madmaxmedia wrote:Vae Victus wrote:Theis has done a great job as a stand in backup C, but his lack of girth is obviously noticable and getting Plumlee back will be helpful. Tucker has been worthless as expected and it really hurts that the team literally gave up 4 better PFs in Batum, RoCo, Mook, and KJM for him. Morey really did well in pillaging every asset possible dumping a dead money deal in PJ and hurting the Clips ability to make further trades. However, we have to hope that Kobe Brown keeps developing and with a healthy Plumlee, that Theis can be a competent backup PF as well. Coffey has shown some good things and if he can make that corner 3 consistently he can be an asset on the floor, both he and Mann HAVE to hit that shot since the other stars will always make that spot wide open.
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With the current team construction and elite overall playmaking, buyout candidates really should look at LAC as their first option, as it'll be easy to highlight them if they have the right skills.
Besides the win streak, there have been some other nice trends- Theis (obviously!), Coffey playing well and hitting 3's, Kobe Brown playing competently early his rookie season, Norm playing well. After the Harden trade, balancing the roster by moving Norm seemed like the obvious move. It still may be, but if Coffey can continue to hit 3's at a reasonable rate and Kobe continues to develop we will have better depth than we first feared. Norm playing well both highlights his place on the team (especially when we are less than full strength) and increases his trade value.
I think what this enables us to do is shop around for the best roster moves rather than act out of desperation. If there's a team that can actually really use Norm, maybe we can figure out a direct trade or 3-way that brings us a big of equal talent- that would be the ideal scenario. If not, we can keep an eye out for buyouts later to add some supplemental depth.
I wish we could free up some minutes for Bones as he started out the season pretty strong, but that's not happening with Harden, Russ, and Norm. Bones is also a trade candidate- ideally for a young front court player of comparable talent, as I think Bones has rehabbed his image at least somewhat.
We don't have to win any trades here, just hopefully get roughly equal talent in return to balance/ fill out the roster.
Agree with this, and wanted to make a post in regards to positive trends a couple games ago as well.
For anyone who reads the GB, there's a post about someone proclaiming the clips to be the best team in the league right now, which, idk, maybe is true? Maybe isn't? Whatever the answer is, though, I'd say is irrelevant because the day to day stuff, game to game stuff, regular season doldrums don't actually produce any tangible items of worth in a vacuum. What IS important, however, are using the games as barometers of progress (or regression).
For us, what I observed that made me really optimistic was lue's putting theis/brown on the floor at the same time, alongside harden/powell/kawhi (i think) and THEN seeing them all move in synchronicity. And that kinda made me form some opinions in regards to progress that
A. one of our lineups that should have been rougher in terms of defense looked pretty good
B. lue's willing to test some things out that aren't completely out of bounds
C. even while experimenting, the experiment looks pretty decent given the expectation of a couple guys that might be out there
So if we're talking about purely defense alone, especially when you have a couple who weren't expected to contribute that much (powell/harden), and it's STILL looking good, then that bodes quite well for us. I mean, we should be really excited, because it should tell us that the team's figuring things out even without our best lineups. Also I'd add that part of the other reason we should be excited on that front is because the guys who I was worried about the most are making solid contributions. Powell really looks like the guy he was brought in to be - a two-way player who wasn't a star on defense, but at least solid in the right place. And harden's obviously not gonna be PG moving all around the court, but his effort is clear and this slapstick defense thing he's doing is actually HILARIOUS (slapstick comedy, get it? hah), because it's so silly but it's WORKING REALLY WELL
And that's not even talking about what I think is the biggest thing in the room, which is zu turning into a god damn force. So, all these things together are some really strong trends on the defensive side which we can be very optimistic about.
On offense I think there's too many to list (kawhi turning into skynet, harden finding seemingly perfect balance in any lineup he's in, zu being a dude around the post, mann finding his shot), but what I think I like the most is seeing powell find a role that seems to fit WITH what we're doing and add to it. I'd say over the past couple years he's been here, it's more or less felt like "normal power time" which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it never truly felt like it was connecting with our offense and mostly kinda like doc rivers telling jamal crawford to go make things happen. And I think I felt like that because it felt like if powell faltered, then the games would go to hell, because it was mostly just him carrying the bench. But now it just looks seamless and like he's just filling in the gap and role of what looks to be a complete offense.
I'd also wanna add that I'm very happy for amir that he's being re-introduced to the rotation because I think he can contribute. I'm not so worried about brown because I think he still needs to find more ways to contribute consistently, but I wonder if this is all lue's re-attempt at wingstop, which i think makes some sense because it wasn't so, so long ago that coffey carried this team for virtually an entire month with our top guys out. So if he really does add another 3/D-ish type presence for us (not expecting it, but hopeful), and plumlee coming back makes us whole and lets theis play more naturally at PF, I'd say end on end that these trends are the ones that would make me feel REALLY good about what this team can actually be.