PG: More blowouts if it means more Lamb

[Fight the Tank]

I think it's probably because we're a better team without Ellis on the floor. Just because a player plays, it doesn't matter if he's actually hurting you instead of helping. It's like arguing that Gooden being healthy is a positive and not a negative. Udoh is a definite positive from the deal, but he's not getting enough minutes to counteract Monta's negative impact right now.

Now, if we turn Monta into value the trade gets a whole lot better. I'm just not sure we can or will do that.

How come I always hear that trading for Ellis was a win now move, while at the same time him not playing at all would help the team win more games? How does GSW get credit for tanking while trading Ellis? If this theory were true the Bucks would have lost more games after the Ellis trade and GSW would have won more. You can't have it both ways.

[LUKE23]

How come I always hear that trading for Ellis was a win now move, while at the same time him not playing at all would help the team win more games? How does GSW get credit for tanking while trading Ellis? You can't have it both ways.

I don't have it both ways. The organization thinks it was a win now move, but playing Ellis a ton actually makes you win less. Lets not go under the assumption that this organization always knows what it is doing. There is a lot of evidence that says otherwise.

I never said I thought it was a win now move. I've never liked Monta and I mentioned being against looking at him for a trade months before we actually acquired him (when he was being floated in ORL rumors). There was a reason that only a couple teams league-wide were interested despite his PPG numbers.

[JimmyTheKid]

I think it's probably because we're a better team without Ellis on the floor. Just because a player plays, it doesn't matter if he's actually hurting you instead of helping. It's like arguing that Gooden being healthy is a positive and not a negative. Udoh is a definite positive from the deal, but he's not getting enough minutes to counteract Monta's negative impact right now.

Now, if we turn Monta into value the trade gets a whole lot better. I'm just not sure we can or will do that.

How come I always hear that trading for Ellis was a win now move, while at the same time him not playing at all would help the team win more games? How does GSW get credit for tanking while trading Ellis? If this theory were true the Bucks would have lost more games after the Ellis trade and GSW would have won more. You can't have it both ways.

Yup. Good call.

[JimmyTheKid]

Golden State definitely traded Ellis and Udoh to benefit their long term plan and improve their draft position (tank)

Milwaukee definitely acquired Ellis and Udoh in an attempt to squeak into the playoffs. (win now)

Neither of those is debatable.

And Ellis should never be mentioned in the same sentence as Drew Gooden.

[LUKE23]

Golden State definitely traded Ellis and Udoh to benefit their long term plan and improve their draft position (tank)

Milwaukee definitely acquired Ellis and Udoh in an attempt to squeak into the playoffs. (win now)

Neither of those is debatable.

And Ellis should never be mentioned in the same sentence as Drew Gooden.

Nobody ever said otherwise. Just because that is what the Bucks thought doesn't mean it is actually sound logic. Any team that thinks playing Monta Ellis huge minutes wins them games is wrong.

[paul]

I think it's probably because we're a better team without Ellis on the floor. Just because a player plays, it doesn't matter if he's actually hurting you instead of helping. It's like arguing that Gooden being healthy is a positive and not a negative. Udoh is a definite positive from the deal, but he's not getting enough minutes to counteract Monta's negative impact right now.

Now, if we turn Monta into value the trade gets a whole lot better. I'm just not sure we can or will do that.

How come I always hear that trading for Ellis was a win now move, while at the same time him not playing at all would help the team win more games? How does GSW get credit for tanking while trading Ellis? If this theory were true the Bucks would have lost more games after the Ellis trade and GSW would have won more. You can't have it both ways.

They also traded Udoh who was easily their best defender and sat Curry and Lee. I'm guessing that had something to do with it.

[LUKE23]

Check out GS' D post trade:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/tea ... games.html

And yes, GS was looking to tank. That's why they sat Curry, their best offensive player, traded their best defender in Udoh, and sat Lee, their second best offensive player.

[Nebula1]

The NBA season... ups and downs...

Pretty bad loss though for a team trying to show some spirit.

[LUKE23]

http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus ... team=Bucks

Plus/minus so far.

Jennings, Ellis, Harris, Henson, and Dalembert = -123
Rest of roster = +121

[Nebula1]

Dunleavy has been garbage lately

[mojosodope]

We also need to talk a bit about Tobias. His poor defense is getting concerning in a Charlie V kind of way. The book is out now that if you've got a SF with driving ability, you simply set a pick or shake Tobias and then run in for the layup. I'm not sure this is something that gets corrected with experience. Either you can stay in front of your man and fight through screens or you can't.

I certainly would rather have Tobias getting minutes over Daniels in almost any situation besides a last shot defensive stand being needed.

That said, i agree with you that it is somewhat alarming about just how poor of a defender Harris is. Granted, he's really young still and spent most of his rookie year on the bench, but between his slow feet on defense and so far having no clue mentally at all on how to handle being picked, it's usually ugly.

With young players, i generally don't panic much if a kid struggles somewhat with a certain aspect of the NBA game. When a young guy though is really bad at something as Tobias is defensively, it becomes more of a red flag for me about that player's ability to change a lot at fixing their major weakness.

I'm not ready to mail it on Harris' D. I think it's tough for a player who's not purely defensively minded like say Moute; to go out there and play with Jennings and Ellis, barely touch the ball on offense, watch them JACK horrible shots with no conscience but then give a "Moute" like effort on defense against the Starting Small Forwards of the league, be required to help when our terrible backcourt defense is broken, and still recover.

I dunno, I just see it a little different, you want an offensive minded 20 year old to play defense, make some sort of effort to get him the ball on offense

[JBucks]

Our starters are getting murdered. It's our better than average bench that's keeping this team from sinking completely.

[JBucks]

Harris just looks slow on D. Anthony was doing whatever he wanted against him for the first few minutes last night, and Skiles, as dumb as some of you think he is, had the brains to pull him.

[mojosodope]

Harris just looks slow on D. Anthony was doing whatever he wanted against him for the first few minutes last night, and Skiles, as dumb as some of you think he is, had the brains to pull him.

And that worked....because melo just stopped scoring after that....

[KeyRabbit]

http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus/plusminus_sort.jsp?pcomb=1&season=22012&split=9&team=Bucks

Plus/minus so far.

Jennings, Ellis, Harris, Henson, and Dalembert = -123
Rest of roster = +121

Assuming no trades, which I don't believe are likely, what would you realistically do to the lineups? Meaning: it's not realistic to say "trade Monta for Player X" or "keep him inactive." I think at worst (best?) he might be the sixth man. But what combination do you think Skiles should be rolling with to meet the team goal of playoffs?

[KeyRabbit]

"Still in first place"

This is above where the bar has been set by the FO. So...a good day at the Cousins Center.

[Badgerlander]

I'm curious to see if/how Harris's D improves when he starts going up against Moute in practice.

[Nebula1]

"Still in first place"

This is above where the bar has been set by the FO. So...a good day at the Cousins Center.

I do think winning 45 games would be a successful season for this team and can certainly be done.

[humanrefutation]

We also need to talk a bit about Tobias. His poor defense is getting concerning in a Charlie V kind of way. The book is out now that if you've got a SF with driving ability, you simply set a pick or shake Tobias and then run in for the layup. I'm not sure this is something that gets corrected with experience. Either you can stay in front of your man and fight through screens or you can't.

I think we have to be mindful of context in this case. The only person on the roster who could've slowed down Carmelo was Luc, and he wasn't available. For all the slack he gets, I think Carmelo's immense offensive talent gets overlooked. When he's on, I think he shows Hall-of-Fame potential. So, Tobias not being able to guard him wasn't surprising to me.

I will say that Tobias's feet are remarkably slow. He clearly was trying last night, he just didn't have the quickness to handle him. Marquis was better, but only in the sense that he was able to swipe a couple passes from Carmelo.

I just don't get why the team didn't double him more often, especially on some of the dribble penetration. There were a couple moments where Melo had a clearout against a Buck and Dalembert shaded his defense to the other side of the floor. That's mind-boggling. Don't give Carmelo options. That makes him almost impossible to cover.

[LUKE23]

It's tough to say. There are pros and cons to everything in terms of what they do at SG/SF. I'd definitely get Dalembert out of the starting five and start Udoh. Henson/Udoh would be my starting PF/C and Jennings would be my PG. SG/SF is tough to say. If they are going with Ellis at SG, I'd probably start Dunleavy. Moute would seem logical in some sense but having zero floor spacing at both SG and SF is usually not a good idea.

So I'd start Jennings/Ellis/Dunleavy/Henson/Udoh. Let Harris mash as part of the second unit. This is if the goal is to win as many games this season.

My preferred lineup as a fan is Jennings/Lamb/Harris/Henson/Udoh.