Griz @ Det

[Clarity]

Mateen ragging Cheeks for not sticking to what works in the first half. That's throwing it down low to Monroe and Dre. Instead Cheeks continuously lets us come out in the second half shooting bad jumpers.

Its becoming a nightly thing.

from Yahoo- His dud today dropped his season shooting to below 40 percent and he also dropped to 58.6 percent from the charity stripe. Among qualifiers, Smith is last among forwards in field goal percentage and last among small forwards in free throw percentage.

As expected.

Are you aware Smith is playing out of position?

This narrative is getting tired, he was signed to a 4 year/54 mill dollar agreement to be a SF.

[ComboGuardCity]

How can anyone defend josh at this point? He's a bad perimeter defender and continues to take horrible shots. He wasn't this bad on D at the 3 in Atlanta.

[Snakebites]

All 5 in our starting line-up are forcing bad shots, he's the one playing the most out of position therefore he gets the benefit of the doubt from me. You can't take an inside player and put him on the perimeter because it's obvious what's going to happen, should he take less shots because of this, sure, but that's no reason to throw around words like "cancer" when it's clear he does a lot of other things on the court that help the team.

That's fine. If you want to continue going down the road of apologetics that requires absolutely no evidence, go right on ahead.

The rest of us are going to judge things by the data we have.

What data? A bad shooting percentage? Is that your entire argument against Smith? The only evidence I need is what I see when I watch the games and what I've seen in the past when watching Smith play PF. His FG% has never been anywhere near this bad, he's getting to the line at a lower rate than he has in his entire career, his per minute rebounding is lower than ever before, his blocks are lower than ever and he's taking a lot more 3's than ever which is clearly affecting his FG%, plus we can all agree his defense isn't the same. All of these stats are evidence that playing out of position is the key factor in his poor play, so take that "data" and do what you will with it.

^I never said he wasn't playing worse because he's out of position.

I just see no reason to put EVERYTHING on that and say that everything would be A-okay if he was playing in position. The stats (and the eye test) are just TOO BAD to accept that.

There's no reason he needs to be taking so many shots. Many of the shots he takes in the long range represents decisions he makes that are bad for the team, and many of these are coming early in the shot clock, too. And he's ALWAYS been someone to choose to shoot even when its not in the best interests of the team. The fact that the temptation it make these decisions is greater given his position is absolutely not an excuse.

And bad shooting is pretty compelling data. Its a lot more compelling than the big goose egg worth of data you have to support your position that everything would be all hunky dory if the big bad organization wasn't playing him out of position.

He's in a position where the temptation to make bad decisions is better, and by god, he's making them.

[sc8581]

That's fine. If you want to continue going down the road of apologetics that requires absolutely no evidence, go right on ahead.

The rest of us are going to judge things by the data we have.

What data? A bad shooting percentage? Is that your entire argument against Smith? The only evidence I need is what I see when I watch the games and what I've seen in the past when watching Smith play PF. His FG% has never been anywhere near this bad, he's getting to the line at a lower rate than he has in his entire career, his per minute rebounding is lower than ever before, his blocks are lower than ever and he's taking a lot more 3's than ever which is clearly affecting his FG%, plus we can all agree his defense isn't the same. All of these stats are evidence that playing out of position is the key factor in his poor play, so take that "data" and do what you will with it.

^I never said he wasn't playing worse because he's out of position.

I just see no reason to put EVERYTHING on that and say that everything would be A-okay if he was playing in position. The stats (and the eye test) are just TOO BAD to accept that.

There's no reason he needs to be taking so many shots. Many of the shots he takes in the long range represents decisions he makes that are bad for the team, and many of these are coming early in the shot clock, too. And he's ALWAYS been someone to choose to shoot even when its not in the best interests of the team. The fact that the temptation it make these decisions is greater given his position is absolutely not an excuse.

And bad shooting is pretty compelling data. Its a lot more compelling than the big goose egg worth of data you have to support your position that everything would be all hunky dory if the big bad organization wasn't playing him out of position.

He's in a position where the temptation to make bad decisions is better, and by god, he's making them.

How do you not see the data I provided as proof that playing out of position is the reason he has been so inefficient on both ends of the floor? I don't really care if you want to call a reason an excuse, I'm giving you facts and you are trying to come up with excuses not to agree with them. Who else is going to be taking shots if he's not, Monroe can't get shots off most of the time, Drummond has no post game, so I'm led to believe anyway and Jennings takes just as bad of shots as Smith.

One possession sticks out to me from the game today...

Mid-to-late 4th quarter, Smith was very patient in doing what he could to get Monroe the ball inside, once Moose finally got the ball he didn't even attempt to make a move, he passed to the other side of the floor(can't remember who) and they quickly swung it back to the top to Jennings who one-timed it to Smith and with 5 seconds left on the shot-clock Josh took a 20 foot jumper and air-balled it. What stands out to you is the fact that Smith took a 20-footer in the 4th quarter and air-balled it, what stands out to me is that we have nobody on this team that is a go-to-guy of any kind and none of them have a go-to-move of any kind because they are all reliant on match-up advantages. Normally that wouldn't be a bad possession for most teams because they got their SF an open look, even though Smith made this same shot early in the game it's not a shot he should be taking with time on the clock. Do you consider this possession a failure because of Smith?

[ImHeisenberg]

I wonder if Joe or Tom finally watched some college basketball and instructed this team to get a high lottery pick?

If that's not the case, we shouldn't have an ounce of faith in this team's management and coaching staff.

[kurtis48239]

All this josh hate is really getting blown out of paportion ,is he playing bad right now yes,is it because he is a cancer,a terrible player,no.Even if some dont like the excuse that hes playing out of position,tuff because that what it is.

Put monroe at sf and lets see how well he does,he gets the benifit of the doubt because he plays at a position that he does well at.I still think josh at pf is better than monroe at that position.Greg played against zach,enough said.

Besides all of that,I point this lose mostly at cheeks for his lineups,subs during this game.Benching kcp most of the second quarter.

Another thing that I didnt see mentioned alot was the officating tonight,I think the officals turned the blind eye alot tonight because of dre,jennings,moose,smith yelling and talking **** to the refs,was it fair ,no.These guys have to learn to take out their aggression on the game and not the refs.

We all know and have said it a thousand times and thats we need a trade and starting lineup changes,and please stop with the billups/bynum backcourt,it makes absolutely no sense.Weather some want to admit it or not we have talent on this team,but if the coach can not get his players to maximize their potential or keep them engaged then thats a real problem..

[MrBigShot]

How can anyone defend josh at this point? He's a bad perimeter defender and continues to take horrible shots. He wasn't this bad on D at the 3 in Atlanta.

This 1000x times. At this point I'm not even convinced that he would go back to his ATL production if he was playing PF with Monroe gone/off the bench.

[ComboGuardCity]

All this josh hate is really getting blown out of paportion ,is he playing bad right now yes,is it because he is a cancer,a terrible player,no.Even if some dont like the excuse that hes playing out of position,tuff because that what it is.

Put monroe at sf and lets see how well he does,he gets the benifit of the doubt because he plays at a position that he does well at.I still think josh at pf is better than monroe at that position.Greg played against zach,enough said.

Besides all of that,I point this lose mostly at cheeks for his lineups,subs during this game.Benching kcp most of the second quarter.

Another thing that I didnt see mentioned alot was the officating tonight,I think the officals turned the blind eye alot tonight because of dre,jennings,moose,smith yelling and talking **** to the refs,was it fair ,no.These guys have to learn to take out their aggression on the game and not the refs.

We all know and have said it a thousand times and thats we need a trade and starting lineup changes,and please stop with the billups/bynum backcourt,it makes absolutely no sense.Weather some want to admit it or not we have talent on this team,but if the coach can not get his players to maximize their potential or keep them engaged then thats a real problem..

Well...its not all Josh, he's not a good fit. However, when you're making 14mill/year, I would like to see you make an effort to change what's obviously not working. 20% good games and 80% awful is unacceptable.

[DBC10]

How can anyone defend josh at this point? He's a bad perimeter defender and continues to take horrible shots. He wasn't this bad on D at the 3 in Atlanta.

This 1000x times. At this point I'm not even convinced that he would go back to his ATL production if he was playing PF with Monroe gone/off the bench.

Funny thing is, he actually regressed a bit last year in comparison to his year before his last stint in Atlanta. You can't make this ish up. It's hilarious.

Oh and if he was moved to his "natural" position, he would still take an alarming amount of jumpers because he thinks he's Melo. His offense isn't "magically" going to get better, as per the link I provided last page.

[Piston Pete]

Outscored by 33 in the 2nd half...

/thread

[Q00]

And now...

Deep Thoughts

By Mo Cheeks

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b85aV3FM4gk&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

[MotownMadness]

Cheeks really does talk like a oblivious child at those lol

[engelbert321]

Anyone else going to defend Cheeks? I've said this from the beginning that this guy's an idiot.

[russkopp]

I'm starting to worry if these last...5 seasons are a GM that has lost it or if it's an organization that has firmly planted itself into pro bball hell...mediocrity. Gores scares me as an owner, mostly because he's new, but also because I don't know what direction he'd head if Dumars gets canned.

This city could already care less about this team and the half decade of high lotto picks and battling for an 8th seed only makes things worse. I think we're gonna be screwed for a long time. We may just be Sacramento East. (I'll never admit to being worse than the Bobcats)

[engelbert321]

Besides the nets and knicks, our future looks pretty bad unless Dre and KCP improves a ton.

[sc8581]

Besides the nets and knicks, our future looks pretty bad unless Dre and KCP improves a ton.

I expect them to. Look at KCP's last 2 games, 13-19, 5-8 from 3 and 31 points total, consider his defensive potential on top of that plus they are both only 20. He's shooting about 40% on 3's since the beginning of December on over 2.5 attempts a game, an 18 game stretch, exactly 2/3 of his 27 starts. I see no reason he won't end up as at least a 13-14ppg guy with good to great defense. If Drummond gets to where his size and athleticism will allow defensively then that will be a major enough improvement to take this team somewhere.