembling their final evolution. Or just how young this team is ..... They'd win more, they'd develop more .... But Silas smiles too much.
I think the bigger issue is our players just aren’t very good at team basketball along with poor shooting. It seems GARM groupthink with “we are just a PG and a coach away”…. Away from what exactly?
To be good at team basketball you have to be good at some of the fundamentals of basketball .... that's skills our young roster is learning right now. Most fans of this team have never been thru a prolonged rebuild and just don't realize how young and green these kids are in a league where for much of its history players spent 4 years in college before being drafted and now, they are 1 and done and just how immature these players are in terms of basketball skills outside of a very few transcendent individuals and even they don't come into the league as finished products. Take Jalen Green for example - he was statistically the league's worst player for much of last year. He struggled with shooting, he couldn't finish, he couldn't get to the line, he couldn't run a simple pick and roll & he couldn't defend anyone. About the only thing he could do was dunk in transition ..... he was and still is an athlete learning to play the game. These kids aren't drafted on their actual skill level but their athletic potential and more often than not, they are on their 2nd contracts before they really start contributing to winning. The groupthink that it's all Silas, fails to take any of the above into account and very little accountability for the players themselves and none of these people are taking any stats (outside of wins and losses) into consideration. Take for example charting shot quality - take the temperature around here and you'd think they were the worst of the worst, yet they have the 4th best quality of shot on average in the entire league - all with players 22 or younger playing 82% of their minutes. That speaks volumes about the coaching staff and the job that they are doing with these young players. An example going back to last year - 93% of EG's 3 point shots were either open or wide open according to NBA statistics. Everyone knows EG is a shooter you don't want to leave open .... yet the quality of his shots within the offense was phenomenal. The crying about the isolation in general and in regard to KPJ is similar, but the stats don't coincide with the narrative. 8.5 total possessions per game and only 3.5 for KPJ ....but he's "always isolating." Some people just need someone or something to blame, be that Silas, the system or KPJ ..... it won't be their favorite players, they are immune to criticism.
I don't like Silas and think that we would be better in a more structured environment, but this is an excellent post. I charted about 10 games of shots and we were good to great on more than 75% of those shots, we just didn't hit them. It is a make or miss league we are missing too much. DD
