CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:pancakes3 wrote:CntOutSmrtCrazy wrote:This isn't rocket science, Kuzma thinks he's better than he is and it hurts the team, sometimes a lot.
we'd have maybe 2 wins on the season if we didn't have Kuzma.
You obviously are only watching one side of the ball. He's been amongst the worst, arguably the worst, defender at PF this year.
His offensive prowess isn't anywhere close to covering up for someone who doesn't try on the other end.
I get given this seasons goals, that Kuzma thinks it not worth his effort to try on defense. That's a personal decision that he can be judged off of. And yes, I realize we've been a bad defensive team but it doesn't mean you just ignore it when evaluating players. He's also a big reason to why we've been so porous on that end.
I give it to Kuzma that he has a lot of offensive skill, and has a solid bag of tricks to which to pull from on the offensive side of the ball. Problem is that some folks like yourself can't seem to get past is he's never been able to help himself by diong more of the moves that are higher percentage looks as opposed to the ones that are lower percentage looks.
If I hear one more "Kyle Kuzma can only handle this usage" I'm going to puke. He's had his shot, hasn't been able to do it. No one is forcing the ball to stick to his hands and make him go 1 on 4, or do that beautiful footwork only to think that a fadeaway mid-ranger looks too pretty make or miss not to take it, or pull up for contested 33 footers with 18 seconds on the clock. This guy just keeps getting a free pass.
He can literally look off a teammate who is in a much better place of attack/has more spacing and there's still a large group on this board that will keep droning on about that he's the only guy that can take on the usage. It's such a lazy, unnuanced argument.
Idk who you're mad at but it ain't me. I never said that Kuz is a perfect player, or even a good one. Just that he's by far the only viable offensive option on this team. You won't catch me saying the same about Poole.
If you Thanos-snapped Kuz at the beginning of the season and played Coulibaly, we'd be a 5-win team. Of course, we're a 9-win team, so how valuable is Kuzma really. But that doesn't change the fact that sometimes the other team plays you square, and you need someone to do the dirty work and go get a bucket out of nothing. If you don't like seeing Kuzma fadeaway, I don't know how much more you'd like seeing us break records for shot clock violations because we can't get a shot off.
Again, I'm not arguing for anything - it's just an assessment of the squad as it's currently constructed. You can't keep piling on raw players onto the floor because at some point, the team still needs to play basketball, and none of these guys can ball. Deni included. It's not the video game answer, but it's the answer if you want to sell tickets and jerseys.
