RedDawg#8

There are a lot worse situations than having to bounce between practicing in Brookhaven, playing in Atlanta proper and being sent to play in College Park, and vice versa. Especially for a guy who is from Cobb County. Having a vet at your position who is also from the city will go a long way in helping him balance things too.

I can't imagine the Clippers without Beverly, he is/was a huge part of their identity. That cheap shot on CP3 probably was the last straw.

He walked up to Cam, Dre and Trae after the shot .... ooooh, nevermind. My bad. That was just another 6-7 white dude with a similar upper body frame and arms. Same haircut too but there is no way Kev's bright red hair could ever be that dull brown, no matter what the lighting.

Y'all, Trae has almost an inch in height on Sharife. See when they hug at the end. K Huerter sighting too, I don't think he was mentioned as being in Vegas at all but there he was.

Facts, Dorsey was one dimensional at best. A shooter who couldn't really shoot well enough to be called a shooter. Mays' feel for the game is spectacular. I want to remind people that he may be a sophomore in the NBA but he is the same age as JC. You can tell he has had a lot of basketball reps. He knows what is going in and what he wants to do. He makes great decisions with the ball.

Anyone calling Mays the next Tyler Dorsey need to put some respeck back on his name lol

I think Solo taking up for Trae earned him another contract in Schlenk's eyes. I love that he isn't some goofy try-hard tough guy either. He doesn't pretend to be anything. He is a smart and discerning vet. He stays in the moment and does what needs to be done., says what needs to be said.

They are a lot lower on the Bulls and Knicks than I anticipated I wonder what makes them so confident about the Celtics. I mean when we had Schröder and Horford you would have thought we didn't even exist in the NBA. Celtics add them to a team that's trending downward and all of a sudden they are saviors.

I counter your disagree with another disagree. All of those attributes help you to succeed on defense, but only the physical aspects are God given, like Size and quickness, and even having those does not make you a great defender. Alex Len has size, not a great defender. Kyrie Irving has elite lateral mobility, not a great defender. Michael Porter Jr has size and mobility, not a great defender. Fred Van Vleet, and Kyle Lowery are both short, but can lock up on defense. I agree that instincts and anticipation are important, but disagree on that being God-Given. Those can be developed over time through experience and reps. If you play basketball long enough, you tend to pick up on stuff eventually that you got burned on when you were younger. The mental part of the game never stops developing. Some cats may start off ahead of others but that is not a fixed attribute by any means. It may sound like coach speak to you, but I have seen it over and over and over. Guys who are shitty defenders 90% of the time, decide they want to lock up on a guy, and they can make a stop. It's all starts inside. If you have that mentality AND all of the physical God-given attributes, then you are cooking with hot grease. Jalen Johnson is a great example of my point. He has been a game changer on defense at times, but down the stretch last game his "effort" waned and you saw him get beat repeatedly by guys he outmatches physically. You have to be locked in and willing to compete first and foremost. My point was that Sharife has something that you can build upon, because he has the right mindset. He needs to get stronger, he needs to anticipate screens better. But you can work with him because he wont give up on the play. I do not put dunking and shooting in the same category as defense. EVEN THOUGH you can improve both your shooting and your vertical over time.

Sharife has the number one thing you need to be a good defender, and that's the willingness to compete on that end. If you ain't got that, you won't have a chance. Some guys are just passive on defense, like vintage Harden or Trae. But even when those 2 decide to compete defensively, they are exponentially better than when they don't. Trae in playoffs was pretty decent, but that's because his effort level rose to the occasion.

We tendered him a contract which I think means we want him back. I think its a 75% chance he get's it, 25% chance we keep our options open for one of the Summer League breakouts who may hit the market

I can't rock with that because Nate came in and dealt with the same injury issues and still got better results. He didn't change a bunch of X's and O's either. He literally just placed an emphasis on the 4th quarter, and made sure guys were clear about what he needed them to do. Again, we are not inferior to our opponents through 3.5 quarters, why would I accept that as an excuse for the last 3-5 minutes of the game? There's nothing on the line in SL, and what I see is Hill giving them the freedom to play through mistakes. Which is fine. I just hate seeing the same mistakes show up in the same situations. That let's me know coaching is not working properly.

LP hired Matt Hill from what I researched, he is a carryover. And Nate still teaches a lot of LP's stuff if we are being technical. But beyond that, what I'm referring to is game execution, not the X's and O's themselves, and coaching emphasis, such as situational basketball, decision making and teaching moments. LP could write an entire thesis about why we lost a game, but he coudn't get the players to "get it" or execute what was so plain for him to see. So far this SL, there doesn't seem to be any game to game improvement from the mistakes we made down the stretch in game 1 which are almost identical to the mistakes made in game 3. If not for a scramble ball 3 pointer at the buzzer, we would have three straight games in an almost identical fashion. So, Im not talking about a playbook. Im literally referring to coaching. And I think there is a parallel when LP had the same issues with late game loses, and Matt Hill was his hire.

Im not either considering Matt Hill is just an assistant coach, not even the top one. Just an interesting observation, or so I thought. LP's former hire has our SL team performing like we did under LP.

I don't disagree about the talent gap on paper, but we are still jumping out on these teams, building and carrying a lead throughout the game. So it's not like we are getting outclassed. The eye-ball test doesn't suggest that we are inferior to our opponents at all. It looks a lot like last season before the coaching change where we were losing winnable games, and it was always late game execution that was the culprit. Execution can still fall on the players but I thought it was an interesting parallel between Matt Hill and LP and how we look on the court. These young cats are not being taught how to win the way Nate teaches.

Facts, especially until that range becomes more consistent.

Anyone else noticing the ghost of Lloyd Pierce with all 3 of the games involving us blowing leads late and dropping 2 of 3 with poor execution down the stretch? I mean, if not for the buzzer beater by Rife we would have 3 blown lead losses under 2 minutes. Matt Hill was originally on LP's staff. Whatever they were teaching still aint working when it comes to closing out games. Thank goodness Nate is around to instill good habits. Apparently he told Sharife he had a 2 turnover limit. It all starts at the top.

That's how you earn a nickname. We gone mess around and have an "Ice-Water" backcourt lol

I don't care much about what they say, but I do in fact care about whether we get a fair shake at National TV games and what not. If I have to sit through the Pelicans getting 3 times as many primetime games as us I'm going to jump. Zion is great, but Im sorry, his dunks do not look that spectacular in the NBA as they did at Duke. He doesn't have the same buzz as a pro. They need to stop force feeding him to us especially since his team still sucks. I want double digit games on prime time

He supposedly has one of the best there is. Jeff Austin, who represents Curry and Giannis. Some talking heads are suggesting he didn't take his agent's advice

Solid gold right here!

Ok fair, lol Could you imagine if we stayed put and just grabbed him for ourselves though! My overall point being Schenk doesn't make many mistakes if at all

I don't want to sound mean, but basketball front office's have to be some of the biggest idiots in all of sports . NBA GM's probably miss on guys more than any professional league, and they never seem to learn their lesson. There are too many prevailing theories of how to evaluate a player or build a roster, and they all conflict with one another. We are in a really good spot, not just because Travis can draft well, because that takes a certain amount of luck (we're talking ping pong balls for crying out loud). But his total vision of HOW he wanted to execute this rebuild and never panicking or shifting just because things looked rough. We didn't just get lucky in the draft, we COMITTED to the draft. We didn't throw away picks, or waste them on long term projects overseas. We never made a player trade without trying to get a toss-in draft pick that could be used later so that we wouldn't have to burn ours. And on top of that, through 5 years, we have somehow managed to draft Best Player Available AND still fit our needs at the time and build the roster out evenly. I mean look at this lineup of just draft picks Trae, Sharife, Graham* Kev, Mays, Dorsey* Dre, Cam JC, JJ, Spellman* OO, Bruno* Were there a couple of misses in there, sure, but it didn't break us because we had multiple swings at the plate in Schlenk's own words. You know who we don't mention that we missed on? Devonte Graham. We took him and traded him for 2 second round picks. Schlenk is not perfect, but because he has such a good approach, his mistakes go unnoticed moajority of the time.

These guys are playing to their talent level and potential, and NOT to their expert ratings and draft slots if that makes sense. All things equal, you roll a basketball out on the court and tell them to go play, they can hang with anyone in their class. (Green looks to be something special though) There is no denying they both belong and are not afraid. They still have a ways to before they are ready to be full time contributors for a team with championship aspirations, but if this was 2 years ago, these cats would be playing major minutes for us likely putting up big time numbers. The "pump the breaks" mentality is only because we are too deep to realistically have a role for them to thrive right now.

I think Jrue and Simmons are the cream of the crop when it comes to perimeter defense. That being said, Trae can still eat against them. What is a shame, and needs to change at some point, is that there isn't a name on that list that Trae can guard. If he ever evolves in to just an average defender, the sky is the limit. Making Bogi and Kev guard PG's year round is taxing. If Trae could ever add some strength there is no reason he can't be effective like Vanvleet is, who is 2 inches shorter at 5'11