RedDawg#8

I kind of agree with this sentiment, but realistically we don't have much time to accomplish this. We only have 15 games left before the trade deadline, and Dre, Cam, Clint are still dealing with injury. We may not see all of our top-12 together for a couple more games, and that's only if nobody else goes down in the mean time. Then there is the whole chemistry, rhythm and rotation thing for them to figure out when they do get back. Most teams typically wait until the last day to pull the trigger on trades, but the lines are ringing now and you have to engage to put the parameters of these deals in place way in advance. Meaning. Even though we likely won't see a trade until Feb 9th or 10th, Travis can't sit back and wait until everyone is healthy before he has serious conversations. He has to (and I'm sure already has) wrap his head around what this team is and what this team needs based on what they have shown even at less than full strength. Things are moving now, ideal or not, it is what it is.

I appreciate the positive spin on my negative take lol

I hope Hunter can eventually work his way back to his pre injury form. And not only that, I hope that he can stay healthy for a sustainable length of time. The way he played pre-injury, I'd not bat an eye at trading away Cam or another core guy. But the way he looked to start this season, he looked worse than he ever did even as a rookie. Not bad, but just completely ineffective. I want the Dre who was our second best player back. Im not getting my hopes up considering how much time he has missed in the last 11+ months

Philly's hands have been tied. Ben is not suiting up for them ever again, and everyone knows it. If there was a better deal, it would have been done already. The only way they get back a star player for Ben was if a disgruntled one became available. Zion and Kyrie were the two names I floated around before the season as star level guys that have toxic situations. Other than that it's going to be multiple assets and matching salary. But the bottom line is that Ben is never playing for the Sixers again, so they will make a trade one way or the other. It's just a matter of when at this point. We are team that wants to make a trade, but we don't have to. We can be stubborn and reject deals. Philly HAS to trade Ben or they will just continue to waste time. money and a roster spot on a DNP player every night. They will be flexible or they will be stuck with this drama even longer.

A chance? Coming from Schlenk's mouth? I would not bank on it. He is close though

We are in a good spot asset wise. The best contracts we have to move are Bogi and Gallo. Clint was too before his extension. Our young core guys are attractive pieces but they wont net equal value in return which is good for us because we wont trade them in 90% of these scenarios.

With Cam down, I am hoping they give Delon more minutes in the backcourt WITH Trae and not just backing him up. Anyone that shares the court with Trae typically performs better offensively, I don't see why that wouldn't apply to Delon. He would still be the backup PG, but he would get minutes at SG now too.

Thanks I just saw this in the other thread.

When we getting Nate back is the real question. He should have been under the new guidelines for 5-6 days

I went through this during the playoffs. He and John Collins have the exact same measurables with and without shoes. But John was sized down and Ben was sized up. However tall you consider JC to be, Ben is his equal

I think he is easily. But I do not like the fit next to Trae. Portland can't do anything in the playoffs because of their tiny backcourt. Trae is even smaller and a worse defender than Dame. We would be locked in to a very undersized backcourt that likely would suffer the same glass ceiling as Portland. Size and defense have to be considered in any of these trades. Losing 6'7 for 6'3 is no bueno. I do like the Simmons trade though. He boosts our 2 biggest weaknesses, Defense and playmaking outside of Trae.

I know we didn't win it all, but on everything, I believe that 26 point comeback win in game 5 against Philly and subsequent series upset broke the title curse over this city. Every embarrassing playoff meltdown I have witnessed was washed down the drain. The ghosts of choking past were locked away for good. A new era of Georgia sports was unlocked. We are now 2 for 2 in major sports titles since that magical Hawks run ended. If Trae doesn't go down, we win games 3+4 and maybe go the distance. But we did our part either way. Now every team in this state can be great again.

When Nate took over last season, both Cam and Dre were out. His primary wings to finish the season were Bogi, Kev, Snell and Hill. Of those names, he only needed to prioritize touches for Bogi. He designed plays to get him shots. Snell was the safety valve shooter that knew his role. Hill was energy off the bench that knew his role. Kev was allowed to do a little of everything with the second unit, and would also have a few plays for him when he was with the starters. The point being that there was far less mouths to feed, only one player that needed to intentionally get going each night. Because we lacked bigs and rookie OO was still green, we went with a heavy 3 man rotation of Clint, JC, and Gallo most games, with OO getting those spot minutes between the 1st+2nd, and 3rd+4th quarters. But it was much easier to establish Gallo in the post because he shared the court with Lou, and Kev as the only other mouths. So Kev was the wing scorer, and Lou would find whoever had the best matchup between the 3 of them. It was a simple recipe. I think that playing shorthanded last season is what helped to clarify the roles. Guys may not have had it going but they knew that they were going to get shots and had to take them when they came. Depth is supposed to be our strength, but we are not deep with just role players who want to share the ball, we are deep with guys who want iso touches to get themselves going. This is where they have to clear things up. We are pressed to get guys minutes that we aren't finding and exploiting mismatches. Bogi has it going and he get's pulled to satisfy the pre set rotation. In coms a cold shooter and out goes what was working. I could go on and on. But we need more dirty work guys who don't care about touches and less dudes that know they can average 20 if they got the shots. Sounds crazy, because that means we have too much talent, but the talent doesn't mesh well together.

There is nothing in the way of Kev being a scorer. It's about his mindset. There are multiple possessions in a game where he will get the ball in space in a triple threat stance with options to attack his defender, get in the lane and hunt his shot, and he either settles for a long 3 or passes it back out to Trae. We have seen Kev in attack mode before. There is nothing about our scheme or the coaching that prevents him from doing it every night. He almost always has a mismatch because he is either quicker or taller than the guy defending him. The looks are there if he is willing to be aggressive.

Simons, then Monk/Bradley, looks like today it's going to be Coffey who has the game of his life.

It's not just Trae, it's not just Cam. Now Bogi is getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That's on coaching at this point. Our defensive strategy needs to be revisited because that weakside 3 is wide open every single possession it seems. Guys need to anticipate that kick out if they are going to sink down, or just stay home.

If Cam is hurt he needs to be inactive. I want to see him play but not if he can't move well

Trae-Delon Bogi-Kev-Cam JC-Gallo-OO That's your rotation tonight. No need to p*ssy foot around. JJ and TLC can play on an emergency basis only.

Cam has caught whatever Trae had on defense. He is losing the weak side shooter on multiple possessions. Side note. Kev should have been subbed back in instead of TLC, but that's just me. That or they should have put in Wright next to Trae. I do not see the need to play 4 wings when the 4th wing is really a 12th man type.

God yes! It makes no sense for a guy who opened the season as our 6th wing to leapfrog over 3 key core players in front of him that we can barely find enough minutes for to begin with. If there is one position group that should not be relegated to fixed units its got to be our wings. Forget the names on paper for a second, just the nature of those positions are naturally interchangeable and flexible parts. Then add in to the fact that this season, none of our top 4 wings have established themselves as a clear cut starter or reserve. Between Dre, Cam, Bogi and Kev it's been up and down all season for each of them. So this idea that we can keep Dre's seat warm for him in the starting lineup by plugging in a Hill or a TLC was just plain stupid. Cam and Kev should be getting as many opportunities as possible to show what they can do next to the starters. Especially while Dre is out. We should be rotating 3 wings only until Dre comes back unless injury or foul trouble occur. Mix and match and let these guys get all the minutes they can so hopefully someone shows that they excel in one role or the other. Stop wasting precious minutes on scrubs like TLC.

He definitely can and has shown it before. It was bad this season but I think his engagement really fell off a cliff after the Covid attrition happened. He was writing it all off on playing with a bunch of new faces, and he hasn't seemed to have turned it back on even slightly since then. I also think teams are targeting him much more. They see the same tape that we do and they are game-planning for his lack of awareness and effort. Since he has been back, almost every guard he faces and for sure every backcourt we have seen has had career nights going against us/him. They are telling their guards to hunt their shot and let it fly because there will be no resistance. In the past, most teams hunted Trae in the pick and roll to get him switched on to a big, or they would try to post him if he was assigned to a wing. Trae actually faired pretty well in those circumstances. Now it looks like teams are just hunting shots for their guards because they know Trae will eventually die on a screen and leave them wide open. Im not even that mad about that because I generally hate how we defend the pick roll altogether and I think it leaves a lot of our wings to dry because they don't have the freedom to play the screen and go under when it's clearly set way too high. That's another story. What kills me is his ball watching and "help" defense. Especially when his guy has the hot hand. We don't need Trae to be the guy who double teams against a Lebron or Embiid. He isn't going to do anything but get a weak foul if that. He needs to be on his man and prevent the kick out, or the offensive rebound by his guy. The Bucks beat us in the playoffs by singlehandedly having Trae's man crash hard to the offensive glass because he would always lose them. They also had Jrue leak out after every Trae shot attempt because Trae would be posing and playing to the crowd instead of getting back. Teams are going after the immature parts of his game now. He is an offensive force, but they know that they can get every one of his points back if they attack his weaknesses. Ability is there as he is quick and scrappy, but it's about pride at this point. Don't just let your man kill us play after play. I'd rather he be so selfish that he face guards his guy and doesn't help on any other assignment. Im sure the locker room would appreciate that much more than what he is doing now. They can figure out what to do 4 on 4, just stop leaving and losing your guy.

This is a HUGE reach my friend. He said it was about effort like 3 times and only once mentioned game planning as if it was an afterthought . Clickbait title if I ever saw one.

2 on 2 fast break, we are in the bonus. That should have been a drive to the rim and get to the line. Zero awareness. Seek contact when you're in the bonus.

That open TLC miss was money if Kev was on the court

We were in the bonus, he should be driving to the rim and getting to the line. They haven't been able to stay in front of him. That shot was a bail out