Scottie isn't going to be a #1 option superstar in this league

[tsherkin]

Why? Outside of Roger’s making money why exactly do we need to be running out a middling team that has limited upside?

Because you can't snap your fingers and solve every problem simultaneously. We can look to make moves during the season to improve (and over the remainder of the offseason).

Have some patience, man. This isn't the final form.

[YogurtProducer]

Before Jak got here Scottie played the 5 quite a bit. This imo is the ideal Scottie possession

This is EXACTLY how Scottie can be used. He in theory should be an incredible player in the short roll situations.

This action works a lot better when you have someone like Siakam in the corner. It works far less effectively when you have Poeltl’s (or possibly CMB’s) defender camped in the paint. Ideally Sandro opens up some space but I still can’t tell if he’s a real rotation player or a 12mpg guy.

These would obviously occur more in non-Jakob lineups. But lets be honest... Siakam was not some incredible spacer himself lol.

These sets with Jak in the dunkers spot are still somewhat feasible however. Like even though Siakam hit that shot, the better basketball play would have been him cutting and finishing with a dunk. That is something Poeltl is capable of.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

What if CMB is actually is the best player we have. None of this makes sense, does it?

[YogurtProducer]

Tailoring his shot diet doesn’t breed much optimism in my mind. We’re having the same talks about RJ. So now instead of having guys who create advantages for other players we’re talking about having to put players in roles to help themselves instead of the team as a whole.

I get we have to work with what we’ve got but it’s not overly confidence inspiring. If we’re paying guys $25m+ we need improvement, not mitigation.

I mean, yeah, why wouldn't we want to put guys in positions for them to succeed rather than in a role above their capabilities?

Getting Ingram, as well IQ back from injury, should in turn help RJ and Barnes both slot in more naturally on a pecking order. Ingram and IQ are by far our best 2 creators on the team, and that should mean the "harder" possessions get soaked up by them and hopefully it means efficiency gains for RJ + Barnes.

That is not "mitigation" it is just better utilization.

[Ell Curry]

What if CMB is actually is the best player we have. None of this makes sense, does it?

Just shows how important talent is. If CMB is our best player by say his 3rd season, we can move him or Scottie for an offensive centerpiece or at least a potential one (high draft pick or maybe a guy with question marks or take our shot at the next Lowry/Brunson breakout guy), or maybe Scottie-CMB will work as a 4/5 smallball Draymond + Looney situation if they score 30+ combined a night, or in this hypothetical CMB can shoot and maybe we're just a huge team and try to bully teams and if that doesn't work, well back to the trade thread, but at least we have real assets.

[tsherkin]

That is not "mitigation" it is just better utilization.

Indeed.

I think people get a little too swept up in the notion that a given player needs to function at a certain level on-ball to have value, and never needs help getting to his best performance level. Those kinds of guys are superstar players, and then the conversation switches to the pieces needed to best enable his value.... to win titles, instead of for individual performance.

But anyone less than a title centerpiece is going to generally require a good deal of manipulation to get into his best form. That's just the nature of things, so we're best off trying to arrange our team to maximize value. For winning, and for developing pieces and their trade value both.

[Tripod]

Tailoring his shot diet doesn’t breed much optimism in my mind. We’re having the same talks about RJ. So now instead of having guys who create advantages for other players we’re talking about having to put players in roles to help themselves instead of the team as a whole.

I get we have to work with what we’ve got but it’s not overly confidence inspiring. If we’re paying guys $25m+ we need improvement, not mitigation.

I mean, yeah, why wouldn't we want to put guys in positions for them to succeed rather than in a role above their capabilities?

Getting Ingram, as well IQ back from injury, should in turn help RJ and Barnes both slot in more naturally on a pecking order. Ingram and IQ are by far our best 2 creators on the team, and that should mean the "harder" possessions get soaked up by them and hopefully it means efficiency gains for RJ + Barnes.

That is not "mitigation" it is just better utilization.

Yeah...I have used this example a bunch so I will again.

Vs Memphis, Barnes had to deal with JJJ on him. Well with BI, JJJ likely guards BI so that frees up Barnes for an easier matchup. Of course you still have to take advantage of it, but it makes a difference. But not only do you have a better offensive guy to go against JJJ, but now Barnes has a much easier matchup. So the offense technically gets better in 2 spots.

It's just 1 example vs 1 team, but it shows the difference it makes.

[deck]

Is there any evidence of this?

Numbers that have stayed almost static across his first 4 years (including his rookie year):

Reb%
Screen assists
Post up frequency
Roll man frequency
Average shot distance

None of these things were all that different in his first year vs 4th. He got less on ball reps and shot fewer 3’s in his first year but that doesn’t mean he was doing more big man things. He wasn’t setting more screens or rolling more or rebounding more as a rookie. There is very little evidence he can actually do the big man things (on offense).

Obviously we should try and get him to do more traditional big man things on the offensive side but we don’t have much evidence he’ll actually be capable of doing it and most of what he’s shown so far is that he wants to play like a guard/wing.

I form my opinions by watching the games, but yes there are also stats to substantiate this.

% of shots within 10 Feet:

Year 1: 57.5%
Year 4: 47.9%

Average Shot Distance

Year 1: 10.7ft
Year 4: 12.6ft

Offensive Rebounds Per 36 minutes

Year 1: 2.7
Year 4: 1.8

To be sure, I didn't make the argument that he was doing more or less 'big man things'. I made the argument that he came into the league as a big man / wing, and has been trying to do more guard things in the past two years. From watching the games, I would think this has been pretty obvious.

I think we have a disagreement about what a “big” actually is and what they do on the floor. Taking shots closer to the rim doesn’t not make one play more like a big. Barnes did not do the things traditional big man do when he was a rookie. He wasn’t screening, he wasn’t posting up and he wasn’t acting as a roll man. Opportunistic garbage man type might a better designation but he wasn’t doing big man things (outside of trying to shoot closer to the basket because he couldn’t shoot from distance).

He did far more big man things in his rookie year than the he did guard things was the point. The stats and the eye test pretty clearly show that.

I disagree with your assertion that Barnes had a higher chance of succeeding as a guard offensively than he does as a wing / big. I also disagree with your assertion that he has been operating as a guard up until this point. He only started forcing his game as a guard in year 3 and year 4, and he generally struggled in that role.

If you want to nit-pick on my usage of 'big-man' that is fair, but it doesn't make your assertions correct.

[deck]

I’m not even sure how much “big man” Barnes will really help. We’re still looking at playing 2 non-shooting bigs a lot of the time. Outside of HOU (one of the craziest o-rebounding teams of all time) all of the top 15 offenses last season were getting some type of stretch element from their starting 4 or 5. We’re fighting an uphill battle on the offensive end if Poeltl/Barnes/CMB are getting the majority of minutes at the 4/5.

We need to be not-crap before we worry about fielding a top offense, man. Baby steps. We can't solve every problem all at once.

Why? Outside of Roger’s making money why exactly do we need to be running out a middling team that has limited upside?

Because middling team's players have more value than lottery teams. We won a championship by rolling out middling teams and incrementally improving.

[Indeed]

That is not "mitigation" it is just better utilization.

Indeed.

I think people get a little too swept up in the notion that a given player needs to function at a certain level on-ball to have value, and never needs help getting to his best performance level. Those kinds of guys are superstar players, and then the conversation switches to the pieces needed to best enable his value.... to win titles, instead of for individual performance.

But anyone less than a title centerpiece is going to generally require a good deal of manipulation to get into his best form. That's just the nature of things, so we're best off trying to arrange our team to maximize value. For winning, and for developing pieces and their trade value both.

Disagree those kind of players being a super star. If you do only have little on ball, you can be defended much easier, particularly in a zone.

[Thaddy]

Scottie won't be a number one option superstar but neither will Suggs, Mobley, Green or even Cade (could be an outlier year). I think Barnes is better than Mobley and could perform similarly in the same role, potentially even better.

[tsherkin]

That is not "mitigation" it is just better utilization.

Indeed.

I think people get a little too swept up in the notion that a given player needs to function at a certain level on-ball to have value, and never needs help getting to his best performance level. Those kinds of guys are superstar players, and then the conversation switches to the pieces needed to best enable his value.... to win titles, instead of for individual performance.

But anyone less than a title centerpiece is going to generally require a good deal of manipulation to get into his best form. That's just the nature of things, so we're best off trying to arrange our team to maximize value. For winning, and for developing pieces and their trade value both.

Disagree those kind of players being a super star. If you do only have little on ball, you can be defended much easier, particularly in a zone.

Read what I wrote again. I was talking about non-superstar players needing more carefully-arranged context to succeed in their best form because they are NOT superstars...

[Shakril]

Why? Outside of Roger’s making money why exactly do we need to be running out a middling team that has limited upside?

Because you can't snap your fingers and solve every problem simultaneously. We can look to make moves during the season to improve (and over the remainder of the offseason).

Have some patience, man. This isn't the final form.

Most importantly, nobody knows how the present form even looks like. This year is the "Lets find out" year. Unless a top trade is available, i wouldnt even think about trading, just ride it this year and see how far we go.

The following things are important:

- How good is scottie in a win-now scenario?
- Can the other guys keep their level of play or improve with the added pressure?
- Injuries, namely IQ and BI how healthy can they be?

Those are the 3 questions that will have to be answered, before we even know what needs to be done.

[tsherkin]

Most importantly, nobody knows how the present form even looks like. This year is the "Lets find out" year. Unless a top trade is available, i wouldnt even think about trading, just ride it this year and see how far we go.

The following things are important:

- How good is scottie in a win-now scenario?
- Can the other guys keep their level of play or improve with the added pressure?
- Injuries, namely IQ and BI how healthy can they be?

Those are the 3 questions that will have to be answered, before we even know what needs to be done.

Yeah, pretty much that.

We have a lot of information to gather before we can figure out much more than "well, I know we aren't contending." But we need to figure out what the next move is, and that'll be tough without some more intel on how our team as it presently stands is going to function and perform.

[ConSarnit]

Tailoring his shot diet doesn’t breed much optimism in my mind. We’re having the same talks about RJ. So now instead of having guys who create advantages for other players we’re talking about having to put players in roles to help themselves instead of the team as a whole.

I get we have to work with what we’ve got but it’s not overly confidence inspiring. If we’re paying guys $25m+ we need improvement, not mitigation.

I mean, yeah, why wouldn't we want to put guys in positions for them to succeed rather than in a role above their capabilities?

Getting Ingram, as well IQ back from injury, should in turn help RJ and Barnes both slot in more naturally on a pecking order. Ingram and IQ are by far our best 2 creators on the team, and that should mean the "harder" possessions get soaked up by them and hopefully it means efficiency gains for RJ + Barnes.

That is not "mitigation" it is just better utilization.

How is putting Barnes in the corner better for us? He’s being put there by default because he’s terrible ATB. So in an effort to bump up Barnes’ efficiency we have to put him in the corner where he is also a below average 3pt shooter. How does that help the rest of the team? Trying to boost Barnes efficiency doesn’t help the rest of the team. It’s pretty clear that reducing the offensive roles of guys like Barnes or Barrett is not conducive to helping a team overall. They aren’t good off-ball players and as such that creates other down stream issues for everyone due to lack of spacing. If the idea is “boost their efficiency to up their trade value” then it makes sense but if the idea is “give poor off ball players more off ball possessions” then that’s not really helping the team.

If Barnes gets an uptick in 3pt% because he’s relegated to the corner that’s not overly helpful if teams are still cheating off of him or even when he makes the shot it’s still a below average offensive outcome for the shot type.

[ConSarnit]

Indeed.

I think people get a little too swept up in the notion that a given player needs to function at a certain level on-ball to have value, and never needs help getting to his best performance level. Those kinds of guys are superstar players, and then the conversation switches to the pieces needed to best enable his value.... to win titles, instead of for individual performance.

But anyone less than a title centerpiece is going to generally require a good deal of manipulation to get into his best form. That's just the nature of things, so we're best off trying to arrange our team to maximize value. For winning, and for developing pieces and their trade value both.

Disagree those kind of players being a super star. If you do only have little on ball, you can be defended much easier, particularly in a zone.

Read what I wrote again. I was talking about non-superstar players needing more carefully-arranged context to succeed in their best form because they are NOT superstars...

We’re paying Barnes the 25% max. He’s not making role player salary.

[tsherkin]

We’re paying Barnes the 25% max. He’s not making role player salary.

No, he's not. But basically anyone who isn't a superstar needs to be best-positioned for their individual success, so that's only so relevant.

[HangTime]

I think people are so confused by Scottie, and the group of players we have, because they are so focused on the current style of play.

There is so many interesting combinations here for a futuristic style, on both sides of the ball.

Scottie/Ingram/CMB might be my favourite trio. The traditional three point doesn't bother me one bit, even with Jakob in there.

For as much as they like to pass, I don't think there will be "over passing" between Scottie and CMB.

[Harcore Fenton Mun]

I think people are so confused by Scottie, and the group of players we have, because they are so focused on the current style of play.

There is so many interesting combinations here for a futuristic style, on both sides of the ball.

Scottie/Ingram/CMB might be my favourite trio. The traditional three point doesn't bother me one bit, even with Jakob in there.

For as much as they like to pass, I don't think there will be "over passing" between Scottie and CMB.

If we aren't paying BI 47M going forward. He's basically a two year rental.

[DreamTeam09]

I think people are so confused by Scottie, and the group of players we have, because they are so focused on the current style of play.

There is so many interesting combinations here for a futuristic style, on both sides of the ball.

Scottie/Ingram/CMB might be my favourite trio. The traditional three point doesn't bother me one bit, even with Jakob in there.

For as much as they like to pass, I don't think there will be "over passing" between Scottie and CMB.

If we aren't paying BI 47M going forward. He's basically a two year rental.

Bi is owed 38 40 41, Barnes will touch 47 for one yr of his deal, the last yr, 5yrs from now.
No need to embellish