Soaring down South asks a good question...

[Diesel]

5 hours ago, RandomFan said:

When you have teams that are limited in that way, they aren't real title contenders. As I stated before in this thread:

Not every team has to have the personnel to play small ball effectively. The point is that plenty enough do in the playoffs. Instead, what you are doing is underestimating the amount of those teams. It's also not as hard to do as you seem to think. Utah keeps getting bounced in the first or second round year after year, with Gobert playing like crap on defense when that happens. 

Utah's playoff results the last 5 years. 

Year	Record	Result
2021	52-20	Lost Western Conference Semifinals (Won 1 Round)
2020	44-28	Lost Western Conference First Round (Won 0 Rounds)
2019	50-32	Lost Western Conference First Round (Won 0 Rounds)
2018	48-34	Lost Western Conference Semifinals (Won 1 Round)
2017	51-31	Lost Western Conference Semifinals (Won 1 Round)

 

Exception to the rule? That's a real nice exception to the rule ya got there, it'd be a shame if something happened to it.

 

Really? Who knew. Besides everyone already knowing this is possible to a limited degree, and you trying to move the goal posts on your argument, let's actually address this for a moment. We all know what is being talked about with our Bam/Gobert comparison is exploiting a player to the point of being a net negative on the floor and making them borderline unplayable, neutering what they are supposed to be great at, and not just exploiting them for a few plays with some cleverly designed sets or actions, nor someone defending a star player and them still getting their stats. For example, nobody is going to consistently stop an Embiid or a Jordan or a Kobe. 

But great defenders and great team defenses can slow those players down, make them work harder for it and help hold the rest of the team in check. They can be at least a speed bump. What we are talking about is being so exploitable that a team can keep a defender from even being a speed bump, such as what teams have consistently been able to do to Gobert. So there is a very wide gulf between what is happening with the Gobert situation and your above quote which only serves as an empty platitude in a failed attempt to save your bacon. As Deke would say, "not today!"  

BTW, you never answered my question: what can a team change to take advantage of Bam. I'll clarify the question to make it easier to understand the parameters: what can be done schematically to exploit Bam on defense to render him similarly as useless as what keeps happening to Gobert in the playoffs?

I would say I will patiently await an adequate answer to that question, but we know there will be no answer forthcoming since there isn't one. At least not in this era with the rules as they currently exist.

It would be nice to put a blanket over all of Utah's playoffs losses and say it was Gobert... but that's not the case.   For instance 2020.. they were the underdog playing Denver... took them to 7 games.   Many mistakes in the series... but no one said that Gober was ineffective.  Maybe Murray played out of his mind... Maybe Conley's missed 3 pter or Mitchell's turnover in game 1 was the reason... But not Gobert's defense. 

The year before, they were overmatched by Houston.   The Year before that loss to GSW.. NBA Best Record ever. 

But yeah.. continue building your narrative. 

 

 

[AHF]

28 minutes ago, Diesel said:

It would be nice to put a blanket over all of Utah's playoffs losses and say it was Gobert... but that's not the case.   For instance 2020.. they were the underdog playing Denver... took them to 7 games.   Many mistakes in the series... but no one said that Gober was ineffective.  Maybe Murray played out of his mind... Maybe Conley's missed 3 pter or Mitchell's turnover in game 1 was the reason... But not Gobert's defense. 

The year before, they were overmatched by Houston.   The Year before that loss to GSW.. NBA Best Record ever. 

But yeah.. continue building your narrative. 

 

 

It seems like this is branching off into a discussion of Utah as a team when I think the most relevant question to this thread is Random's ask for how a team can render Bam an ineffective defender in the playoffs the way teams have done to Gobert.

For our team, I think Cap can be an ineffective defender in some matchups and schemes while I think a prime OO will never be ineffective because he will always have the quickness to impact his man regardless of scheme or role.  I think that is the comparison that he is looking to make between Gobert and Bam.

As between JC and Bam, someone made the point that JC has fared better in those H2H matchups and I figured I would post the numbers that largely support that:

[Diesel]

4 hours ago, AHF said:

It seems like this is branching off into a discussion of Utah as a team when I think the most relevant question to this thread is Random's ask for how a team can render Bam an ineffective defender in the playoffs the way teams have done to Gobert.

For our team, I think Cap can be an ineffective defender in some matchups and schemes while I think a prime OO will never be ineffective because he will always have the quickness to impact his man regardless of scheme or role.  I think that is the comparison that he is looking to make between Gobert and Bam.

As between JC and Bam, someone made the point that JC has fared better in those H2H matchups and I figured I would post the numbers that largely support that:

 

The problem is that you don't have to render Bam ineffective.  No Scheme change is necessary for his defense... .as shown clearly by your HTH stats.  Bam is a great On-ball defender.. He switches really well...  but what did we do in those 10 games different than how we play anybody else?  Anything?  

There's this thought by some that just because a guy is a good on-ball defender that he disrupts what the other team does.  Negative.  A team that can pass the ball from side to side kills a great, switching on ball defender.   Moreover in the post.. an effecient post player kills those guys.   What do you think the Lakers strategy is??  The reason the Lakers beat up the Heat in the finals is that they made it a point to go down low and score at will.  Where was Bam??  He was right there getting posted up.. .getting posterized.. getting used and abused...

This was Lebron's coaching.  He learned that playing GS with the Cavs.   It's an age old remedy for small ball.  Take them down low and score efficiently. 

If you look at that Heat Laker finals... I don't think the Lakers scored under 100 points once.  Lebron and AD dominated down low.

So yeah.. Bam is a great defender, just not an impactful one.  You don't need a special scheme or to change you game plan because of his defense.   For guys like Gobert and Deke... a team has to come up with a whole new way to play and hope that they have the right personnel.  That's impact. 

Just for grins...

 

Regular Season Table

Player	G	W	L	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Rudy Gobert	5	3	2	5	28.5	4.8	7.6	.632	0.0	0.0		4.2	6.8	.618	2.8	9.0	11.8	1.6	0.8	2.2	2.0	2.4	13.8
John Collins	5	2	3	4	26.7	5.2	11.4	.456	0.6	3.6	.167	2.2	2.6	.846	1.8	4.2	6.0	1.2	1.2	0.6	1.4	3.4	13.2

Provided by Stathead.com: View Stathead Tool Used
Generated 8/30/2021.

[RandomFan]

9 hours ago, Diesel said:

The problem is that you don't have to render Bam ineffective.  No Scheme change is necessary for his defense... .as shown clearly by your HTH stats.  Bam is a great On-ball defender.. He switches really well...  but what did we do in those 10 games different than how we play anybody else?  Anything?  

There's this thought by some that just because a guy is a good on-ball defender that he disrupts what the other team does.  Negative.  A team that can pass the ball from side to side kills a great, switching on ball defender.   Moreover in the post.. an effecient post player kills those guys.   What do you think the Lakers strategy is??  The reason the Lakers beat up the Heat in the finals is that they made it a point to go down low and score at will.  Where was Bam??  He was right there getting posted up.. .getting posterized.. getting used and abused...

This was Lebron's coaching.  He learned that playing GS with the Cavs.   It's an age old remedy for small ball.  Take them down low and score efficiently. 

If you look at that Heat Laker finals... I don't think the Lakers scored under 100 points once.  Lebron and AD dominated down low.

So yeah.. Bam is a great defender, just not an impactful one.  You don't need a special scheme or to change you game plan because of his defense.   For guys like Gobert and Deke... a team has to come up with a whole new way to play and hope that they have the right personnel.  That's impact. 

So you think Bam, due to being able to ball switch, for some reason isn't also an effective post defender? And your argument to support this ridiculous claim is that he couldn't stop LeBron (the 2nd best player in NBA history) and AD (a top 5 post player currently)? LMAO! Name any defender that stops those 2 when they are healthy? I'll wait. Hint: Gobert doesn't either. 

As I said before in this thread, elite players still get theirs. The goal is to speed bump them, not stop them. Something that Bam and players like him are capable of doing vs any personnel; unlike a player like Gobert who can be completely schematically neutralized because of major limitations. 

Quote

A team that can pass the ball from side to side kills a great, switching on ball defender.

Tell us something we don't know Captain Obvious. Putting players in rotation has always been the most effective scoring strategy in the history of basketball, vs every defensive scheme. Duh. It's odd you fail to mention that is more difficult to do vs a switching scheme than a drop scheme since switching's primary purpose is to combat the ball screen actions that allow easy penetration to the paint, forcing those rotations. I'm sure you knew this, so I assume your failure to mention it was merely an oversight.

9 hours ago, Diesel said:

It's an age old remedy for small ball.  Take them down low and score efficiently. 

6'8.75" barefoot, 255 pounds, and a 7′ 2.75” wingspan isn't small ball. 

And why are we talking about John Collins in here? JC is primarily a 4, Bam and Gobert play the 5. They aren't often matched up, so what are we doing here? 

And we're dealing with small sample sizes of 10 games and 5 games, so any statistical conclusions we could even reach are borderline meaningless. Especially with early career stats. 

JC's stats in those 10 matchups vs the Heat are similar to his career stat line, so? Also, have we played the Heat in the playoffs, where stats accumulated would actually be pertinent to this discussion?  

Likewise, JC's stats vs Gobert are relative to this discussion how exactly? Have we ever played Utah in the playoffs that I don't know about? Usually teams don't tweak their schemes in the regular season to take advantage of a player like Gobert, so until we do and we actually spend resources and personnel to scheme the small ball advantage, people can continue to grin a toothless smile all they want. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by RandomFan

[Diesel]

56 minutes ago, RandomFan said:

So you think Bam, due to being able to ball switch, for some reason isn't also an effective post defender? And your argument to support this ridiculous claim is that he couldn't stop LeBron (the 2nd best player in NBA history) and AD (a top 5 post player currently)? LMAO! Name any defender that stops those 2 when they are healthy? I'll wait. Hint: Gobert doesn't either. 

As I said before in this thread, elite players still get theirs. The goal is to speed bump them, not stop them. Something that Bam and players like him are capable of doing vs any personnel; unlike a player like Gobert who can be completely schematically neutralized because of major limitations. 

Tell us something we don't know Captain Obvious. Putting players in rotation has always been the most effective scoring strategy in the history of basketball, vs every defensive scheme. Duh. It's odd you fail to mention that is more difficult to do vs a switching scheme than a drop scheme since switching's primary purpose is to combat the ball screen actions that allow easy penetration to the paint, forcing those rotations. I'm sure you knew this, so I assume your failure to mention it was merely an oversight.

6'8.75" barefoot, 255 pounds, and a 7′ 2.75” wingspan isn't small ball. 

And why are we talking about John Collins in here? JC is primarily a 4, Bam and Gobert play the 5. They aren't often matched up, so what are we doing here? 

And we're dealing with small sample sizes of 10 games and 5 games, so any statistical conclusions we could even reach are borderline meaningless. Especially with early career stats. 

JC's stats in those 10 matchups vs the Heat are similar to his career stat line, so? Also, have we played the Heat in the playoffs, where stats accumulated would actually be pertinent to this discussion?  

Likewise, JC's stats vs Gobert are relative to this discussion how exactly? Have we ever played Utah in the playoffs that I don't know about? Usually teams don't tweak their schemes in the regular season to take advantage of a player like Gobert, so until we do and we actually spend resources and personnel to scheme the small ball advantage, people can continue to grin a toothless smile all they want. 

Never said that Bam wasn't a good Post Defender. 

No.. I said that Lakers game plan was Crowd the post and score efficiently.   That is the strategy to beat the small ball. Put your bigs in ... and go down and score.  This year it was the Bucks who swept Miami.  Milwaukee put up big points vs. the Heat defense..  What happened?  Milwaukee averaged 118 ppg in that series...  That's higher than they averaged against us... and we don't have a ball switching defensive Juarganant like Bam...  All I hear on this board is how bad CC's defense is.. well... our defense did better against the Bucks than Miami's did... go figure. 

 

 

[RandomFan]

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

This year it was the Bucks who swept Miami.  Milwaukee put up big points vs. the Heat defense..  What happened?  Milwaukee averaged 118 ppg in that series...  That's higher than they averaged against us... and we don't have a ball switching defensive Juarganant like Bam... All I hear on this board is how bad CC's defense is.. well... our defense did better against the Bucks than Miami's did... go figure. 

 

Giannis missed 3 and a half games vs the Hawks and you wonder why they scored less ppg on us than they did Miami? Why am I not surprised. 

Regarding Capela, this seems like another example of you seeing what you want to see since there were plenty of us on this site defending CC and pointed out missing our injured perimeter defenders was a bigger problem than CC was. That was probably the majority of us here actually, since most of the criticism of CC was from a few of the same Miserable Ones that typically cry about anything and everything when they get the chance -- and as usual, not knowing what they are talking about. 

1 hour ago, Diesel said:

Never said that Bam wasn't a good Post Defender. 

No.. I said that Lakers game plan was Crowd the post and score efficiently.   That is the strategy to beat the small ball. Put your bigs in ... and go down and score.  

And if they were both healthy they probably would be sitting at home with another trophy right now. You act like other teams can just trot out two post players the same caliber as the Lakers; players that are also both 3 level scorers and amazing defenders, not just post players. I can assure you, there aren't any other teams that can do that. So stop talking about the outlier example as the norm. 

But yes, the way to beat small ball is with skilled post scoring from bigs, as I already said previously in this thread. I'd like to take this time to reiterate for the 90023 time that Bam isn't a small ball center, perhaps one day you will get this. 

But I give up, you're too dug in defending your flawed position to concede anything at this point. The original debate was about the redrafting order, and I think by now most everyone else should be able to recognize how foolish it would be to leave Bam out of the top 5 players in his class, and even more that the informed person would likely have him in the top 3 at the least. 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by RandomFan

[Diesel]

WIthout Giannis, they averaged more points against us than they did with Giannis.  Where were you??  It was better when Giannis played. We know how to set up a wall. 

Point still remains..  Any defense can be defeated.  It requires the right personnel and strategy.   Even you agree there... so don't go trying to make great defensive players like Deke and Gobert out to be Garbage because some teams had the right strategy and personnel. 

 

 

[JCDBaptist]

On 8/27/2021 at 4:24 PM, AHF said:

I don't think anyone has him listed above Mitchell and Tatum.  The issue was that you listed Ball over him.  A conversation can be had around JC but I think it was justified that Bam got a max deal while JC did not.  If Miami would not have been willing to give Bam a max deal, other teams would have been lined up to do it while no one was for JC.  

JC is great and deserves credit but I think the appropriate credit for him in this discussion is moving from the #19 pick to the #5 pick in a draft with some good depth at the top.

I think the only reason Collins didn't get a max deal is because we definitely got a hometown discount. He is a very intelligent, team player. He knows we are building something special here but also that we have 3-5 contracts coming up to pay to keep the special thing going...Trae, Huerter, Cam/Hunter, OO.

He can definitely argue the fact for a max. A very efficient 20/10 guy that does not r require the ball and high usage to make a winning impact. Also, he has gotten significantly better every year; defense, range extension, playing within the team concepts, and being a leader.

He also kicked off the special rebuild being the 1st of the core and suffering through the horrid seasons. So yeah, he WANTED to be here to the fact that he didn't even really entertain other offers!!

He is the EPITOME of True to Atlanta!!

[AHF]

4 hours ago, JCDBaptist said:

I think the only reason Collins didn't get a max deal is because we definitely got a hometown discount. He is a very intelligent, team player. He knows we are building something special here but also that we have 3-5 contracts coming up to pay to keep the special thing going...Trae, Huerter, Cam/Hunter, OO.

He can definitely argue the fact for a max. A very efficient 20/10 guy that does not r require the ball and high usage to make a winning impact. Also, he has gotten significantly better every year; defense, range extension, playing within the team concepts, and being a leader.

He also kicked off the special rebuild being the 1st of the core and suffering through the horrid seasons. So yeah, he WANTED to be here to the fact that he didn't even really entertain other offers!!

He is the EPITOME of True to Atlanta!!

JC absolutely shopped himself and didn't get anything even close to a max offer from other teams.  He can argue for a max until he is blue in the face but he asked us for a max, we declined, he shopped himself, he got nothing better than we offered, and he returned to us.  All of that makes perfect sense and made the decision easy for him because I think he probably wanted to return to Atlanta but asking for offers from everyone and then taking the highest offer isn't giving us a hometown discount.  

I'm thrilled to have JC back.  Thought it was mandatory.  But he wasn't in the same demand as Bam was.

 

[JayBirdHawk]

4 hours ago, JCDBaptist said:

I think the only reason Collins didn't get a max deal is because we definitely got a hometown discount

Naaah, he asked for a max, Hawks said no.  No other team offered him one.  He took the best offer from the Hawks

[JCDBaptist]

30 minutes ago, AHF said:

JC absolutely shopped himself and didn't get anything even close to a max offer from other teams.  He can argue for a max until he is blue in the face but he asked us for a max, we declined, he shopped himself, he got nothing better than we offered, and he returned to us.  All of that makes perfect sense and made the decision easy for him because I think he probably wanted to return to Atlanta but asking for offers from everyone and then taking the highest offer isn't giving us a hometown discount.  

I'm thrilled to have JC back.  Thought it was mandatory.  But he wasn't in the same demand as Bam was.

 

To my understanding, he didn't even hit free agency. How did he shop himself? There were rumors of tes throwing the max at him and he didn't event talk to them. 

13 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Naaah, he asked for a max, Hawks said no.  No other team offered him one.  He took the best offer from the Hawks

What was the team's that were interested offer? I haven't even heard of any offers to him.

[AHF]

13 minutes ago, JCDBaptist said:

To my understanding, he didn't even hit free agency. How did he shop himself? There were rumors of tes throwing the max at him and he didn't event talk to them. 

What was the team's that were interested offer? I haven't even heard of any offers to him.

After the Hawks made their final offer to him (at $125M), it was reported the Hawks were close to resigning him.  Then the reporting shifted as he told TS he was going to test the waters instead of signing that offer and it was reported by numerous outlets that the Hawks and JC "weren't close" to a new deal.  JC's agent shopped him around and no offers emerged.  The teams that were willing to spend max amounts went after other players and the market dried up without JC drawing interest.  This was no doubt largely because of his RFA status (which is the same for everyone else coming off their rookie deal).  When it became clear that no one had the money left to top Atlanta's offer anymore (which didn't take very long), he agreed to resign with the Hawks.

You'll find it detailed in the JC free agency thread.

 

[JayBirdHawk]

7 minutes ago, JCDBaptist said:

To my understanding, he didn't even hit free agency. How did he shop himself? There were rumors of tes throwing the max at him and he didn't event talk to them. 

What was the team's that were interested offer? I haven't even heard of any offers to him.

It was widely reported that the Hawks made an offer that Collins did not immediately accept...he was still 'exploring his options.'  I don't think there was an actual offer from another team since the Hawks had indicated they would match any offer.  Teams were reluctant to tie up money for 2 days on a RFA that the Hawks would eventually match.

Quote

It was reported yesterday that John Collins had a five-year, $125 million contract on the table from the Hawks, but he was still exploring his options, hoping for a max contract.

 

Quote

It appears we have a John Collins waiting game unfolding in Atlanta.

As has been reported elsewhere, the Hawks have a very healthy offer out to their restricted free agent that has yet to be accepted. Per sources with knowledge of the situation, it’s for five years and $125 million.

So, why hasn’t Collins agreed to re-sign yet? Because as was the case last offseason, when he turned down a $90 million extension and wasn’t shy about the fact that he saw himself as a maximum salary player, he clearly sees his value differently than the Hawks. Again.

 

 

[Gray Mule]

Hawks had a big, reasonable offer on the table.  If I'm another team, I had two things that I must consider.

1- If he signs an offer sheet with us for the maximum will Atlanta really match?  If they do, how long will they wait?  All of this money will be tied up until they do and we can't move.

2- What if we sign him and Atlanta refuses to match.  We then have him.  Will he really be happy, being away from Trae and the Atlanta Hawks?  Can we really afford this to happen?

Really, there wasn't THAT much difference.  It's not like the Hawk offer was for the minimum.

We wanted him.  He wanted us.  Mission accomplished!