What is the problem we are trying to solve here? Is it that we don't like the way one of the top ranked offenses looks? I don't disagree that the team looks bad lately - just trying to solve for problems rather than emotional reactions after losses. Let's talk about the through line here regardless of single game failures.
It is a multiple game failure, we have 9 loses to **** teams. Teams have figured out you double Durant at the top of the circle, and he doesn't move away from that spot. It is the same reason Phoenix sucked last year, Durant is a great scorer and not great at anything else....but his scoring is mostly ISO - take that away and this team soars..... Also take Adams and his slow unathletic self out and put a lob threat or a rolling threat in that spot and we take off with a more balanced offense. People saying everything is fine when the house is on fire are annoying. DD
They both need to stop ISO crap.......IME should build around Sengun, he should make it clear, but he won't because he doesn't have the stones to stand up to KD. DD
They need to decide if they’re in or out of the KD business. You’re “all-in” the next 2 years. You trade him (expect little back) and reset your timeline to your 23 year olds. Honestly never seen a “two-timeline” approach work in sports. (Think the Warriors kinda tried it and yeah no. Current Mavs with Kyrie/AD and new toy Cooper Flagg) Spoiler Fred/Reed/Holiday Green/Cedric Coward(hypothetically who I would have taken with the 10th pick) Brooks/Cam Smith/Amen/Tari Sengun/Adams/Landale Maybe it’s knee jerk but I’m kinda ready to hit the nuclear button: trade KD, fire Udoka, hit reset. (Hell, maybe that’s moving on from Fred as well.) They thought they were a player away but the reality is they lost in the first round, not the Western Conference Finals Game 7.
Lost in the first round to a play-in team, who had an injured star. That play-in team then proceeded to get smoked in 5 in the next round by the #6 seed, and is a .500 team this year. We were the 7th best team in the west playoffs last year, and at least 5 teams would be favored over us in a playoff series this year. Not sure about "fire Udoka", but why are we employing a 37 year old star player and not trading him for the future? I thought this organization was about championships, not playoff participation trophies.
I think you and J.R. are articulating what a lot of fans are feeling. KD is as advertised but taking 3 key contributors off last years successful team has clearly had a big impact. Right now I can certainly understand buyers remorse. But KD is as advertised. And we are locked into him. what I’m interested in is how can we consolidate around the vital pieces and lose the mediocre pieces. We are locked into KD and Fred for next season. But can we actually properly evaluate the players we have and make decisions? Does it makes sense to keep Clint and DFS? What is our value on Bari and Tari? Can we turn them into a young blue chip core player? I’m a huge Steve-o guy, but we need rim protection more than his skill-set. I really don’t want to move him, but does he fit what we need? I just think KD and Fred are clearly what they are. We know a lot about Amen and Sengun. We know we need to see more of Reed to know what he is. But how can we mold the rest of the roster around those 5 guys? …keeping our youth window open (or even widening it). Because…Fred and KD aren’t going anywhere next season.
I hear everything you are saying about the offense - I agree with your assessments often - it doesn't look great having everyone defer to KD, and teams having the ability to take the ball out of KD's hands when it matters most is causing issues because all the rest of the players get the ball as a release valve and are just looking for an opportunity to put the back in KD's hands wasting time and effort doing absolutely nothing but facilitating "KD's turn". I see the poor shooting, the lack of a system outside of 'go do something KD', our team getting 4 and 5 clean looks after offensive rebounds and somehow coming away without any points and I don't like it either....but when I look at the numbers - the offense delivers enough points generally that you should be able to win more games than what we are winning. Our offense is one of the better offenses in the league... but the defense has really waned in the last month here - far too many 30+pt quarters allowed particularly late in games. The "team" part of team defense is problematic right now - communication is not consistent and I do think to some extent what I'm seeing that IS related to the "I go, you go" style of offense we have been playing is that KD and Alpi are doing so much offensively that their defensive effort wanes. This does mean - we need an offense where everyone contributes offensively so we don't have to create these lopsided effort levels between people who play mostly offense and people who play mostly defense. Honestly Amen is the ONLY guy out there contributing to both in equal impact. We gotta learn how to play both sides of the ball as a team. Unfortunately ongoing injuries are causing roster instability, extended road trips are limiting team practice opportunities, and guys are having to play themselves back into shape(DFS, Alpi, Tari - none of them have looked particularly "sharp" post injuries and that's like 3 of our first 6 or 7 guys in the rotation) - it is going to take some time to right the ship but the talent is here both in our players and coaching - but what we are seeing on the court right now is the real cost of fundamentally re-shaping a team's core and forcing them to create new ways to work together. They had a system in place with Dylan and Jalen - now they have to come up with one that intergrates what DFS or KD are offering and how Alpi or Reed fits into that. We are in the "storming" part of Tuckman's 5 stages of group development(you should look this up - it's a real phenomenon). We had largely not had to face that last year because Dillon, Fred, Jalen had all been with the team a while. The whole "deferring to other people" aspect in particular is a classic identifier of unclear roles that the team is working through now. I saw it last night - Alpi turned around and was trying to get the ball back to KD and KD was gesturing back to Alpi to take it and he seemed visibly frustrated with the lack of knowing the right path - the result was a hurried drive to the basket and a contested miss. I expect the team to have some uncomfortable conversations in the coming days and start more explicitly defining a new working agreement of how they work together. It doesn't look pretty but I have worked with group development for years professionally and it's a necessary aspect of any team's development. Let's give them time to work through the storming and start to establish new norms with KD on the roster. It might not give us the best record but it WILL give us the best chance at making some noise in the playoffs.
