This team has too many players without clear roles

Get rid of Bari if he can’t be an elite three point shooter. Start Amen and Reed.

 

This is a big possibility and risk. There are a lot of promising players, but none that have stood out to me as being a definite future best player on a contender.

Player development seems to be the goal this year, but it may ultimately be to make a better trade down the road.

 

And you come up with this after 1 game?

Some people...

 

I have to agree. Coming into the draft I was really down on Cam because of his legendarily low assist rate. It looks good when he's rolling but the shot selection is just so bad. He needs an intervention.

 

Team has too many players without clear holes

 

missing the arse.....

 

This imo is the main issue. Besides Sengun, who has is own things to improve on, the young core is underdeveloped offensively. Green is the farthest along and he's been playing catchup fundamentally since the g-league. Nobody can get a consistent bucket when things break down. It's ironic because I think currently Jabari's mid range pullups and turnarounds are the closest thing any of our guys have to a reliable bucket getting move yet he doesn't get enough opportunities to hone it and when he does he just ***** the bed.

Don't get me wrong, the core is still exciting and has it's own positives. Just very clunky offensive fit. Short term, a scorer like clarkson would help but long term, I'm pretty sure we're going to just need the consolidation trade to optimize the roster.

 

This.

It's a coaching issue. If you watch the Lakers first game they have much worse starting lineup but much better offense.

Ime is a great defense coach but our offensive schemes are just horrible. I dont see plays that result in open shots for Jabari or Sheppard they just get ignored.

 

If you need a savant like Lamelo to run the offense that means the offense is bad aka its coaching. That means you just rely on the talent of the player rather than have actual plays that are effective at getting players open and scoring.

Look at Lakers even when Lebron sat their offense still ran well in their first game under Reddick.

Also lets be real we dont have Lamelo but we have FVV. FVV is a former all star and champion you think he doesnt know how to run the offense? Cmon man. Our offensive schemes are just not that good thats why we need to lean on defense to create scoring opportunities in transition otherwise its all AAU ball Pnrs and throw the ball to Sengun hope he makes something happen.

 

We are a team trying to find that superstar... but I don't think our team lacks clear roles and not even a clear hacking order. Hecking order wise it is Sengun -> Green -> FVV -> Amen -> Jabari -> Brooks -> the rest. Role wise we have Sengun as the hub, both scoring and facilitating, FVV as the play starter, Green as the finisher and every one else as role players.

What you probably mean is that you want your main guys to have a higher usage. I don't think that this is what was wrong this last game. We fail to get open shots and we fail to hit open shots. As a team we hit 30% from 3. And we tried to force it with Sengun, leading to turnovers and missed shots. We didn't adjiust the game plan or rotation when Charlotte found an effective counter.

But it also isn't all doom and gloom. It's the first game of the season. It looked like some players had heavy legs in the second half (hopefully because of the work they put in in preseason). And the first half looked good. Defense also looked decent. Let's wait at least 10 games before forming too strong opinions...

 

Thunder showed it is possible to win games shooting 22% from 3....it is possible at least but you have to be elite almost everywhere else.

 

I mean, I agree. Just think it's a bit more on the players than scheme but there's a bunch of reasons you can point to.

 

Ime needs to fully embrace Senhub. Stop this egalitarian BS.

 

Ime is also in charge of developing the players so its on him either way. His buddy Ben Sullivan is the 3 pt coach.

 

As opposed to our 11 game win streak when the offense was free flowing & playing faster

 

exactly. Great post!

 

Sengun was part of the 11 win streak I think the first 3 wins before he got injured.

 

The only teams that I can think of that has been somewhat unique offensively over the past years is GSW and the Spurs. Just about every other team is majorly reliant on their stars and key players to generate offense.

And I've seen some pining for the days of Adleman and Dantoni...First...Dantoni didn't do anything special on offense when he was here. He even said this several times that he basically just put the ball in Harden's hands. Dantoni Rockets was just a bunch of Harden iso and high pnr. Not some sophisticated system. Harden carried that offense.

Under Adleman he did run a better system IMO, however it wasn't like the results were amazing.

Adleman's first year here the team finished 17th in offensive rating and was only .8 better than Van Gundy's last year here.
The next year Adleman improved the offensive rating all the way to 14th in the league.
His third year here the team actually regressed offensively to 16th in the league.
His 4th and final season here he finally had a really good offense finishing 4th in offensive rating.

So 1 out of 4 years he produced a top 5 offense and 2 out of 4 years his offense was below average.

 

That somewhat explains Dillon, but it doesn’t explain Sheppard getting 15 mins. Stone should have traded Dillon to save Ime from himself. Amen and Sengun need to get as many minutes as their bodies can handle. They both came into the season in incredible shape and way stronger than last year. I think Amen will be starting in the next 10 games or so. Ime clearly will try and trust his vets, but has said many times that Amen is often the best guy on the floor. Losing will cure his vet itis sooner than later. FVV won’t stay this cold from 3 for very long. There is one thing very clear to me and that if Ime is going to rely on defense so much he needs to quickly switch to a Kaotic style when the 3’s aren’t dropping. Amen, Tari, Jabari, and Jalen are all best suited for fast kaotic defense and transition offense. You can’t be a 4 out or 5 out offense without a bunch of shooters.

Other than Adams, we really don’t have great guys at setting picks which is limiting Sheppard’s offensive game, because he is clearly having trouble early on with the speed and athleticism of NBA players. I would suggest he is at least a year away from being a competent backup pg or sg, but I hope I’m wrong and he can start showing something the second half of the season.

It shocked me that Ime didn’t get Amen in the game more to shut down Lamelo and let FVV and Sheppard stay on the court together. Jabari played good defense, but I would have liked to see Uncle Jeff or Tate get a shot at energizing the team in the second half.

 

3&D has been the formula since the last Spurs championship.

Lets be honest the only offense Udoka knows is to feed his star(s) and get out of the way. He has history with players like Duncan, KD, Harden, Tatum, Brown so I think he understands that unless one of these youngsters busts out in a similar way he's just treading water waiting for that type of player to arrive. This team (until that totem is firmly planted) has to live and die by its defense which failed them in game 1.