imagump1313 wrote:Rustyman wrote:G R E Y wrote:Feels like Dev and Tre have been featured more of late...
I don't like overreacting but I do think that for the betterment of the team, one of them has to go at the trading deadline for a more reliable scorer. Blake can takeover the 3rd PG role and Castle can be confirmed as the backup PG.
G R E Y wrote:We may be losing the chance to find out what with 8 minutes and 0-1 scoring chances even though he's shown BBIQ, dogged D, and great initiative to drive. Makes no sense...
This is what I keep saying. We have no direction as a franchise anymore it seems. I have no idea what we are doing and more importantly, the coaching staff doesn't seem to either.
Could it be because Pop is absent? I'm not sure about that because Im sure he is communicating with the team from a distance. Are we shopping guys by showcasing them? No, its 2025. If there is a GM in this league that doesnt know about our players and would fall for a 3 game showcase he should be fired today.
Castle basically being benched but Champagnie can literally lose us a game all by himself but still log high minutes makes zero sense......
(although he only played 11 minutes last night) THANK YOU JESUS!!!!!
If we are going to lose anyway, why not do it with Castle and see what we have?
I think two or three things can be happening in the short term without it being regressed to FO that doesn't know what it's doing.
Ever since we got our full team healthy, Mitch Johnson has seemed intent on **** around with rotations and lineups even though what we were previously doing was working.
I even get reinserting Dev and Sochan into the starting group in favour or Castle who has started to struggle, and Julian who is and should be cooking from the bench.
But it went beyond that. It went to very apparently unsuccessful small ball that has cost us three of four games, and I include the last one because we once again got throttled on the boards, on points in the paint, and on second chance points. Collins and Bassey played, but 7 and 5 minutes. Collins proved to somehow look worse than I remember, proving Mitch right, but Bassey looked great, proving Mitch wrong.
Meanwhile Mamu and his 43% from 3 continue to be spectators, Blake and his good speed and man D sit as well, and for some mystifying reason, despite being praised to high heaven by Mitch himself, Castle's minutes have declined and his strengths have been woefully underutilized.
This last part is what stands out as the common denominator amongst the recent swath of changes, as is Mitch being given reins to show what he can do.
Frankly too much of this is pointing to him and attempts at reinventing the wheel. We are a D first identity team that relies on its bench to balance and keep well rested starters yet three good to very good defenders in Bassey, Blake, and Castle barely played. And starters were all in mid to high 30s minutes yesterday, including a guy who is older than the interim coach and a guy who shines but could use some rest. We looked fatigued by the physicality and not enough Spurs bore the brunt of it for the sake of the whole being less affected.
We are a team that passes the ball well yet we had only 25 assists yesterday and barely anyone beyond CP3 registered one; Dev and 4 and no other Spur had more than 2. Nets game - 26 assists with Tre leading the team with 6; Knicks, 33 assists,with Tre leading the team with 9; 76ers, 24 assists with CP3 team high 8. So like in 3 of the last 4 games, we've heavily GONE AWAY FROM OUR CORE TEAM IDENTITY AS A D-ORIENTED, GOOD TO GREAT PASSING TEAM.
Mitch has tried bombing away from 3; has tried ISO Wemby ball; has tried small ball; has tried faster pace (a reason given for small ball); NONE HAVE WORKED. And in the meantime he has taken us away from our bread and butter identity that is D-based, team-first O game. Of course Wemby is the star and will get most shots, but how we navigate the game around him and how we involve others (or not) to use our best strengths is really missing the mark.
We don't have the 3s shooting like the Cs or the off ball movement and quick sets to be able to go small ball to try to be GSW and get away with it. And we're not the **** NYK playing starters too heavy minutes.
This is the thing. We are not getting away with anything
As gump said, we are getting the results we deserve but we frankly deserve better than to be in a mid season experiment taking guys away from roles and strengths getting benched.
I hope I am wrong but a lot of this smacks of trying to hard and too obviously to curry favour with Wemby. Continuing to take shots with him pregame, giving him free reign over any decision (like four missed 3s in a row when we could and should have run a set), like limiting and shuffling around the rotations and lineups to pressure the FO into getting more help for Wemby. Something is just off here with this roster experiment.
Like when Pop was coaching he loved Castle and coached him through mistakes. Castle started with others out and shined. I have a hard time believing that Castle would get afterthought minutes with Pop, even if he was moved to the bench. Pop loves his two bigs lineups, so not playing any behind the starters is not something I recall him pulling. We had small ball Keldon at the 4 as a last resort during the bubble, (I forget who our PF was but he got injured) but we still had LMA at the 5. Maybe LMA got hurt? And we had Jakob? I forget, but anyway, that was a last resort type of thing, not a first choice.
My sense is that Pop gives notes like what's with all the TOs but also is consistent in telling people to be who they are. To that end Mitch has the reins until Pop returns and in doing so is trying to see what else we've got beyond the rotations and schemes Pop likes. But here's the thing: Pop caters style of play to team strengths, he doesn't shoehorn a style onto players like, say, when Jackson insisted on triangle O in his stint with the Knicks.
This is a short term experiment but we are clearly not utilizing our strengths and where I do agree with gump is that we are starting to look directionless - if we are trying to win, why go away from what has shown to work previously? If we are not trying to win why not develop Castle like we're known to do? If we are trying to win why have Sochan out there on the perimeter taking a last shot 3 when he's barely in the 20s % for the season or why have Julian out there on D late in games?
This experimenting is all Mitch being given a loooong rope. It has his imprint all over it and he's being evaluated on his choices. If anything, those choices are revealing and telling. And there will be a lot of teaching there, too, I think. Not quite up to the task in terms of running a team. He has Pop to fall back on and whose backing supports him. I can't imagine an FO being happy with a new young coach coming in and trying these experiments. We're neither playing better nor winning nor developing while getting whooped in categories we used to compete in while going away from good D and our team oriented game.
I can't wait for Pop to return and take the reins back. Good coaching matters, especially with a young team with roster holes to fill and with individual strengths to weave together.
What do you guys see day in and day out form Castle?.. And whats his outlook next season?