I don't think the theory is a bad one, but the problem is that it's incredibly hard to find good 3-pt shooters that are also good defenders. Right now we have two- Beverly and Ariza. Both of whom struggled with at least one of those aspects for large parts of the season. It seems like this gets said every year, but this offseason is pivotal for this franchise. Howard is no longer peaking, so we've got to go out and find an elite supporting cast and/or a third star.
He really is a pretty ****ty GM. He got some headliner names, then trumpets out some deep sounding philosophy for winning that makes everyone think he is some savant, but this team has never had a shot at being anything better than what they are right now. Damn fortunate for him that the Mavs lost Parsons for the series and that Rondo was on the wrong side of his bi-polar behavior. They probably shouldn't have even won that series.
OP is Patricker, which is probably related to Patrick Patterson, meaning this is obviously a Carl Herrera troll account.
You should find another hobby, because you have ****ty uninformed opinions when it comes to basketball. Even ESPN's front office ranking had Morey in the top 3
There are very little adjustments a coach can make when your unique variants are out injured. What does replacing Jones with Smith do? they're similar players, they don't change the dynamic at all. Small ball? against Griffin? yeah good luck with that. How about the point guard? maybe we can replace a 38 yo pg with a 37 yo pg? Just look at San Antonio, what does Popovich do when his spacing is killed? he completely changes the dynamic of his team by inserting fatso at pf. The only idea of an adjustment that has been made is start Brewer, which is a really dumb idea mind you, should give an example of just how hard it is to make adjustments when the roster is what we're rolling out. There's a reason he went after Bosh hard, Bosh would have changed the dynamic of this team so much we would have likely been the best team in the league, Dmo's development gave this team hope because of the shift in dynamic he provides, but that was anything but certain, that guy single handedly changed our primary need from pf/spacing to pg/ball handler, and then he got injured, and so did Beverley.
I think the analytics are a valuable tool, but I wonder how many variables are included. For example, how much is 3pt efficiency affected by the defense NOT having to defend the mid range jumper at all? If a defender doesn't have to worry about a 3pt shooter pump faking, stepping around the defender and sinking a mid range shot, then that defender is then capable of running at the three point line even harder than normal and are able to close out on 3pt shooters quicker than when that defender has to also worry about a mid range jumper.
Does anyone really believe that Dwight taking 6 post ups a game in these playoffs at the worst percentages of any player taking more than 1.5 is part of anyone's analytics?
The same ESPN that 90% of this board lambastes for being an awful source of sports information? Nah...let's just pick and choose ESPN's credibility. So awesome when they like the Rockets and such an evil, corrupt entity when they don't. Am I right!?!?!?!?!?
ESPN didn't provide those rankings, they just published the rankings as provided by various team staff.
The problem I have with using numbers to create a philosophy is that they are using regular season numbers. The game changes a lot in the playoffs. So certain philosophies that may work in the regular season based on the numbers won't necessarily work in the playoffs.
Ahhh...so THOSE rankings we can be comfortable with. It is all of those OTHER rankings that are worthless. I guess such a fairweather fanbase would have that sort of attitude translate to other areas, too.
Do you think it's easy to recover on a 3 point shooter from the paint or from 15 feet away? It's not analytics. It's geometry.
Interesting that the Warriors are struggling too. What is the saying on jumpshooting teams? Maybe that would give playoff data too to the analysts.
I really would like to see McHale have that Warriors team with the bench and 3 and D players they have.
Morey should've been more aggressive in getting another big man before the playoffs. I said this back in March: I was called a troll for expecting more from Morey. The point was even when Dwight comes back, who do we have to match up against bigger centers. NOBODY. Why didn't Morey get McGee? Dalembert? Hell even Kenyan Martin is more physical than our current group of bigmen. Morey stood pat when he should've been aggressive in looking for size. Now we're becoming the laughing stock of the league smh
The funny and scary thing is that Morey actually believes Harden is the de-facto PG On Grantland last week he came out and said something along the lines of the ideal player around Harden is either a defender (Beverley) or a shooter (terry) This guy thinks he has solved basketball. He has an over inflated ego for someone who hasn't achieved much as a GM
