It does help a bit when two of the 4 teams you've played are basically trash right now. lol. Our off. rating and net rating are boosted big-time by the 2 blowouts of the Nets and Raptors. Our offensive rating in both of those games are comical. To put it in perspective, the 2 highest offensive rating games by any team in the NBA so far are those 2 games. Our pace still sucks (among the worst in the league), and I know Ime wanted to improve on that. I think we do play some decent teams coming up here, so maybe we'll see how we're doing against them.
I think we also need a shooter that can play defense. When the time comes, we might have to either trade Fred to get what we need. Or God willing, an elite buyout candidate will fall into our lap. Like a Jrue Holiday at best or maybe CJ McCollum at worst or even Derrick White. We just have to wait and see.
But how does our offensive rating compare to the best offensive teams from previous years? Are we one of the best offensive teams in NBA history?
Small sample sizes can skew a ton. In the positive, OKC has absolutely absurd ball pressure abilities. Having to face them opening night made our PG issues look even worse than they actually are. In the 3 other games our TO% has been among the best in the league. As the season goes on I'm confident the team will become more adept at the basic task of getting the ball safely across halfcourt and into the hands of Sengun/Durant. In the negative Sengun/Okogie/Eason have unsustainably high shooting numbers right now leading to a team wide 3pt% that won't stick. Having said that if those 3 are all able to actually be positives as shooters, this offense will be extremely good.
I’m interested to see how they respond to tougher defensive teams. We got a glimpse with the OKC game but how do they consistently respond to presses and 1-2-1 zones from the Warriors etc. Very interesting.
The two teams we beat have the worst DefRtg. Are the results because of us or because of them? I guess that's what you get with a 4-game sample size.
I’ve been watching OKC and their defense just isn’t the same without J-Dub. Chet has also missed the last two games and their rim and paint protection are not good right now.
If OKC's Defense is being not good right now and still at the top of efficiency, when they are in midseason form and almost fully healthy. Historic Defense again! Keep in mind they are 6-0 despite being almost dead last in shooting 3s, in the bottom half of Offensive net rating.
OKC just doesn't play weak defenders since they traded Giddey. I've not watched much OKC this year, but I expect they just don't drop off too much with guys out on defense.
We lost by 1 in OKC and 2 OT and only 4 vs Detroit who is also a good East team. The Nets didnt get boosted as much as you thought as we blew them out and we had Reed and 3rd stringers for almost 1 quarter. My point is while the Rox prob dont have no 1 offensive rating they are still a pretty good offensive team which is what happens when you run the game thru Sengun, you have good 3 pt shooters and you have KD for bail outs on offense. What we need are better perimeter defenders and more accurate and reliable 3 pt shooters as Jabari and Tari are pretty inconsistent from 3. I think DFS coming back would help a lot and Ime needs to play other guys like Jeff, Holiday and JD..
Our offense is in fact still clunky. The success isn't from a brilliantly ran scheme. We simply have 2 players that both require double teams and capitalize on that. Then you stack that on top of overwhelming rebounding and you basically have a great offense. HOWEVER keep in mind that its only 4 games. Teams will have the opportunity to study and figure out what to do to defend it better. We need more off ball movement and the ability to get into the next action immediately if one shows its breaking down. Hell right now they struggle to remember to send a player to pass it to to inbound the ball. Having said all that I do think they will figure it out. 4 games isn't enough to over react good or bad. Teams will get better at defending us and at the same time our team will get better at offense. Now hopefully the defense catches back up and we can run people off the lines more. Dillon Brooks might have been an even big tone setter than we knew.
FVV was taking too many hero 3 pt attempts because he burned too much of the shot clock bringing the ball up and took too long to initiate actions. It meant limited time to move the ball around. Jabari didn't disappear in games, FVV and JG rarely tried to find him and that's on them.
I'm torn. I see your points. They are excellent observations that are largely agreeable. But I do think there's some schematic credit to give. I grow irate w/ Sengun's loose handle bringing the ball up 70 feet away from the basket and operating w/ his back to the basket from effectively midcourt. But the flip side to that is it makes the defense get in to their actions, switching, help, and basically tip their hand way before the actual evolution of our offensive play. Too, having a plodding tree stump whose offensive skillset is largely limited to rebounding and at-the-rim attempts can be equally infuriating as the mid-court Barkley back-down referenced above....but it's why we own the glass. Having to see Bari switched on to the likes of SGA and just closing my eyes and hoping it's just 2 and not 2 + foul is the price to pay for having a third 7 footer swarming the boards. Again - I'm with you. I'm not even sure I'm arguing against you. I have this same discourse in my head all game long so i'ts good to verbalize (textualize?) it here. But I feel like there has to be some method to the madness. "Are the reasons I/we find our offense so clunky the precise drivers of why it's so effective?" Or, will we sit here at the 20 game mark and be like, "damn what fools gold that was early - I/we knew it!"
I think the truth is somewhere in between. FVV's slowness is due to his being careful with the ball. He doesn't rush into a play and make bad decisions. Amen is fast and has fast processing power but he is not a steady hand with the ball and he doesn't see plays develop like a good NBA PG does. (I'm hopeful he will improve over time.) But FVV's bad shooting last season partially canceled out his low TO rate ... but was in turn partially canceled out by our great offensive rebounding. This season, it seems that the job has shifted to Sengun. He is relied on to initiate offense more and he starts from the perimeter. He is also slow-paced. Sengun's advantage over FVV is that he is dangerous once he gets into the lane. He can score from there and he can pass from there. FVV is very limited in the lane because of his height and lack of athleticism. That might affect his shooting space. Defender would guard him tight, not worrying about his penetration.
What is the most important offensive stat? Is it Offensive rating, or PPG? I mean....to me it is points differential......what about you? DD
You mean TEAM offense stats? OffRtg is the only number that matters. It tells you how much a team score on each possession. It doesn't matter how they score. How much you score on each possession is the ultimate goal for offense.
Our defense will get better. Our offense will prob get worse. I still think we need a ball handler but there’s no way to obtain that rn. If Sengun misses a few games it’s going to be tough. That 2 man game with him and Durant is beautiful. We would still be ok bc we have one of the best one on one players ever.
