The Athletic: Bruno Fernando Will Start Over Sengun When He Returns

The sense of entitlement you've awarded a 2nd year role player is astounding

 

Someone posted he had the best defensive rating on the roster a week ago. We KNOW that's BS yall cherry picked. He sucks on defense dude

 

It's not that it's someone elses fault, at least that's not how I look at it. I guess depending on which player you like you could just blame the other guy. But the bottom line is the KPJ/Sengun pnr isn't great, they just don't have good chemistry. I personally don't like to blame either one, they're just not on the same page. Maybe I'll push my agenda and blame the coaching? Joking aside, yeah, I don't think it's fair to lay all the blame on either player.

It looks like Sengun is at 1.25 PPP as a roll man with Green, which is in the 65th percentile, that's pretty good but not great. Not sure how that compares to Fernando as the website I'm using doesn't have him on there.

Also worth noting that Garuba is worse as a roll man in every situation, with every guard, compared to both Fernando and Sengun.

 

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Trying to keep my newly found inner peace, so I'll go easy on you.​

Yup...

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I respect this take even though I don't agree with it, and appreciate the bolded part at the end. I can't take anyone seriously who says Fernando is a better player than Sengun. I think it's clear, for the reasons you laid out, that Fernando is the better fit in a vacuum. The only question is whether or not the fit outweighs the ability of Sengun, and the answer changes from game to game.

Against Denver I think it was pretty clear we needed Sengun on the court and he was the best option. But against Atlanta, they looked better with Fernando. And against Golden State, I think the stats were a bit misleading, the team generated a ton of open 3s while Sengun was on the court but they just weren't falling. So the plus minus in that game was a bit deceiving, I don't think he was playing as poorly as it seemed, however the team was playing really well with Fernando on the floor. Now that Bruno is back from injury it will be interesting to see how this shakes out.

I continue to believe Sengun is our best option at center and two rough games doesn't change that. But we definitely need more Bruno games to know for sure.

 

Cusp of stardom? You keep saying I'm saying that.

I've said Brunson, Tim Hardway, Marcus Smart, Dinwiddie are average to a little bit
better than average and are getting paid big bucks. I put Porter in there with them.

Yes KPj is raw and I have always said that.....but you often see me saying there
is a progression with PG's just like with every NBA position.

Knuckleheads here claim you are born with entire court vision and can't
learn it if you don't have it......I call BS on that. Porter has enough court
vision and can get better at it as the game slows down for him.

Not all parts are equal and not all players are the same as last year.
The introduction of Bari/Tari and them being deer n the headlights
as they learn the speed of the game.....and Tate being out has pushed
both Greens and KPjs numbers to the poorer side. Once Tate comes back
and as Bari and Tari understand the game....stats will improve.

Marcus Smart has been a shooting guard for many years.....Schroder was
traded to Houston at the deadline. Boston promoted Smart to PG and
their winning percentage improved. Is Marcus Smart a top tier PG? No
Is Marcus Smart a better PG than Schroder? No. But Marcus Smart
is running that Combo Guard thing as most teams are going to dual
Combo Guards. For switching defense, rebounds, blocks, deflections.

It's get the rebound and go Pace and Space stuff teams are moving to.
I dont need or want KPj to be a pure point guard. I need him to rebound,
block shots, deflections, steals, help interior defense better than most
"Pure Point Guards" Get the rebound and go!! Go!!! Go!! If someone else
gets the rebound either kPj or Jalen Green be there to get the pass and go.
Whoever is on that side of the court where it is rebounded.

PG/SG as interchangeable. 1 and 2 positions doing much the same as
in "Position-less Basketball"

I've been posting for over a week now on "Drives" KPj turnovers on drives
are equal to some of the best in the game. I've documented that.
The KPj turnovers are coming from stepping on the line (out of bounds as
he catches near corner 3),
travelling, touchdown passes going out of bounds, weak cross court passes.
All of these drive me crazy but can be cleaned up.

I would be more concerned if KPj was getting 3 turnovers a game during drives
like people are making it sound. But when the dude has 16 drives per game
and averages around 0.8 turnovers on those drives....that's actually good.
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And if someone asks me again about the Silas Mavs PnR and the current
Silas PnR I'm going to pull my hair out. (Not you @Easy)

Silas 19/20 Mavs
Dwight Powell: 27.0 freq........86.6 NBA percentile
Kleber: .............25.7 freq........92.2 NBA percentile
Willie Cauley-Stein: 45.3 freq..93.5 NBA percentile
Porzingis: .......15.5 freq.........65.4 NBA percentile
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Numbers last season were bad but we are catching up now in frequency.

Silas 22/23 Rockets
Bruno: 2.0 poss.....43.8 freq...1.57 PPP.......7.1 (TOV%)....95.0 NBA percentile
Garuba: 1.0 poss...25.6 freq.....1.23 PPP.......9.1 (TOV%)....55.5 NBA percentile
Sengun: 3.8 poss...25.9 freq.....1.15 PPP......6.7 (TOV%)....41.7 NBA percentile
Jabari: 1.0 poss......7.5 freq......1.09 PPP......9.5 (TOV%).....35.0 NBA percentile
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/roll-man

These numbers were poorer last year since Wood got 30 minutes plus and frowned
on PnRollers being on the court with him at the same time.

Yes Doncic made those guys look better and those guys helped Doncic.
Somebody is making Bruno look good.....it's not just KPj. It's G4 and Nix
as well. Point being that KPj/G4/Nix can run the system with Bruno....
just difficult to do with Sengun because he is not a lob threat.

 

Unlike Sengun, Green and Porter also get a lot of minutes in more defense oriented line ups withTari, Garuba and KJ.

 

Sounds like Sengun should be coming off the bench then, surrounded by people who shore up his weaknesses and won't steal his offensive touches.

 

He can not start, as long as he gets most minutes and finishes the game.

 

No, Tari and KJ should start.

 

The starting 5 all are defensively weak, not the case Sengun is the only bad or weakest starting player. To the contrary, if you actually rewatch games, you can easily see that perimeter defense is way worse than anything closer to the rim. It is very easy to see if you actually rewatch the games with paying attention to this, and what I said in the previous post supports that: Green and Porter has worse defensive rating, though spending more time with defensively oriented line-ups.

So if it sounds like anything, it sounds like the starting five should come off the bench, starting with the guards first.

I think the center position is much less problematic than the guard positions, with Sengun, Garuba and Fernando each offering something on a consistent basis. From the guards you never know what you'll get on offense, and they are all bad at defense. Shuffling the centers won't change that. and it would be utterly stupid to give minutes to Fernando, rather than developing Sengun. With the current construction of the roster, the problem is not solvable. The only thing we can do is remove Gordon from the starting line-up. KPJ is not good but has no replacement.

It looks like a good idea to bundle KPJ and Fernando together and Green and Sengun together. But there is no ball handler other than nix to add to Green and Sengun. Nix is bad, and Silas is too bad to use Sengun other than post ups. If tyty is reasonable than maybe

KPJ-Fernando-Gordon(or Nix) on one group
TyTy/KPJ-Green-Sengun in another group

Since kpj will play more minutes, he can spend time in both groups.

So the solution (in addition to removing Gordon) is the addition of a guard to the team with a defensive upside, preferably reducing KPJ's minutes and I don't see any other way.

 

I think you missed the point. The point is KPJ and Jalen are much more horrible defensive players than Sengun. So they should be the ones coming off the bench according to your take.

 

Under no scenarios will Green be coming off the bench, and if we get Scoot, the replacement for KPJ he will be just as bad as well. So no, the guards will not be coming off the bench.

The issue here is ultimately the Sengun nuts want the team to be built around him, to maximize him. That is not happening.

A defensive minded center (who is not yet on this team) will be needed to cover for our guards weaknesses in potential future lineups. This is called balancing your roster.

 

I got a bad news for you then. Eventually that's exactly what's going to happen.

 

KPJ is not in our potential future lineups. Look at his new contract, and u will see it. Just Jalen Green is in our future, and lineup can carry both Jalen and Sengun. U can add defensive mind other players around these two, and pick 2023.

 

ahahaha

 

No it’s not.
It’s called covering up for bad players.

 

You know ball

 

If someone in Nuggets, thought like him in the past. Jokic would never be Jokic.