Official Fire Nash thread - Part II

[Prokorov]

This is officially a disaster and there is definitely some garbage that is going on behind the scenes that is going to come out.

I am sorry, but the team was doing well up until it was announced that Kyrie was coming back. Then starting in the Philly game, everything just went right out of the window. Everything we were doing well just stopped. What the hell is going on????

This is just false.

** 6-3 before Kyrie's Annoucement. (including barely scraping by depleted bad teams like toronto and minny)

** 3-1 Immediately following Kyrie's Announcement (only loss was to the magic with Mils/galloway/thomas/duke/blake starting).

** Harden's 3 best games of the year following the announcement

This went south when Joe Harris got hurt. We are 14-10 since Harris injury (12-3 prior to the injury). Dead last in threes, bottom 8 in offense

Again, Bash Kyrie for being out if you want, but lets not create some false narrative that this teams issues started once he came back. We have been flat out bad since Harris got hurt.

Something happened between December 27th (end of the successful LA trip) and December 30th, the date of the game versus Philly where we suddenly fell apart. To act like the team has been falling apart since November 29th, the date that Harris' surgery was announced is just not true. We went 9-3 since that time to the return home after Christmas.

Since the team came back from LA, we've been complete crap with a 2-5 record.

Not going to say it's Kyrie's fault, but something is going on here. We were navigating and managing wins even with a covid wrecked roster. Now we look like a complete mess with our roster nearly complete again. The effort has been bad, the coaching even worse. What is going on in that locker room?

we have looked bad since the 29th. a .500 team with bad offense and defense. we blew the same leads to the same awful decimated teams (toronto, minny, knicks, rockets) only we eeked those out with KD closing. Difference the past 7 or so games is that KD is toast now after being run into the ground and doesnt have the stamina left and pulling out those late wins after blowing leads is falling short vs. him eeking it out.

our 3point shooting and offense since joe went down are putrid. go rewatch the minny game or the toronto game or the rockets game and tell me those are any different then the past 3-4 we just played

[GYK]

I don’t think he’s that bad.
The absolute worst thing he has done was influence the roster construction with the SSOL going further belief.
The rotation was clearly supposed to be Durant/Harden/Kyrie/Joe/Patty/LMA/Blake/Paul/Nic/Bruce.
Essentially 8 shooters and two defensive minded roll men(tho in way either traditional fulfilled. Actually nowhere traditional roles fulfilled).
Unfortunately life happened and things didn’t work like was “supposed to”.
We signed way too many aging PF’s for their skill. They regressed as shooters and always lacked the paint protection/rebounding asked of that position.(down 2 shooters).
We signed way too many rolling/cutting perimeter players to replace plug for Bruce/Nic. Unfortunately between Kyrie and Joe out they play more than probably initially planned. Meaning perimeter rollers specifically acquired to play off stretch 5’s are playing more time together and without stretch 5’s.
So yea Nash influence on Marks is the one thing he deserves to be fired for. But Marks deserve just as much blame.

As an actual coach eh he’s ok.

[gigantes]

The rotation was clearly supposed to be Durant/Harden/Kyrie/Joe/Patty/LMA/Blake/Paul/Nic/Bruce.
Essentially 8 shooters and two defensive minded roll men (tho in way either traditional fulfilled. Actually nowhere traditional roles fulfilled).

Not trying to pick bad fruit (the opposite of "cherry-pick," does that make sense?), but I'm only seeing five shooters there, i.e. the first five names you mention.

LMA is a midrange guy who's not comfortable shooting 3's in volume, and Blake's more of a big man who developed long range skills later in his career, but has never been a natural there. The last three aren't really in the conversation.

So with Kyrie disappearing, then Joe going down, seems pretty clear Nash needed to find minutes stat for KEdwards, and Marks needed to sign another shooter. Maybe even give some green light to Bembry to see how fluky or non-fluky his current, lights-out percentage is. (did he work on his shot this offseason?)

[GYK]

The rotation was clearly supposed to be Durant/Harden/Kyrie/Joe/Patty/LMA/Blake/Paul/Nic/Bruce.
Essentially 8 shooters and two defensive minded roll men (tho in way either traditional fulfilled. Actually nowhere traditional roles fulfilled).

Not trying to pick bad fruit (the opposite of "cherry-pick," does that make sense?), but I'm only seeing five shooters there, i.e. the first five names you mention.

LMA is a midrange guy who's not comfortable shooting 3's in volume, and Blake's more of a big man who developed long range skills later in his career, but has never been a natural there. The last three aren't really in the conversation.

So with Kyrie disappearing, then Joe going down, seems pretty clear Nash needed to find minutes stat for KEdwards, and Marks needed to sign another shooter. Maybe even give some green light to Bembry to see how fluky or non-fluky his current, lights-out percentage is. (did he work on his shot this offseason?)

I understand but a couple of things
Blake was brought back to repeat his last season performance of 38% on 3.1 attempts.
LMA from 20-now is a 38% shooter on 2.5 per game.
Paul from 18-21 was a 37% shooter on 2.5 per game.
There’s no mistake those 3 were intended to be stretch bigs. Hit spot ups, help gang rebound, attack a few mismatches and be burly body’s against opposing imposing bigs. In particular Blake and Paul. Blake last season was crucial on Giannis and in the RS paired nicely with Nic. Paul was clearly supposed to be the same but even more capable of playing the PF position.

With the abundance of spacing we had last season we found a nice gimmick in out of position roll men. With the belief we brought in multiple stretch 5’s we were comfortable bringing in multiple non shooting cutting perimeter players.

I don’t believe Bembry/Johnson/rookies were ever intended to get the amount of time the receive. Bembry/Johnson being obvious journeymen. The rookies being late 1st, 2nds and undrafted players, they obviously weren’t penciled in for a rotation spot.
No, it to Blake and Paul being washed, Kyrie to be going through something, Joe being injured and Bruce falling out of favor in a space-less team.
5 of the 10 intended rotation players had to be out for one reason or another for them to play this much. Yet its Blake and Paul regression that highlight how faulty our roster construction is.
Players that are only on the team because they decided on having these high unconventional players.

[HardenGoat]

The rotation was clearly supposed to be Durant/Harden/Kyrie/Joe/Patty/LMA/Blake/Paul/Nic/Bruce.
Essentially 8 shooters and two defensive minded roll men (tho in way either traditional fulfilled. Actually nowhere traditional roles fulfilled).

Not trying to pick bad fruit (the opposite of "cherry-pick," does that make sense?), but I'm only seeing five shooters there, i.e. the first five names you mention.

LMA is a midrange guy who's not comfortable shooting 3's in volume, and Blake's more of a big man who developed long range skills later in his career, but has never been a natural there. The last three aren't really in the conversation.

So with Kyrie disappearing, then Joe going down, seems pretty clear Nash needed to find minutes stat for KEdwards, and Marks needed to sign another shooter. Maybe even give some green light to Bembry to see how fluky or non-fluky his current, lights-out percentage is. (did he work on his shot this offseason?)

I understand but a couple of things
Blake was brought back to repeat his last season performance of 38% on 3.1 attempts.
LMA from 20-now is a 38% shooter on 2.5 per game.
Paul from 18-21 was a 37% shooter on 2.5 per game.
There’s no mistake those 3 were intended to be stretch bigs. Hit spot ups, help gang rebound, attack a few mismatches and be burly body’s against opposing imposing bigs. In particular Blake and Paul. Blake last season was crucial on Giannis and in the RS paired nicely with Nic. Paul was clearly supposed to be the same but even more capable of playing the PF position.

With the abundance of spacing we had last season we found a nice gimmick in out of position roll men. With the belief we brought in multiple stretch 5’s we were comfortable bringing in multiple non shooting cutting perimeter players.

I don’t believe Bembry/Johnson/rookies were ever intended to get the amount of time the receive. Bembry/Johnson being obvious journeymen. The rookies being late 1st, 2nds and undrafted players, they obviously weren’t penciled in for a rotation spot.
No, it to Blake and Paul being washed, Kyrie to be going through something, Joe being injured and Bruce falling out of favor in a space-less team.
5 of the 10 intended rotation players had to be out for one reason or another for them to play this much. Yet its Blake and Paul regression that highlight how faulty our roster construction is.
Players that are only on the team because they decided on having these high unconventional players.

Good analysis. They also were expecting Brown to be a 3 point threat as that was his sole focus off-season. I think he has fallen out of rotation due to what is owed as well as not meeting that expectation. Add in the redundancy and I would bet he’s getting traded for a shooter.

[gigantes]

Upvote, GYK. Good analysis. Some nice stuff to add context and think about.

I would just say about this:

Blake was brought back to repeat his last season performance of 38% on 3.1 attempts.
LMA from 20-now is a 38% shooter on 2.5 per game.
Paul from 18-21 was a 37% shooter on 2.5 per game.
There’s no mistake those 3 were intended to be stretch bigs.

I think "stretch bigs" is about right, but with the caveat that their long-range shooting usage wasn't going to be too high, coupled with the fact that one or all of them might not be particularly effective from three. Which could be an issue, depending.

Let's not forget that only one of those three ever had an over-40% 3pt season on any significant usage, and that was Milsap in '19-20 on a solid but not mind-blowing 2.4 attempts per game.

Otherwise their career 3pt%'s are 32.7%, 32.2% and 34.1% in the order they're listed above. Which is why I think "stretch big" makes sense when the usual shooters are present and not being drastically overplayed, as Harden, KD and Mills are right now. Otherwise they're not very stretch at all.

I think this also kind of goes back to the issue of good long-range shooting typically being something that's either locked in or not by the end of a player's college career. So it's nice that bigs (including Bropez) can work on such skills late in their careers, but I'm not sure how high that bar has ever gone in the NBA. I think far more usual is that they're useful in the right situations, but their efficiency tends to waver, and they're not good for taking significant volume, like 4-5-6 threes a game. Something like that.

Btw, I think Blake was brought back as a good shooter defender, smart player and hustle guy. Because if Marks assumed he'd replicate his terrific season of 38% efficiency, he must have somehow missed all the other years in which Blake was decidedly mediocre. Plus, what I said above.

Good analysis. They also were expecting Brown to be a 3 point threat as that was his sole focus off-season. I think he has fallen out of rotation due to what is owed as well as not meeting that expectation. Add in the redundancy and I would bet he’s getting traded for a shooter.

As with the above, counting on Brown to become a threat based on a single offseason of work just doesn't have much precedent AFAIK.

Probably easier for smaller players than bigs, but how often does it actually happen?

[Prokorov]

Again, if you want to tell me roster/injuries is why we are 0-8 vs. good teams, i can hear that argument.

But roster issues arent why:
-We cant beat a clippers team decimated with injuries playing a back to back in our arena starting james ennis while we have KD/Harden

-We cant beat a decimated portland team on a back to back playing g-leaguers minutes while we have KD/Kyrie

-We blow a lead to the flint tropic gleague version of the spurs and need some heroics to hold on in overtime

-we needed to come back down 20 and have Kyrie save us vs a decimated pacer team on a back to back

We are losing to or barely scraping by AWFUL teams. and those awful teams are MISSING SEVERAL STARTERs. you want to talk about roster issues? James Ennis was calle dont o score double digits and defend KD for the clippers. THAT is a roster problem.

and beyond that, a good coach doesnt make roster issues worse by doing things that pile onto what they identified as issues... again:

1) Dont cry about spacing then inject your worst shooter and rookie into the starting lineup
2) dont cry about tired legs then play KD 40 minutes after 43 in OT and flying 3000 miles
3) dont cry about chemistry then jumble the lineup everyday during a time you have close to a full squad

Good coaches put their team in the best position to win REGARDLESS of what they are working with. if its not enough its not enough but thats their job. maximize their teams ability to win. Nash does the opposite and worse its not ignorance he identifies the problem and then does the opposite of what he identified.

Good coaches see whats unfolding and make adjustments when gameplans break down, foul trouble occurs, or teams go on runs. Nash does none of that and is pretty open about letting the players figure it all out.

He has to go.

[Prokorov]

How about we just go with known quantities that work?

1) Bembry was a huge positive starting. all the advanced metrics show it as does the eye test. He is a straight up G and no one here was calling for him to be benched. He was shooting great from three. maybe it was flukey but so was Jeff Green a bit last year. if he started bricking maybe remove him, but to just take a guy contributing well and replacing him with your worst shooting rookie was not warranted

2) Get Brown back in the rotation. Sit Duke. we need spacing but we also need known quantities and more then 1 roll option for Harden. Again he was a glue guy and we were playing well with him. if we go in a scoring drought sub him out but keep him playing 15 minutes. this will help give KD more rest too.

3) Play Johnson as a small ball 5, not a 4. He worked well there. We got stops and switched when claxton sat. Him and blake can give us an energy boost and take charges at the 5

Harden | Mills | Bembry | KD | Claxton

Cam | Brown | Edwards | Blake or Johnson

on the road...

Harden | Kyrie | Bembry | KD | Claxton

Mills | Cam | Brown | Johnson or Blake

stick with it for 20 games

[MrDollarBills]

How about we just go with known quantities that work?

1) Bembry was a huge positive starting. all the advanced metrics show it as does the eye test. He is a straight up G and no one here was calling for him to be benched. He was shooting great from three. maybe it was flukey but so was Jeff Green a bit last year. if he started bricking maybe remove him, but to just take a guy contributing well and replacing him with your worst shooting rookie was not warranted

2) Get Brown back in the rotation. Sit Duke. we need spacing but we also need known quantities and more then 1 roll option for Harden. Again he was a glue guy and we were playing well with him. if we go in a scoring drought sub him out but keep him playing 15 minutes. this will help give KD more rest too.

3) Play Johnson as a small ball 5, not a 4. He worked well there. We got stops and switched when claxton sat. Him and blake can give us an energy boost and take charges at the 5

Harden | Mills | Bembry | KD | Claxton

Cam | Brown | Edwards | Blake or Johnson

on the road...

Harden | Kyrie | Bembry | KD | Claxton

Mills | Cam | Brown | Johnson or Blake

stick with it for 20 games

I'm with this. Bembry and Brown should be subbing in for each other, not playing at the same time. Nash is an idiot.

[NetsWorld]

Bembry was also a huge reason we got back in the Indy game and turned a 20 point deficit into a 13 point lead at one point.

[Prokorov]

How about we just go with known quantities that work?

1) Bembry was a huge positive starting. all the advanced metrics show it as does the eye test. He is a straight up G and no one here was calling for him to be benched. He was shooting great from three. maybe it was flukey but so was Jeff Green a bit last year. if he started bricking maybe remove him, but to just take a guy contributing well and replacing him with your worst shooting rookie was not warranted

2) Get Brown back in the rotation. Sit Duke. we need spacing but we also need known quantities and more then 1 roll option for Harden. Again he was a glue guy and we were playing well with him. if we go in a scoring drought sub him out but keep him playing 15 minutes. this will help give KD more rest too.

3) Play Johnson as a small ball 5, not a 4. He worked well there. We got stops and switched when claxton sat. Him and blake can give us an energy boost and take charges at the 5

Harden | Mills | Bembry | KD | Claxton

Cam | Brown | Edwards | Blake or Johnson

on the road...

Harden | Kyrie | Bembry | KD | Claxton

Mills | Cam | Brown | Johnson or Blake

stick with it for 20 games

I'm with this. Bembry and Brown should be subbing in for each other, not playing at the same time. Nash is an idiot.

ditto for Duke/Bembry

[MGrand15]

I don't think Nash will make it much longer but I don't think the solution is on the coaching staff. Vaughn isn't a good coach. Not sure about Vanterpool but Nash seems to be very collaborative - so I feel like everyone is at fault for the issues here. That includes Marks and the now non-existent performance team allowing Nash to play our stars heavy minutes every single night.

I also feel like there's a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. If Nash got fired today and a report came out tomorrow that Nash didn't want to coach at all and didn't give an F - I wouldn't be shocked. Or if the stars were calling all the shots and Nash had no power. Or if Vaughn actually made all the decisions and Nash didn't do an Xs and Os. I don't know. A lot of this stuff isn't just regular bad coaching. And we have enough experienced assistants to guide Nash if it's just a "rookie coach" thing. Something is up.

I will say our roster construction did the coaches no favors. With Kyrie out + Blake/Millsap looking completely washed + Harris injury + Carter struggling - the team was in a tough spot. We're at the point where we desperately need late draft picks to be productive. We need production out of guys who struggled to play on lottery teams. We need production out of a guy who was retired last year.

This sucks cause I actually really liked what the coaches did last year but it feels like that was all MDA with Nash just serving as the emotional leader.

Marks owns this mess.

That being said, I 100% believe that there is something going on behind the scenes. This team went from competent, then all of a sudden the Philly game comes along and everything goes to hell. What happened?

I think you need to take a second look if you think this started with the Philly game.

13-11 since Harris went down. 10-10 in the last 20 games. Bottom of the league on both ends of the ball in that stretch.

We already were hamstrung by a lack of adjustments and creativity before the injury. but with 2 mega-superstars and 2 top 5 three point shooters we overcame coaching handicaps. once Harris went down, we no longer had so much talent we could overcome the incompetence.

The issues snowball with the cumulative effect of 40 minutes of heavy load on KD/Harden. Nash meddling with nonsense moves like starting Duke Jr. hurt it further.

Maybe there is more behind the scenes, but you can clearly trade this to Joe Harris Injury. There is nothing more claring then us being a .500 team and going from top 8 to dead last in threes since then.

We were 10-4 with Harris.

Before the Philly game we were 23-9. With one game where we literally had no NBA players and we were decimated by COVID. That's pretty damn good. Better win percentage than with Harris.

We've spiraled since then.

[TheNetsFan]

Marks owns this mess.

That being said, I 100% believe that there is something going on behind the scenes. This team went from competent, then all of a sudden the Philly game comes along and everything goes to hell. What happened?

I think you need to take a second look if you think this started with the Philly game.

13-11 since Harris went down. 10-10 in the last 20 games. Bottom of the league on both ends of the ball in that stretch.

We already were hamstrung by a lack of adjustments and creativity before the injury. but with 2 mega-superstars and 2 top 5 three point shooters we overcame coaching handicaps. once Harris went down, we no longer had so much talent we could overcome the incompetence.

The issues snowball with the cumulative effect of 40 minutes of heavy load on KD/Harden. Nash meddling with nonsense moves like starting Duke Jr. hurt it further.

Maybe there is more behind the scenes, but you can clearly trade this to Joe Harris Injury. There is nothing more claring then us being a .500 team and going from top 8 to dead last in threes since then.

We were 10-4 with Harris.

Before the Philly game we were 23-9. With one game where we literally had no NBA players and we were decimated by COVID. That's pretty damn good. Better win percentage than with Harris.

We've spiraled since then.

There were also stretches in there where LMA and later Patty never missed a shot. That wasn't sustainable.

[MGrand15]

I will say our roster construction did the coaches no favors. With Kyrie out + Blake/Millsap looking completely washed + Harris injury + Carter struggling - the team was in a tough spot. We're at the point where we desperately need late draft picks to be productive. We need production out of guys who struggled to play on lottery teams. We need production out of a guy who was retired last year.

If you want to tell me roster construction is why we are 0-8 vs good teams, ill accept that. If you are telling me roster construction/injury is why we are 4-7 in our last 11 I call BS. Our roster construction is certainly better then a clippers roster that needed to sign James Ennis off the end of our bench to field and eligible 8-man team.

I don't think anyone is saying we should be losing to teams playing G Leaguers. Just acknowledging that Marks made some mistakes.

[Prokorov]

Marks owns this mess.

That being said, I 100% believe that there is something going on behind the scenes. This team went from competent, then all of a sudden the Philly game comes along and everything goes to hell. What happened?

I think you need to take a second look if you think this started with the Philly game.

13-11 since Harris went down. 10-10 in the last 20 games. Bottom of the league on both ends of the ball in that stretch.

We already were hamstrung by a lack of adjustments and creativity before the injury. but with 2 mega-superstars and 2 top 5 three point shooters we overcame coaching handicaps. once Harris went down, we no longer had so much talent we could overcome the incompetence.

The issues snowball with the cumulative effect of 40 minutes of heavy load on KD/Harden. Nash meddling with nonsense moves like starting Duke Jr. hurt it further.

Maybe there is more behind the scenes, but you can clearly trade this to Joe Harris Injury. There is nothing more claring then us being a .500 team and going from top 8 to dead last in threes since then.

We were 10-4 with Harris.

Before the Philly game we were 23-9. With one game where we literally had no NBA players and we were decimated by COVID. That's pretty damn good. Better win percentage than with Harris.

We've spiraled since then.

That 23-9 record include 10-4 with Harris. its not like its 10-4 with harris and then 23-9 since Harris.

10-4 with Harris

13-5 between Harris Injury and Philly loss (not sure why philly loss is a benchmark?)

15-10 since harris got injured (not great)

There are clear milestones, the philly loss is not one of those:

-Harris injury (10-4 .715 prior, 15-10 .600 after)
-Kyrie announces return (21-11 .656 prior, 4-3 .571 after)

"The Philly Loss" has no real meaning unless you speculate some behind doors team event happened that caused a downturn since then. Otherwise we have the Harris Injury and Kyrie's announced return.

-.115 after losing Harris (large sample)
-.085 after Kyrie News (Small sample)

To me it is pretty clear that Harris injury is what began our struggles. Yes there are games we played with a COVID roster but we won most of those games and they are offset by the fact that the NBA rescheduled those games and we got COVID during the holidays with more days off. We also played alot more decimated teams then games we played where we were decimated.

My timeline looks like this:

1. Season starts. racking up wins like gangbusters
2. We lose to good teams, reality sets in this team needs Kyrie, but we still win otherwise
3. We take over 1st place, hold it for several weeks
4. Harris gets injured, we hold on for some wins but our 3PT/offense goes in the tank
5. KD/Harden minutes ramp up big time with no Harris and the offense tanking
6. those close wins start to turn into close losses with KD/Harden being gassed late and blowing leads we previously didnt
7. Kyrie announces return. we go 3-1 including winning our fist game with kyrie. all 3 wins are ugly vs bad teams
8. our losing streak begins and its ugly. offense continues ot struggle when all 3 stars dont play

My take. we have talent but when some of that talent (especially range shooters) are unavailable our offense goes in the tank as our coaching staff has an inability to find ways to generate offense and maxmize our players if we dont have 4+ shooters on the floor at all times.

This problem gets worse as KD is being worn down due to minutes

potential fixes:
1. Fire Nash, give reigns to someone competent who can maximize talent/win without KD playing 40 minutes. There is really no downside. at worst things stay the same

2. Get Harris back healthy. it should be soon. he will help to some extent. maybe a little, maybe a ton. Zero risk, We know who harris is

3. Trade for another shooter. We have small pieces to get back at least a role shooter. an ellington type. extremely low risk.

4. Major trade. Would shake things up. would get more talent on the floor nightly. Huge potential downside as Kyrie is major ceiling raiser and we likely dont get that in return. could irk durant and make Hardens exit more likely. could give us the glue and talent between KD and Harden on the upside. i dont think option 4 is worth the risk.

[Prokorov]

I think you need to take a second look if you think this started with the Philly game.

13-11 since Harris went down. 10-10 in the last 20 games. Bottom of the league on both ends of the ball in that stretch.

We already were hamstrung by a lack of adjustments and creativity before the injury. but with 2 mega-superstars and 2 top 5 three point shooters we overcame coaching handicaps. once Harris went down, we no longer had so much talent we could overcome the incompetence.

The issues snowball with the cumulative effect of 40 minutes of heavy load on KD/Harden. Nash meddling with nonsense moves like starting Duke Jr. hurt it further.

Maybe there is more behind the scenes, but you can clearly trade this to Joe Harris Injury. There is nothing more claring then us being a .500 team and going from top 8 to dead last in threes since then.

We were 10-4 with Harris.

Before the Philly game we were 23-9. With one game where we literally had no NBA players and we were decimated by COVID. That's pretty damn good. Better win percentage than with Harris.

We've spiraled since then.

There were also stretches in there where LMA and later Patty never missed a shot. That wasn't sustainable.

and stretches in there were we benefitted from playing COVID decimated teams. Honestly COVID didnt hurt us much. we went like 2-1 in the games we had to play with all g-leaguers and then got the 4th game rescheduled (to monday when it was portland decimated not us).

its not like phillu where they went 1-6 when embiid was out with COVID

[Prokorov]

I will say our roster construction did the coaches no favors. With Kyrie out + Blake/Millsap looking completely washed + Harris injury + Carter struggling - the team was in a tough spot. We're at the point where we desperately need late draft picks to be productive. We need production out of guys who struggled to play on lottery teams. We need production out of a guy who was retired last year.

If you want to tell me roster construction is why we are 0-8 vs good teams, ill accept that. If you are telling me roster construction/injury is why we are 4-7 in our last 11 I call BS. Our roster construction is certainly better then a clippers roster that needed to sign James Ennis off the end of our bench to field and eligible 8-man team.

I don't think anyone is saying we should be losing to teams playing G Leaguers. Just acknowledging that Marks made some mistakes.

I don't think Marks made any mistakes that are not clear in hindsight.

Trades Shamet for Carter/Sharpe and signs Mills
This move really address alot of our offseason concerns. We lacked guard defense. Carter came in as a superb defender. He isn't shamet but gave us more shooting then defenders like Brown who hurt our spacing. Mills being able to replace Shamets shooting was reasonable and he also provided more ball handling. something we were losing with Mike James not being back. Sharpe was the nations best rebounder. not an overnight fix but an on-roster solution none the less.

Shamet signed a 4/44 million contract with the suns. something we would not be able to afford. We got Mills on a discount too. To me I was upset with this deal until we signed Mills. at which point the deal became solid. in hindsight, even with Carter being a bust, I like it. We werent going to sign Shamet and worst case got a pick and replaced Shamet with a better cheaper player.

Signed Bembry, Johnson
This team needed toughness. It needed depth among defenders. We got that here. Both on the minimum. Bembry has been a plus for sure and really helped defensively before Nash removed him from the lineup. In games brown missed last year we looked really thing. Johnson was insurance there. he has had good and bad moments. Overall those worked out as far as minimum contracts

Signed Milsap. Let green walk
Everyone loved Green. On paper milsap was as good and could likely be as good a shooter as Green while adding a touch more defense and rebounding. Most importantly, Green's healthy couldn't be counted on as much as Milsaps. And the nets needed reliable bodies with all the health concerns we have. Milsap has struggled but hasnt played a ton.

Last years Green > this years milsap by a wide margin. but that was last years green. This years green has been significantly worse shooting 30% from three. Without hindisght it seems like a very reasonable replacement more likely not to miss games with heart/injury concerns. in hindsight, Green likely wouldnt have been much different as his shooting has came back to career numbers which are poor.

Re-signed Blake/Brown
Both Key contributors last year. Coming into the season we didnt know what we would have with Claxton and even with LMA back in the fold who knows if he would need to retire again. Blake was coming off a great year. shooting struggles this bad were not reasonable expected. Brown is the same guy as last year and came without requiring the expected raise or term commitment. We would not have done better in either spot on vet minium deals, which is all we had since Mills got the MLE

Honestly, Marks did a better job then I think most could have expected. Landing Mills at that cost was a coup, Blake could have likely gotten more money, and a minimum FA cast of : Bembry, Johnson, LMA is as good as you can expect. They were not getting a 3 & D guy on the minimum other then Ariza who went to LA.

Unless you think Shamet would have been better then Mills I dont see a major gripe.

[MGrand15]

I think you need to take a second look if you think this started with the Philly game.

13-11 since Harris went down. 10-10 in the last 20 games. Bottom of the league on both ends of the ball in that stretch.

We already were hamstrung by a lack of adjustments and creativity before the injury. but with 2 mega-superstars and 2 top 5 three point shooters we overcame coaching handicaps. once Harris went down, we no longer had so much talent we could overcome the incompetence.

The issues snowball with the cumulative effect of 40 minutes of heavy load on KD/Harden. Nash meddling with nonsense moves like starting Duke Jr. hurt it further.

Maybe there is more behind the scenes, but you can clearly trade this to Joe Harris Injury. There is nothing more claring then us being a .500 team and going from top 8 to dead last in threes since then.

We were 10-4 with Harris.

Before the Philly game we were 23-9. With one game where we literally had no NBA players and we were decimated by COVID. That's pretty damn good. Better win percentage than with Harris.

We've spiraled since then.

That 23-9 record include 10-4 with Harris. its not like its 10-4 with harris and then 23-9 since Harris.

10-4 with Harris

13-5 between Harris Injury and Philly loss (not sure why philly loss is a benchmark?)

15-10 since harris got injured (not great)

There are clear milestones, the philly loss is not one of those:

-Harris injury (10-4 .715 prior, 15-10 .600 after)
-Kyrie announces return (21-11 .656 prior, 4-3 .571 after)

"The Philly Loss" has no real meaning unless you speculate some behind doors team event happened that caused a downturn since then. Otherwise we have the Harris Injury and Kyrie's announced return.

-.115 after losing Harris (large sample)
-.085 after Kyrie News (Small sample)

To me it is pretty clear that Harris injury is what began our struggles. Yes there are games we played with a COVID roster but we won most of those games and they are offset by the fact that the NBA rescheduled those games and we got COVID during the holidays with more days off. We also played alot more decimated teams then games we played where we were decimated.

My timeline looks like this:

1. Season starts. racking up wins like gangbusters
2. We lose to good teams, reality sets in this team needs Kyrie, but we still win otherwise
3. We take over 1st place, hold it for several weeks
4. Harris gets injured, we hold on for some wins but our 3PT/offense goes in the tank
5. KD/Harden minutes ramp up big time with no Harris and the offense tanking
6. those close wins start to turn into close losses with KD/Harden being gassed late and blowing leads we previously didnt
7. Kyrie announces return. we go 3-1 including winning our fist game with kyrie. all 3 wins are ugly vs bad teams
8. our losing streak begins and its ugly. offense continues ot struggle when all 3 stars dont play

My take. we have talent but when some of that talent (especially range shooters) are unavailable our offense goes in the tank as our coaching staff has an inability to find ways to generate offense and maxmize our players if we dont have 4+ shooters on the floor at all times.

This problem gets worse as KD is being worn down due to minutes

potential fixes:
1. Fire Nash, give reigns to someone competent who can maximize talent/win without KD playing 40 minutes. There is really no downside. at worst things stay the same

2. Get Harris back healthy. it should be soon. he will help to some extent. maybe a little, maybe a ton. Zero risk, We know who harris is

3. Trade for another shooter. We have small pieces to get back at least a role shooter. an ellington type. extremely low risk.

4. Major trade. Would shake things up. would get more talent on the floor nightly. Huge potential downside as Kyrie is major ceiling raiser and we likely dont get that in return. could irk durant and make Hardens exit more likely. could give us the glue and talent between KD and Harden on the upside. i dont think option 4 is worth the risk.

13-5 is better than 10-4 is what I'm saying. Marginal difference.

I'm using the Philly game as a bench mark because it's the game where we got everyone back from COVID and we should have started clicking. Or playing a better rotation. We proved that we were deep when we got hit with COVID. Instead we inexcusably went to a big lineup then we cut down the rotation to 8. We started playing less shooters. At least to me, it felt like there was a noticeable shift in philosophy. Now the coaches are just experimenting and praying something works.

[Prokorov]

13-5 is better than 10-4 is what I'm saying. Marginal difference.

I'm using the Philly game as a bench mark because it's the game where we got everyone back from COVID and we should have started clicking. Or playing a better rotation. We proved that we were deep when we got hit with COVID. Instead we inexcusably went to a big lineup then we cut down the rotation to 8. We started playing less shooters. At least to me, it felt like there was a noticeable shift in philosophy. Now the coaches are just experimenting and praying something works.

For me 13-5 is an arbitrary number though and there is nothing special about the philly game. Nash did dumb nash things after philly. but thats what nash does. maybe it "felt that way", we certainly stunk since then. but we kind of stunk before a bit too. the lakers win was ugly. the clippers win was ugly. The pistons win was ugly. the raps win in OT was ugly. all blown big leads and getting by on KD heorics.

to me if Philly is a bench mark, it is because it was the Day fatigue set in with KD and he was no longer able to be fresh late in games to will us to wins and prevent comeback losses.

[MrDollarBills]

Nash saved his ASS last night by starting Kessler and Sharp with the Big 3.

YES Steve, giving Harden a big rolling big to set screens and having a 3 + D SF with length on the perimeter does work.