J_T wrote:DJ_3_Ball wrote:Edit: Okay good. X-rays are negative. He'll still probably miss the next game, maybe 2 or 3.
I hope not, I need his ass in fantasy.
leolozon wrote:DJ_3_Ball wrote:
This is the underlying reason I posted what I said in the Luka year 2 thread this morning.
What will impress me most is when Luka has his first 20 assist game.
This "one-man band" stuff has to stop. We're not winning any titles with it being LUKA & co.
The 2015 Finals should of taught all of us that.
I think he can still dominate the ball, but look for his teammates more, like he did before. The past few weeks he was raking 10 assists all the time. Where is that penetration and those laser passes to a 3pt shooter? It seems like he cut those by half and replaced it with more dribble at the 3pt line.
Doesn’t help that all the best 3pt shooters seem to be on the bench... but still.
I disagree with most of this. Well, apart from not liking what he showed today. But for completely different reasons.
First of all, this nonsense about how he is just looking for himself has to stop. He was looking for others and he was just making bad passes. His ideas didn't come through. If you are talking about last game, well there is a stat called potential assists and those were fine. The only problem was that after his last passes his teammates were shooting only 26% last game, while season average is 34.5%. Consequence? Fewer assists, more potential assists. 8% lower shooting from the passes will make that pass only a potential assist instead of an actual assist more often. Once you see his potential assists going down (stat where he is also second in the league), then let's start complaining.
As for why I was pissed off this game... if I were head coach for opponents I would tell players to hack Luka and hope that refs don't do anything. If refs do call those, stop hacking him. If they don't call them, keep going. Luka will completely switch off, he can't pull himself out of being furious over non calls. And I actually thought that officiating was terrible today. One replay showed that Luka was fouled 3 times on the play and didn't get the call. Even if you say that I'm biased, I still think 2 fouls were objectively there.
But Luka needs to start ignoring refs because otherwise he starts playing like crap. The problem is that there are 4 possible reasons why foul was not called:
1. The foul didn't happen. Yeah, I know, unbelievable. But there are fouls where non call was correct in this game. It is so obvious that Luka shouldn't be losing his mind over that I don't know what else to say. I would actually check video with him next day and show him where he was wrong. If he sees that there are some situations where he was wrong, this could positively impact his future evaluations.
2. Refs didn't see it. It happens. Ok, you can tell them about it and I'm not against it. But just assume they didn't see it and play. The calls will come your way next time.
3. Refs didn't see it, because they are ****. It doesn't matter if you tell them or not and it doesn't help if you get angry. They are crappy refs and while you can influence their decisions in the future a bit, you never know how it will turn. The refs can't help themselves, they simply suck.
4. Refs saw it, but still didn't call it. It doesn't help at all that you lose your nerves. The ref has to feed his family or drug addiction as well and if this is combined with gambling addiction it can get real bad. Just hope that next game he placed a bet on your team.
For the record I think that today we might have seen a combination of all 4 reasons. I would say 1=30%, 2=10%, 3=50% and I think that one of the refs (I believe it was 72) might have placed a bet on Timberwolves. I just can't believe that he could have been that bad. Even his colleagues were correcting his bad decisions.