Bad game from Osama van vleet tonight. Thankfully he stopped himself shooting an early shot clock brick in the fourth a couple of times. I still want him on this team, but not in a lead guard role and not playing 40mpg. He's valuable as a stabilizer and table setter, but we would be much better with him coming off the bench, or starting but playing under 30mpg. We have enough passing between Alpi, Amen and Jalen to keep the offense moving without Fred, and with more rest and fresher legs, he wouldn't shoot as poorly.
How?? The more size you put on the lineup, the better defensive and rebounding potential. Watch how our defense and rebounding get worse with the current lineup of 4 small guys. Why you don't want your best wing defender guarding the opposite lead guard?? Why you don't want him guarding Doncic, Morant, Shai, Murray, Harden, Edwards.... When he's repeatedly shown he's your best weapon to defend those players. I do want those players to have nightmares about Amen. And I want a PF starting at PF (Tari Eason), with the consequent extra at rebounding, helping, and overall defensive potential. Just look at what the Lakers did tonight with Fred (abuse him). I like Fred and I want to keep him for the correct price, and off the bench. He absolutely shouldn't be starting by next season, and he won't.
You're discussing something different. You're talking about who runs the team. Lebron James is the SF/PF on his team. Shai, Harden, Edwards are SG's. I'm talking about guarding the smallest player every night. For the Lakers that's Reaves. For the Thunder that's Wallace. For the Clippers that's Dunn. For the Wolves that's Conley. I don't want Amen on those guys. That's a terrible idea. Guarding the smallest player always means the least involvement in total defensive plays - this is a fact. The biggest players resulting in better defense is not a fact at all. If you have a guy who's elite at both guarding his man and help defense and he can guard practically any position, you want that guy to be involved in the highest amount of defensive possessions so that his talents convert to a higher impact on wins. That's half of the game where we can increase or decrease his impact. Playing him at the 1 takes him out of more possessions than if he played higher up. Further, Amen is intended to be a two way lead player, he's not OG Anunoby. You don't make that guy chase around the Ja Morants of the league. At the SF spot he would be guarding the Lebrons and Lukas and Shais and Edwards of the league. We're not differing there.
Amen won't guard the smallest guy all the time, this isn't 2K where the players are locked into their positions. Jalen can take Reaves for example, or any other PG/SG that's smaller and isn't the primary offensive threat. But if the opposing PG is Curry, guess who's guarding him? Amen
Maybe .... (probably) Depends on what you can get for the cap space you can generate by declining his option ($19.2m) and possibly waiving Holiday's $4.9m and Jock's $8m. They'd have two incomplete roster charges $1,272,869 per. Declining FVV's option nets you $19,293,049 in cap space. Waiving Holiday adds $4,901,400 and Jock $8,000,000 for a total of $12,901,400 minus the two IRC's leaving $10,355,662, all that adds up to $29,648,711. But using cap space prevents the use of the MLE. You instead get the room exception which is ~62% if the NT MLE ($14,105,000 Vs $8,782,000). If you can find a suitable starting PG for that $29,648,711 in cap space and a reliable backup big man for the $8,782,000 room exception then fill out the final few spots with your draft pick and 3 or 4 minimum contracts, it's worth considering. The cap hit for a minimum next year is $2,296,274. That draft pick will cost no more than $5,013,400 (cost of the10th pick) unless you strike lottery gold. That puts your total roster cost at $182,866,143 which is not only below the 1A ($195,946,000) but below the Tax line of $187.9m. ($182,866,143 accounts for only 3 minimum contracts leaving one open roster spot, add another $2,296,274 if it is filled - this is still below both the tax and 1A) Remember that is $29,648,711 in usable cap space, it doesn't have to be a FA signing, it could come as a trade also. IF you can't find a suitable replacement for the above numbers, then sure, pick up the option. The good thing is that you have time to make that deal before you have to extend FVV or not. You could also agree to a deal including FVV prior to extending .... making the decision to extend afterwards (but before the trade). I really don't know how the league views FVV on a $44,886,930 contract, after his play this year, that may have negative value to most teams.
Jalen's not guarding the PG, we don't have a rim protector so we need an excellent defender at POA and big wings. If Jalen is guarding the guy who brings the ball up and Sengun is your rim protector, we're f*cked. You're making an assumption based on a regular team but we're not designed that way at all. On a regular good team there's an excellent rim protector and your perimeter players can hedge with that. We can't hedge. We actually encourage our defenders at the 1 and 3 to be over-aggressive in the interest of protecting our C. We can make adjustments game by game, but it's really stupid to have your best disruptor and one of your lead playmakers chasing around a PG off screens all game while at the same time Udoka wants him rebounding like a PF and to be a playmaker? This is absurd no one will do that unless they're ready to win the MVP trophy right now.
There's no reason for him to be on this roster next season, even as a backup. We need a reliable shooter alongside Jalen.
The way defense is played nowdays, and especially the defense we play, is mostly predicated on switching. Amen won't run around screens all game, because we're switching almost everything, especially when we go small with Bari at the 5. My assumption is that our defensive positioning is matchup dependent, as it was all season long. And all season long, Amen is guarding the other team's 1st scoring option (except when that scoring option is a true big like Jokic or Wemby). I agree that we're ****ed either way at the rim, because Alpi and Steve aren't quick and athletic enough, and Bari still needs more sand in his pants to be consistently effective. But our primary goal is to stop the offense before the ball gets to the paint, and we need all the length and athleticism outside.
I get it, defense has been different for 15 years now. I'm not discussing old eras defense. If everything is switching, then it's still better to have 2 smaller and 2 bigger players with him. The league has not gone fully positionless as we dream of, and the evidence is in your post: not having a rim protector matters. We'll have to agree to disagree here. I would much rather have 2 quicker and 2 bigger defenders on the court with him, freeing him to roam. It's pretty much what Milwaukee figured out after 2 coaching changes with Giannis. You don't take your guy who can cause havoc with steals and defense (aside from man defense) and assign him the most chasing-intensive role on the team. Whatever size advantage he has is balanced by the reduction of speed advantage anyway. Amen should be the playmaker on offense regardless of position, and we shouldn't have him default on the smallest player in the court. They will just pass the ball and then he's out of the play. No one is going to want that switch.
Amen pretty much was shutting Doncic down when he was guarding him. The Lakers coach adjusted and ran offensive sets to get FVV and Jalen on Doncic. Our coach doesn’t know how to make in-game adjustments and playoff basketball is going to eat him alive.
I'm just saying if the best opposing offensive player is a PG, Amen is going to guard him anyways. I agree that Amen is best defending the 3, if we're going by position, but if we want both Jalen and Alpi on the court, Amen is the guy that will defend the best perimeter player of the opposing team. If that player passes off the ball then half of our job is done anyways, because now the ball is in the hands of a worse offensive threat that we can handle better. Amen is quick enough to cover the ground and help if needed.
Exactly. We have 4 great defensive players in Amen, Jabari, and Tari. It should all be about match-ups.
Last night was a clear reminder that Fred is a below average starting point guard. He should be a 6th man and should be compensated like a 6th man.
Not sure why FVV gets all the hatred. Last night, Jalen had 9 points. If you are counting on FVV to take this team to the next level, you are misdirected. This team, as constructed, goes as far as Jalen takes them.
I think it makes people upset that no matter how bad FVV plays and looks, he still can count on playing the most minutes. Green on the other hand, well, he sat.
Fred is making max money and shooting 38% from the field. From the field! Asking him to play like a good starting point guard is not too much to ask. It’s been a terrible year for Fred. Jalen is having his best yr. I’m sober about Jalen, but just can’t defend Fred’s play this season.
That's simple regardless of what happened last night. If the goal is championships, FVV is just not good enough.
Did you just say, " Not sure why FVV gets all the hatred?" I suggest you start watching the games and maybe you will have a better understanding
