Besides health, what issues stop us from winning the title?

I'm going with no crazy dude...

Championship teams always have em

Mad Max
Rodman
World Peace

Maybe Montrezl can be our crazy dude or Beverly can go back to being a crazy dude since he is back to backup PG

you can't have 2 crazy dudes tho.... they breed

 

Turnovers easily hurt us the most last year. Having Lawson and a healthy Beverly should help reduce Harden's turnover numbers just by getting the ball out of his hands some.

Howard's turnovers in the post were bad. If (big if) he can accept D-Mo as the primary post option, other things can fall into place. Opponents might have to shift their primary post defender onto D-Mo, which would give Howard better looks and more opportunity to make his inevitable post possessions count. While D-Mo's turnover rate isn't the best, it's still a lot better than Dwight's. Dwight has to focus on rebounding and opportunistic plays on offense. Basically - Dwight needs to let the game come to him instead of forcing things and causing turnovers.

 

We went to the WCF with:

-two borderline senior citizens point guards
-two starters injured
-guys playing together since December
-20yr old u drafted back up center
-kj injured
-smith hurting Dwight
-no ****s given James harden(if he was really hung over for games, but I respect the turn up)

 

I agree with everything you say except the first sentence. "Harden is a good defender". He's not. He's capable of being ,shows some glimpses but that's not enough.
I won't say he's a good defender till I see it- consistently. Right now he went from horrible to bellow average.
I hope it happens too.
I don't have any hope at all for Lawson lol. I don't know what McHale's is talking about when he said that he saw him being capable in defence and wants him to be the head of the snake. That's crazytalk.:grin:

 

With a perimeter/wing defense of Beverly,Ariza,Brewer and Howard in the paint no freaking excuses

 

I hope Harden is obsessed with D like he was last off season. Last off season he was drinking the juice, high on D from playing with team USA, being instructed and encouraged by Tom Tibadeau. I know y'all already know that, but I just hope he is still obsessed with D. Last year he started strong, really strong, like one of the leaders in defensive win shares and steals. It wasn't a surprise to see a block or 2, or to see him get all hulk on d and impact games with D. Problem was that Dwight got injured, TJ got injured....so many people got injured and he had to carry our offense. 56 wins is 56 wins though. And 2nd seed in the most historically strong West is nothing to snear at either. So his decision to keep the offense hot as priority, and putting us on his shoulders all season can't be knocked too bad. I really think the HUGE extra help with Lawson's playmaking & guard generated offense will allow Harden to spend more energy & dedication on defense. And I also think you will see Lawson's defense get better for the exact same reason, sharing the offensive load for once, allowing more attention to defense.

 

Tibadaeu would be a great assistant head coach for us, suprised he hasnt be hired

 

Surprised rebounding is the bottom of the poll here. Rebounding is the one key issue of the issues you have listed that could crater this team. We've lost Smith. And our big man rotation has basically 2 rebounders, Dwight, and a 2nd year player (Capela) whom we are counting on to be huge for us this next season.

I sure hope he is huge for us. But it's not a good strategy to be counting on a 2nd year player for such a key role. We need another bruising, rebounding, big man (that can shoot free throws). None of DMo/Terrence/Harrell are that big time rebounding bruiser that we are lacking.

 

Emperor Stern.

 

James Harden was an average at worst defender last season. Is there any stat that shows him being a poor defender? Or is this just a subjective eye test?

Potential starting lineup defensive ratings:

Ty Lawson 111
James Harden 103
Trevor Ariza 103
Terrence Jones 102
Dwight Howard 100

Or how about Defensive Box Plus Minus?

Ty Lawson -2.1
James Harden 1.0
Trevor Ariza 1.3
Terrence Jones 1.9
Dwight Howard 1.2

Really the only "bad" defender here is Lawson. We had the 6th best defense last season, I'd be shocked if we drop below 10th this season. McHale has some good defenders.

 

GWS, SAS, LAC, CAV, OKC are on paper just as good as us if healthy ...

 

what were terry's numbers last year? i doubt he's much better than ty.

 

I am not sure Free Throw shooting will be our undoing. At least not to the degree it was last year. DMO will be MUCH better than Smith at the line. D12 will be D12. Dorsey is gone. Capella will be 60+ percent this year I am willing to bet. So hacka will be limited to D12.

Coaching could be an issue. We just don't seem to have the ability to adapt in game. Sometimes you just have to change up if the other coach is able to identify an advantage. I don't think Lurch has that ability.

Given our offensive scheme. 3 point shooting might falter. Ariza should be solid, but his backup McDaniels and Brewer are not. Thornton could really shine in this area. I look forward to seeing him shoot. Terry. Does he have anything left?

Overall I think our weaknesses from last year have been addressed. This should be a fun season. Just get a few priests and bless this team so the injury bug will stay away.

 

Incompetence in crucial moments unlike any other contending team.

 

Maturity.

 

These stats have very serious flaws.
"Out of necessity (owing to a lack of defensive data in the basic boxscore), individual Defensive Ratings are heavily influenced by the team's defensive efficiency. They assume that all teammates are equally good (per minute) at forcing non-steal turnovers and non-block misses, as well as assuming that all teammates face the same number of total possessions per minute."

Examples :
In bballreference it shows that per 100 possesions (that is better than per 36) Harden and Ariza have the same Defrating of 103. So they are equally good defenders? No matter that Ariza always took on the hardest defensive assignment while Harden the easiest?
Bev has 106 so he was the worst starter in defence?


For those who asked Terry's is 106.

Even more hillarious is the stat DWS. It shows that Harden is by far the best defender on the team with 4.2 DWS while Ariza has only 3.9 and Howard 2.2.

 

Terry had a 106 defensive rating and a -0.7 defensive box plus/minus. So not as bad but still significantly worse than the rest of the starters.

Well can you give me some other defensive stats that show that Harden is a "bad" defender?

I agree that it is difficult to show individual defense in statistics, but all those stats show is that Harden was part of a good overall team defense last season.

Which goes back to my original point that a good coach can put together a good team defense even with some weaker individual defenders in the lineup.

 

i think the off season moves have addressed most of the weaknesses listed in the poll.


coaching:
i have to give credit where its due. mchale & co. leveled up last season from bad to average. that's all we need with this much talent. could pop have gotten us passed the warriors last year? could he have gotten us more wins with all those injuries? i'd say the team did as good as we could've hoped.

we saw improvements in managing timeouts and game flow, substitution patterns that actually made sense, and good plays out of timeouts. in the playoffs we even saw good game-to-game adjustments... and sometimes even good second half adjustments. in previous years we didn't see any of that.

shooting:
i think the addition of ty will make a big difference in getting more open 3's. i also think that the low 3pt% is due to our style of play: quantity over quality of 3pt shots.

rebounding:
everyone on the team rebounds well for their position except for the PFs. losing josh hurts. dmo isn't a good rebounder, and that's why i think he's best as a 6th man. we do need a big PF who can rebound and defend the 4... it wouldn't hurt if he could hit an outside shot and cost less that $5M and be available for jones/KJ/pick in trade. any ideas?!

ft shooting:
losing josh / joey helps. so long as we have dwight this will always be an issue. the issue for me is capela, jones, and dmo. even if we take dwight out there is no other good FT shooting to bring in. if capela can improve here he will stand the best chance of stealing minutes from dwight. this is what he should be working on all summer. also, as mentioned above, trading jones for an upgrade at PF might bring in another big who can hit a FT.

turnovers:
ty has the second best ast:to ratio, but not only will he help at the point, but he will also help cut down on turnovers for harden trying to do too much, and hopefully lower the number of dwight post-ups which usually result in a turnover. every player improves in this category from ty's addition to the team. also losing josh helps.

defense:
we were about #6 last year... we spent large parts of the season without 2 of our best defenders (dwight / pat). and no one was worried about defense last year because we were #6. most people started worrying about defense when we traded for lawson. but is he any worse than terry? because terry was pretty bad and got us to the WCF. as previously mentioned, i'm only worried about defense at the 4. dmo is a plus defender but poor rebounder. it would be nice to have a PF who can do both.

overall:
a PF who can defend, rebound, and hit a FT would put us in elite company, if not put us over the top. if that guy can also hit a 3, we might end up with the best record in the league. if we are trading jones and KJ to upgrade (those are the 2 biggest contracts without having to move important rotation players), the options are limited with that price and the hard cap... but a couple of interesting options appear:

patrick patterson: would improve our ft and 3pt shooting.
john henson: would improve our defense and rebounding.
meyers leonard: would improve our ft and 3pt shooting... and our rebounding.

portland might be interested in a hometown guy like jones, throw in a KJ for youth and potential and maybe a second rounder or so and we could get a steal of a big guy that fits almost all of our needs. we'd have enough room under the hard cap to take back mike miller for his championship experience and 3pt shooting. don't knock the importance of championship experience... see the difference terry, ariza, and brewer made? plus the size advantage of having 2 mobile 7' PF's who can hit the 3...

go to war with:
dwight-capela
leonard-dmo-harrell
ariza-brew-dekker
harden-miller-thornton
ty-pat-jet