Sweater Vest Thread #5: Magic 117 - Wizards 108

[MagicStarwipe]

Actually went with DJ. I felt AG and Vuc played pretty much even throughout. But when it looked like a familiar story was about to happen and Wall was about to take our hearts, DJ was like "nah son" and stopped their momentum.

[drsd]

Jack Nelson was a story in-break session in this game. At the 9;19 moment of the 1st, Mrs. basketball purse had some nice memories.



Quite emotional indeed!


....



At 30 years in, Mr. Nelson was an excellent fan.

[Skin]

Stop giving sweater vests to Vuc. It only continues to feed the storyline that he's a valuable player for us. FOOL'S GOLD!

Bamba had 15 pts in 17 min on 7/8 shots with good defense and is being held back by minutes going to Vuc. I don't want to hear about how he's not ready to be a starter.

[Knightro]

Stop giving sweater vests to Vuc. It only continues to feed the storyline that he's a valuable player for us. FOOL'S GOLD!

Bamba had 15 pts in 17 min on 7/8 shots with good defense and is being held back by minutes going to Vuc. I don't want to hear about how he's not ready to be a starter.

I love Bamba, but he didn't play good defense last night and outside of his blocked shots he generally hasn't played good defense all year.

Physically speaking - both strength and conditioning wise - he couldn't handle 30-35 minutes a night without extreme diminishing returns.

[Xatticus]

But DJ made big plays down the stretch, we might've lost if not for that.

Augustin came up big at the end, but he was a bystander for most of the night.

I voted Augustin because he quietly had a competent defensive effort to keep Wall in check. Keeping the Wizards' guards from a big night was what this game was about, and that success lays squarely on Augustin (and Fournier).


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I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. It wasn't a particularly good defensive effort as a whole and Beal had a big night. Washington's ORtg for the game was above their season average. Augustin only played 25 minutes and often switched off of Wall. Clifford rode Grant longer than usual and clearly didn't like the Wall/Augustin matchup.

Looking at the totality of the game, Grant was probably our best PG on the night. With the score at 106-105, Augustin had 5 points, 2 assists, and a -4 plus/minus. I'm of the opinion that no possession is any more important than any other over the course of the game. If we handled our business over the preceding 15 minutes, the lead wouldn't have been whittled to 1 point and Augustin's heroics at the end wouldn't have been necessary.

One of the most critical stretches of the game was when Vucevic was on the floor with the second unit. This is why he finished plus 12 while Fournier and Gordon both had negative values in a 9 point win.

[Skin]

Stop giving sweater vests to Vuc. It only continues to feed the storyline that he's a valuable player for us. FOOL'S GOLD!

Bamba had 15 pts in 17 min on 7/8 shots with good defense and is being held back by minutes going to Vuc. I don't want to hear about how he's not ready to be a starter.

I love Bamba, but he didn't play good defense last night and outside of his blocked shots he generally hasn't played good defense all year.

Physically speaking - both strength and conditioning wise - he couldn't handle 30-35 minutes a night without extreme diminishing returns.

His defense is still better than Vuc. He's a guy that needs the experience of playing time to get better. What extreme diminishing returns do you speak of? We can't treat these guys like glass. Colleges don't treat their one and dones like glass.

[Knightro]

His defense is still better than Vuc. He's a guy that needs the experience of playing time to get better. What extreme diminishing returns do you speak of? We can't treat these guys like glass. Colleges don't treat their one and dones like glass.

His physical gifts are better than Vucevic’s, but Bamba doesn’t know where to be at all. His length makes up for it sometimes and obviously I expect him to get better, but he hasn’t been a particularly good defender so far.

And as far as treating him like glass, Bamba is routinely huffing and puffing with his hands on his hips playing about 20 minutes a night. It certainly stands to reason that if they tried to extend his minutes ever further that he would play even worse.

He’s playing right at 20 MPG and that’s about the perfect amount for him right now. Especially with Vucevic playing well. It’s not like he’s not playing at all. He plays every single game consistently.

30 MPG in college is hardly the same thing as 30 MPG in the pros.

He just doesn’t have the stamina or the strength right now to play starter minutes. He’ll get there eventually.

[OrlandO]

Stop giving sweater vests to Vuc. It only continues to feed the storyline that he's a valuable player for us. FOOL'S GOLD!

Skin a few games ago: "it's nice to track who's making the biggest impact when we win."

Skin today: ".....except when it's Vucevic."

[Skin]

Stop giving sweater vests to Vuc. It only continues to feed the storyline that he's a valuable player for us. FOOL'S GOLD!

Skin a few games ago: "it's nice to track who's making the biggest impact when we win."

Skin today: ".....except when it's Vucevic."

Exactly. There's no benefit to winning because of Vuc. It's just helping him get a new contract with another team. I'm only interested in winning based off guys who will be here in the future. ... and my first preference is to lose anyways.

[JF5]

Stop giving sweater vests to Vuc. It only continues to feed the storyline that he's a valuable player for us. FOOL'S GOLD!

Skin a few games ago: "it's nice to track who's making the biggest impact when we win."

Skin today: ".....except when it's Vucevic."

Exactly. There's no benefit to winning because of Vuc. It's just helping him get a new contract with another team. I'm only interested in winning based off guys who will be here in the future. ... and my first preference is to lose anyways.

I ironically had a conversation about him about this topic in the AG/SF topic. He clearly doesn't like Vucevic...

BTW... What this team currently is building is a semblance of Culture/System/Structure that seems to plays to everyone's strength/role. This team to me has looked the most cohesive since the early portion of the 15-16 season.

Much rather have the young guys develop in this system then to force feed them when they're clearly not ready/competent. Especially when you have guys like Gordon looking much better than his last couple of seasons.

[NickAnderson]

Man some of you need to give up the vuc hate. We understand you don’t like him. It’s getting pretty old

[drsd]

Man some of you need to give up the vuc hate. We understand you don’t like him. It’s getting pretty old

Fifth best Center in the league by PER. He is the 4th best assist man at the C slot, and is the 4th best at steals at the C slot. He is the 10th best rebounder in the NBA. And of course he leads the team in ppg scoring.

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