Beverley's defensive struggles. I was one of his biggest fans last year (remember the Junkyard Dog thread? ), but man, he gave up so many points to Milwaukee's bench today. I don't know how someone can regress like that at something which is so intuitive and effort-based, but there it is. Everyone wants to replace him now, but I'm still hoping, like I am with Dwight, that there's enough time left in the season for him to hit his stride again. Because right now even more than our center position, our PG position is getting lit up like a pumpkin out there.
I agree beverly sucks ass, please trade him. He is getting owned by 2nd and 3rd string PG's out there. He's definitely not the same player as last year.
For me it's the whole circumstance of getting Josh Smith, and him wanting to come off the bench where we need him. Oh and wait, he's playing Good!
Biggest surprise for me was how much depth we could accumulate as quickly as we did. Brewer, Smith and Terry out of no where was huge for this team.
1. Dmo's consistently improving play 2. MVP play from Harden 3. Ariza's incredible defense 4. Brewer/Josh and to a lesser extent Terry providing arguably the best bench play in the Conference On the minus side, Howard has had a difficult year primarily due to injuries. When healthy, he is still one of the games best centers, but just has not been healthy. This team can beat anyone in a 7 game series with a healthy Howard.
How amazing Ariza was shooting at the beginning of the season and then his crazy "Fall-Off" Here's hoping he can maintain his recently decent shooting... will need it in the Playoffs.
1. The Evolution of James Harden into a bonafide superstar...#MVP2015 2. Donatas Motiejunas goes into the forest and returns as... "Captain Hook" 3. Corey Brewer is really that good...
Biggest surprises this season : doing fine..with Dorsey as starting Center Not so much of a surprise : DMo..he just needed consistent PT to shine..
My surprises: - D-Mo's elevation from scrub player to top half starting PF in the league - Jason Terry actually producing for the team on the court and not just being a trade salary filler like I had expected - Troy Daniels not playing any role on the team after his importance in the playoffs last season - Morey doubling down on his mistake by bringing back Joey Dorsey. Just. Let. It. Go.
I should also add Beverley's huge regression on defense, yet the team's overall defense improving massively
Harden and DMo are certainly 1 and 1A for me. But Harden's improvement was definitely more unexpected because literally thought it was impossible. I thought there was a chance DMo could figure it out, but I didn't think Harden would take that seemingly impossible step from star to MVP.
1. D12's knee issues 2. Harden morphing into the best player in the league (or top 3 if ur a hard nose) 3. T. Jones missing all that time 4. DMO Dominance in the paint and 3 pt shooting 5. J Smoove falling in our laps/ 3 pt shooting going from "no, no, yes" to nutn but net 6. Brewer joining the bench- love this guy 7. Ariza's streaky shooting 8. J. Terry still a bad ass 9. How many headbands on da squad 10. All the Patman hate 11. Not getting even 1 win vs GS 12. Dramatic change in how Harden was officiated 13. D12 having best 3 pt shooting % on the team. 14. K. Pop relegated to bench ornament 15. Canaan getting cast away 16. 3rd in West after all our injuries 17. McHale improving in game adjustments/rotations 18. Losing to the Fakeshow 19. Losing to Detroit 20. Leslie's comments about postseason expectations
I think if this season started over the last 10 games, Donatas Motiejunas would be on the all-star team running. Aside from that Ariza, Brewer and Josh Smith's overall impact and the focus they have brought to the team. The outstanding D, the way they run the break and the solid 3 pt shooting..all the knocks on Smith are being disproven. I don't know if it's the burden of having to be the Pistons #1 option being lifted or confidence or what..but he's shooting the 3's at a high clip. This is a team that looks focused, is having fun, playing outstanding d and running, running, running and just playing great unselfish basketball. This team looked so uncertain of themselves last season and I think there is a real new mentality. This looks like a true championship contender. I know DM is about to rule the trade deadline and I'm very, very excited
These are my top 3 suprises (least to most surprising): 1. Ariza being 2x better than Parsons despite being 1/2 the cost. I expected 3Za to approximate what pretty boy gave us last year but so far he has blown Parsons' contributions out of the water, both on defense AND offense. It might seem stupid to say this since Parsons is more versatile but since 3Za is limited he just sticks to 3's and drives, which is ironically way better than a Parsons floater or mid-range stepback J. I mean Ariza takes 6 threes and makes only 1, then he steals the ball 2 times and ends up with 7 pts on 8 shots. Parsons takes 15 mid-range shots and makes 6 of those, and then he takes five 3's and makes 2 of those. So he ends up with 18 pts but he wasted 12 shots to do so, basically 3x what Ariza attempts to get 2x of his total output on offense. And this is Ariza on a bad night and Parsons on a typical night. 2. DMO = Potential All star Surprised me even more than Ariza, DMo went from scrub to potential all star in just 1 season. I mean seriously, dude was totally unwatchable last year then suddenly he becomes a 7 foot elite low post scorer with good D and passing who is only 24...pretty crazy if you ask me. He's obviously not as good as top tier up-and-comers like Drummond, Cousins and Davis, but IMHO he now belongs on that 2nd tier of prospects. 3. Harden = MVP We all know Harden was good, but THIS good? Last year Harden got a lot of flack because he was basically Kevin Martin with playmaking skills, he played no D and relied a lot on foul calls to score. Now he's like a video game character come to life, just pulling out tricky shot after tricky shot. The only ones who still don't he's good are guys who haven't watch him play this year, and those are dwindling because he pretty much dominated every team already at least once.
Dmo still need recognition in this league to became all star. I think there is a lot of people who watch nba and still don't know who dmo is or what he is capable of. A lot of things that dmo is doing newer really translate to stats, and that's why casual fans don't see all that little things that dmo bring to the court every single game. To became all star basically all he really need is to have few great games in the playoffs.
1- Getting Josh Smith 2- McHale extension 3- Howard injuries and suckness Everything else isn't that much of a surprise, including Harden major step forward, bev playing worse, dmo stepping up, team defense. If Harden play this efficiently in the playoff, that goes to #2 on my list. Biggest non-surprise -- McHale.
