RedDawg#8

JJ should get consideration too

Raptors remind me of the Ferry-era Hawks. Well constructed and well coached team that has a couple of All Star level go-to guys who can win you games in the regular season, but lack that next gear come playoff time. As stated, they win on effort and execution during the grueling regular season. Organizationally speaking, they have a great talent development system and find guys who fit their culture, not relying on splashy FA signings or rebuilding for high draft picks. This creates sustainable competitiveness year in and out. They were able to capture lightning in a bottle when they happened upon Kawhi, and they are poised to do the same thing if the opportunity arises again. In the meantime, they will continue to make the playoffs, and go home empty. The purgatory that we decided to escape.

Agree. My thing is, our rookies and even Skylar have talent. They are not just some charity cases we feel bad for. They genuinely provide skillsets that could have helped us, especially in limited minutes where they could be hidden among the main rotation. The only playing time they get is with each other, so of course their rawness and mistakes are going to stand out even more. But if were willing to let Cam play through his struggles, I know we can let JJ do the same when Gallo has to sit, or Cooper when Lou is out.

At this point we are trying to pass the teams in front of us. If we do that we don't have to worry about the ones behind us.

It would be hard because it would boil down to snap judgment, but I think there is a way. 1. Rely on common sense. If the ball is in transition or about to be, and a player clearly tries to intentionally foul they could let the play continue if the contact is minimal (soft touch foul) and just let the fouling player intentionally take themself out of the play. The punishment being embarrassment and an easy basket. 2. If the fouling contact is deemed to be excessive where they have to blow the whistle to stop play, they award 2 free throws regardless of penalty situation. They could also slow the game down even more and require replay to make this call, similar to a clear path foul assessment. Difference being that you don't gain possession after the free throws on the take foul. This would be to help separate it from a clear path foul which also stops a fast break, but is a bit more egregious. 3. Another option instead of 2 free throws and no possession, is they could award 1 technical free throw and possession. This would help avoid any hack-a scenarios. Again, it's mostly judgement, and the first thing players and coaches will adapt to do is to de-emphasize the "intentional" act and try to sell the refs on a soft attempt at defense before eventually still fouling before a reasonable shot attempt can be made. 4. So another thing they could use to prevent this is to use geography of the court and say any foul made outside of the 3 point line during transition is deemed intentional, but once the ball makes it inside the arc it's a common foul again.(Meaning, the defense actually ran back and got back in to the play) Transition is ceased once the ball crosses halfcourt and forward progress of the ball via dribble ends. So, a pass behind to a trailing teammate is still transition, but the ballhandler stopping his forward movement with the ball is discontinuing the fast break.

Thank goodness, I like these better than the others

How many players do y'all think we need to score in double figures to be successful? We currently have 7 on the roster, more than Chi, Mil, Mia, GS, and honestly I stopped checking right there. We DO NOT lack offense. We are one of the best offenses in the NBA, with plenty of guys that can go off any given night. We don't lack another scorer off the bench, we just need the ones we have to be more consistent if possible. We need more guys like Delon who can make an impact defensively and don't need a ton of shots on offense. I would like him to shoot more when open, but the fact that he is trying to get the ball inside to Gallo or get in to the lane himself is fine by me. He doesn't hurt us. His activity typically helps spark our runs.

That's only 57%.... barely more than half. Not the strongest stat to prove a point.

Lebron and KD both have respect for Trae, at least when talking to the media. Lebron was propping Trae up since he was at Oklahoma. Trae is also a part of Klutch sports. I don't know why they choose to leave him hanging when picking teams. Probably the same reason why Harden goes drafted late (besides intentionally being passed over this time) These guys don't really care to play with dudes who demand the ball more than them. That's my guess. Still shitty either way.

My thoughts exactly

Lmao, nah man, but that is freaking awesome lol

KD sucks at drafting, so did Giannis all those years. You never draft a big 1st in the ASG. He should have chose the best player which was Curry. Lebron ended up with the 3 best active NBA players; Himself, Giannis and Steph. After that, nothing really mattered. I just hate that Trae has to play with Wiggins. At least he is clearly one of the alpha's in their starting 5.

Super whack...... Trae gotta be mad

I may be an over thinker, I may be long winded. But I called this out a while back lol

Let's focus on us and finishing the first half of the season at or above .500. After AS weekend, it's go time. Things have been shaken up, let those teams worry about their chemistry and fit. Our squad is here to stay. Now guys can focus on the task at hand. No need to be afraid of anyone now.

Gallo, Bogi and Lou. Trae is not as bad as these 3 lol

Hell nah, Im over it at this point. Just rip the band-aid off when something is actually going down

I failed to mention that KCP is definitely no slouch in defense. I think Wright is better but not by a mile. Passing wise, its not close. Wright is willing and able. Scoring, KCP definitely is score first minded and not afraid to shoot. But his efficiency is not as good as Wrights and he is not prolific by any means. We can get 11 points from already from Bogi/Kev/Dre in the same amount of minutes

Wright offers similar scoring on a per minute basis, with better shooting percentages both this year and career wise. Wright is a much a better passer (which we need) not to mention defender and rebounder. And then there's price tag. Wright's value on his 1.5 mil salary out weighs KCP's 12 mil name value.

One would think that whenever Lou is out, that should open up minutes for Knox. But so far Nate has chosen to shorten the rotation than to replace those minutes with someone else.

At this point we can just take him back. I think he has learned his lesson that the grass isn't always greener.

Nate has to step it up too. You can't preach defense first and claim you want to establish a defensive identity when a healthy OO is watching a JC /Gallo lineup from the bench in the 1st quarter. We should go from CC to OO to CC for 48 minutes every game. If Cleveland can get away with playing 3 bigs together every game, we surely can figure out other ways to get Gallo his minutes. Also, every team has a gameplan on how to defend Trae and attack him defensively, yet we seem clueless as to how to defend stars and attack mismatches against our opponents. Our strategy, Dre guards the best player on an island, hide Trae on a shooter, let our Bigs clean up mistakes. This is easily exploited with teams who can set good screens and move the ball. Why can't we be proactive and blitz other teams stars BEFORE they get in to a rhythm? Why do our wings still leave shooters just to make a non-effective show attempt in the lane? We know JC or Dre will get an undersized defender every game. Why is it next to impossible to find them the ball and punish teams for this? Lastly. Our shooters need to shoot. The ball finds them clean too often for them to think they need to dance on the 3point line just to still shoot contested shots. Shoot it, pass it, or put it on the floor going to the rim. All these fall away, step back, side step 3's are why our good shooters look like mediocre ones. Delon, you need to shoot the ball too sir. You are open, take the shot. That's all on Coaching. We have too many bad habits and not enough smart habits. We rely too much on being bailed by individuals out on both ends of the floor. We need better team execution. We need Nate to embrace adjustments and not wait until it's too late to switch things up. No more Calm, cool nonsense. These guys are lacking urgency and it's painfully obvious. They have to come out swinging each game if we want to climb out of this hole. We are so much better than this it's not even funny. Everyone has to lock in, coaching included.

They want him to be Trae so bad. Lamelo and Zion's social media following is like a gold mine for the NBA. They will prop these 2 up as much as necessary to keep their millions of followers tuning in to the league. Eyeball's equal $$$

This was a tough stretch of games, not gonna lie. Ugly loss tonight. tough loss on Friday. Glad we were at least able to beat the Suns and not get swept this weekend. 3 games under .500 on the season. We have to get our minds right. Stop letting these winning streaks take away from the fact that we are a LONG way from righting the ship.

Defense has to be better than it was Friday. That's the only way we're going to turn this thing around