Bogut Watch - now with AdonalFoyle4Prez's poll

[tasball]

And his hi-screening, passing, go without saying.....

[anchorman123]

How Bogut fits and/or doesn't fit into this Warriors lineup.

On defence. Not only does he fit, but he's essential to our success on the defensive end. From watching them right now, the biggest 'keys to the game' that opposition commentators say is to penetrate and attack the rim because right now there are no shot blockers (except when we actually utilise Ezeli, who hasn't been getting enough minutes).The other thing they notice is our propensity to foul people. By rights Bogut does foul quite a bit too however overall I believe the number of fouls that the team commits will be reduced by the simple fact that Bogut will not only be blocking shots that weren't being blocked before but also be changing the shots more often. ie discouraging people from attacking the paint and thus making it less likely for it to be necessary to foul them. This goes in line beautifully with what Mark Jackson is trying to do. As a team defensively we are clearly trying to force the opposition into outside jump shots. Even with penetrating guards like ty lawson or brandon knight we've been trying to corral them away from the middle giving them less space to work with. What I love about this defence is that if it comes down to who's going to win the battle of the jump shotI have tremendous confidence that we win that battle almost every time. So in other words we are simultaneously hiding our weaknesses which leads us into playing to our strengths.
Also, he boxes out. This of course is crucial for completing the defensive play. Guys like Deandre Jordan, Kevin Love or Faried/McGee won't be able to get those huge offensive boards. Those guys just jump over David Lee who simply does not box out despite his big rebounding numbers.

As for offence, well that's a whole other story.
I've always been a Bogut fan and I've always felt that we never got to see the best of what he could really do offensively. In college he was almost unstoppable as he could shoot and had the handles to face players up and blow by them. He has the IQ to find the open man and the skill to pass it to him. Whilst playing for the bucks he then developed some nifty low post moves. He's had the misfortune of being coached by Scott Skiles who doesn't know how to utilise big men on offence and having a bunch of chuckers like michael redd and mo williams who simply would not give him the ball. Couple that with an unfortunate series of injuries and there you have it, no one got to see how good his offence could've been.
My guess is he'll be back by around February. From what I've heard about this kind of surgery, it's very hard to come back from. Explosiveness is gone. With so many shooters on the team and Lee already in great form I just don't see many touches for him on offence. Of the glimpses we saw early in the season it doesn't look like he'll have the movement to get around people anymore. I'm sure it might get a little better than what we saw, but really how much? I hope he is utilised as an inside target. I hope he can be at least an effective scorer in the low block, then, when he does draw attention and our wings make cuts he can find guys for easy layups. As much as I'm entertained by our great jump shooting at the moment, we are a team in need of more layups and finishes in the paint. If he can be even at 3/4 of what he was a few years back before that nasty elbow injury, I say GSW are not only good in the regular season but a fighting chance in the playoffs too.
And for the record, whilst I'm no doctor, I don't actually think he's injury prone as much as he is just unlucky to get serious injuries. Possibly because he has become top heavy year by year since joining the NBA. Too much on the weights. That's gotta make it harder on the lower back, knees and ankles. Hakeem did yoga and that kept him injury free. Maybe he should do the same? Core strength is never more imperative than for a big man like Bogut.

How else might he not fit? Personality. He's outspoken and brutally honest. He appears to get on teammates' backs for their mistakes particularly on defence. Lee does make a fair few mistakes on D and I'm sure that would make Bogut angry if not at least frustrated. Will that strain the relationship between he and other teammates, especially Lee? Quite possibly. The problem here is that he's stubborn. He thinks that it's him 'being a leader' and he is probably the type that won't let up. That can be fine initially to get people in line but I'm sure it wears thin after a while. If there's one thing I've noticed about this warriors team is great chemistry. Would he screw that up by demanding for more touches on offence? Would he screw it up by incessantly pestering guys to fall into line on D? He's well meaning of course. He wants to win and he's not afraid to harp on with the tough love. I got the sense that even he and Jennings didn't see eye to eye by the end of their tenure together. Not saying that Bogut is a bad teammate by any means but far from perfect in that regard too.

[Sleepy51]

Monta's efficiency has just been horrible as a Buck. I was hoping that being on a better team (than what the Ws *were*, I mean) would lead to better efficiency for him, but instead things have gone even more wrong.

I don't think it's fair to call him a ball-stopper, though. He hasn't looked selfish to me when I've watched the Bucks. It's just that he can't seem to find the bottom of the net anymore.

He's shooting the lowest FG% and TS% of his career and lower than he did last year after the trade. It's a slump. Considering his shooting %s, the fact that he's not hurting the offensive numbers worse says something backhandledly positive about whatever else he's doing.
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/teams/MIL.html

Something weird is going on with that roster because both Monta and Jennings are big negative at this point in Raw +/-. I guess it could be Monta's shooting slump dragging Jennings down, but they don't play all of their minutes together. In the Mil games I've seen they were both getting a good amount of run without each other.Monta has climbed dramatically out of the -18 hole he was in just a couple of games ago, and is actually less of a negative than Jennings as of last night. But for both starting guards to be statistically hamstringing the team is just weird.
http://www.82games.com/1213/1213MIL.HTM
I think it's soon enough to conclude that the Ellis/Jennings backcourt pairing isn't going to work for Milwuakee and it's pretty much a settled issue that Monta needs to go the Jason Terry route to contribute to a good team.

[paul]

It's hard to describe how bad Monta has been as a Buck, but I'll try.

Imagine him at GS the last couple of years without the transition buckets and with even more long 2's, then pair him with a midget PG so they can both get abused defensively.

Oh I guess it wasn't that hard.

[turk3d]

Last game against Nets Monta and Jennings combined for 8 steals and 50 points between them with Monta shooting 8-13 (only fired 1 3) but did have 6 tos (as compared to 5 assists), Not great but an improvement. He needs to get back to basics and lay off the 3s for one thing. As "bad" as he's been the team is 10-9 which is a game behind Chicago for the division lead.

[and1GS]

I've heard rumors that high steal numbers are not the same as good defense.

[paul]

Last game against Nets Monta and Jennings combined for 8 steals and 50 points between them with Monta shooting 8-13 (only fired 1 3) but did have 6 tos (as compared to 5 assists), Not great but an improvement. He needs to get back to basics and lay off the 3s for one thing. As "bad" as he's been the team is 10-9 which is a game behind Chicago for the division lead.

Yet we would likely have had a significantly better record without him.

He's been poop. I don't mean that in a cute way.

[ILOVEIT]

I've heard rumors that high steal numbers are not the same as good defense.

Pretty much....it really means the player is poaching...drifting around a lot.

I wouldn't call Monta's defense awful...just undeciplined...

Warriors have decidely left that kind of streaky defense behind in favor of repeatable solid every day defense.

[floppymoose]

I fondly remember rookie Monta frustrating prime Kobe with his defense. If only he had become a good pg who took pride in d and rebounding, he could have been special. The talent level was there.

One play from that gave is at the 2:37 mark of this vid:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGULZ1Gcja0[/youtube]

Another one from that game is at 3:54.

[DreDay]

Any chance Bogut is back by January 1st?

[EvanZ]

It's hard to describe how bad Monta has been as a Buck, but I'll try.

Imagine him at GS the last couple of years without the transition buckets and with even more long 2's, then pair him with a midget PG so they can both get abused defensively.

Oh I guess it wasn't that hard.

Deja vu man. Deja vu.

[Franc]

Any chance Bogut is back by January 1st?

Make a Christmas Wish....... nobody knows, although it would be good for him to recover.

[turk3d]

Last game against Nets Monta and Jennings combined for 8 steals and 50 points between them with Monta shooting 8-13 (only fired 1 3) but did have 6 tos (as compared to 5 assists), Not great but an improvement. He needs to get back to basics and lay off the 3s for one thing. As "bad" as he's been the team is 10-9 which is a game behind Chicago for the division lead.

Yet we would likely have had a significantly better record without him.

He's been poop. I don't mean that in a cute way.

Says who? We were 17-23 (17-20 in games that Monta played) before he left and has just won 4 out of 5 (looking to make a possible playoff run) and 6-22 after. Thems the facts. If you want, you can say that if we didn't trade him, we likely would have lost our draft pick to Utah. I suppose that turned out to be a good thing. I guess some people just like to make up things in order to suit their personal prejudices.

[FNQ]

How did MIL do? And were they tanking?

http://www.82games.com/1213/12MIL2.HTM

Down to only -8.8 per 100 possessions.. and a -6.6% offensive rebounding difference too. At least he's only take 12.4 jumpers per game at .328 eFG.

[AussieBuck]

Monta's sucking hard. He's killing all the good work Udoh is doing.

[turk3d]

11-9. Better than us for sure. And we weren't tanking. We were just sucking.

[blazza18]

I'm pretty sure we lost every game against the above .500 teams after the trade. And beat down on the teams tanking. We didn't really do that well.



Actually back OT. Any news on how Bogut's doing ? Haven't seen much since he was going to be out indefinitely.

[FNQ]

11-9. Better than us for sure.

Milwaukee went 11-11 after the Monta trade, actually. Not exactly the huge uptick you are trying to portray when showing the Warriors record post Monta leaving, after we essentially found excuses to bench anyone who played well. Cute prejudice speech tho

[FNQ]

11-9. Better than us for sure. And we weren't tanking. We were just sucking.

David Lee sat with a bruised leg and Dominic McGuire played PG.

Good to know that wherever Monta goes, its still not his fault

[turk3d]

11-9. Better than us for sure.

Milwaukee went 11-11 after the Monta trade, actually. Not exactly the huge uptick you are trying to portray when showing the Warriors record post Monta leaving, after we essentially found excuses to bench anyone who played well. Cute prejudice speech tho

In games that Monta actually played for them, 11-9 which is what matters. Must have lost the two games he missed.

And the guy claimed we would have been worse had we kept him. If you buy into that.

We only one 6 after trading him after winning 17 before that. Hate on Monta all you want, but like I said, let's not make up stuff just to satisfy your hate.