Sato+Beal 2018/19 versus Wall+Beal 2016/17

[NatP4]

Sato+Beal+Brown is a nasty backcourt. If only they keep Otto and Oubre. Sigh. Picture this if they did the right thing:

Sato Ball
Beal Brown jr
Oubre Hunter
Porter Dekker
Bryant Clarke

And cap space without wall

Depressing.

Eh as much as we wanted it to work Sato/Beal/Oubre/Porter simply never impressed. Wacky rotations by Brooks certainly didn't help matters, but guys got a chance to audition for that to be the new core more or less and it was just meh. I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer that core over what we have now (I would), but its a first round exit regardless.

I'm not sure what the future holds at this point, but everybody eats was mediocre at the end of the day, and the Chicago Beals look very similar. Everyone needs to pray Wall looks good--either to keep him or trade him. And for more lottery balls.

Gotta disagree, Otto was not healthy, missed a lot of those games, Troy Brown jr was not playing. Brooks was still using a non nba player in chasson Randle as the backup PG, Thomas Bryant’s PT was a joke, and still, the overuse of Jeff Green and Trevor Ariza. Dekker was a late addition.

I don’t think we really got to see everybody eats. Otto and Oubre are killing it in their new homes, Troy Brown is showing that he can play. Thomas Bryant has been great when he gets the chance. I would’ve loved to see it with a capable nba head coach and a quality backup guard addition.

[payitforward]

Sigh.... I hated the Porter trade, but you can't start by saying that Otto was injured when here, & then make something of how he's killing it in Chicago. If he hadn't been injured, we should assume he'd have been killing it here as well. He isn't playing as well in Chicago as he did for us last year or the year before -- same coach.

Oubre is playing better for the Suns than he did for us, but not hugely better. His rebounding is the same. His assists & steals are up, but his turnovers are too -- enough to cancel out those improvements. As to his scoring, his TS% is up 1%. That's good, but it doesn't support some big deal conclusion you'd like to draw.

[payitforward]

The disparity in points and assists between Wall and Sato tells me just about everything I need to know--and already knew. In the absence of Wallstar, Beal is having to work too freaking hard (and play too many minutes) to carry this team and make plays for himself and teammates, especially at crunch time. That's not a good thing in the long run.

Not sure how you make this conclusion. Sato takes less low efficiency shots than Wall, shifting more of the scoring load to the significantly more efficient Beal. Isn't this a good thing? It's not that Beal is "working too hard". It's that he is getting more shots while on the floor. As long as those shots are high efficiency shots, that's exactly what we want.

I also think Sato's off-the-ball abilities subtly help Beal get better looks, perhaps nearly as much as Wall's obvious drive-and-kick abilities. Defenders have to be aware of Sato's hard backdoor cuts and his 42% 3P%, which prevents them from loading up on Beal.

Wall was terrific in 2016-17. You can make an argument that he wasn't really better by the numbers than Sato has been this year, but that's slightly unfair b/c Wall was a much higher usage player on offense, which all on its own usually knocks down efficiency by some.

But John Wall wasn't very good last year in 1400 minutes, & he wasn't even that good this year in 1100 minutes. There is no question whatsoever that Sato has been better this year than either of those versions of John Wall.

Was John's decline strictly a matter of injury? Or, were his injuries caused by getting too out of shape in the off season? Who knows? What difference does it make? Are we judging a beauty contest? Do we have an Oscar to award, so we must make a decision?

The only real & important question is how well can John Wall bounce back from this serious injury?

As to the comparative numbers w/ which nate opened this thread, on the one hand they speak for themselves, on the other hand they span 36 games not a whole season, we are .500 in those games as opposed to winning 49 games 2 years ago, & no strength of schedule analysis accompanies either set of numbers.

The numbers are still interesting, of course. They point to Beal's development, & they make it clear that Sato is a really good player all on his own w/o being compared to anyone. That's good enough for me.

[80sballboy]

I don't get the Otto love. He can't stay freakin' healthy, even in Chicago! Good player but not worth the $$$ and we had no choice not to trade him after Wall's injury. We know Chicago is tanking but first it was a knee, now it's a shoulder. Personally, I would have rather have had a pick than Portis and Parker but I understand getting two expiring contracts. The problem is that both guys are hungry as potential free agents so they aren't go to lie down. Nobody is taking a game off for "knee/shoulder/load management BS".

Stats-shmats. The important stat is the "W". I like the backcourt but it's not incredible. With Wall, you always had to account for his speed. Give me 2016-17 Wall with 2018-19 Beal and you'd see 10 more wins or more.

[JWizmentality]

Good. They should easily surpass 49 wins this year then.

[NatP4]

I don't get the Otto love. He can't stay freakin' healthy, even in Chicago! Good player but not worth the $$$ and we had no choice not to trade him after Wall's injury. We know Chicago is tanking but first it was a knee, now it's a shoulder. Personally, I would have rather have had a pick than Portis and Parker but I understand getting two expiring contracts. The problem is that both guys are hungry as potential free agents so they aren't go to lie down. Nobody is taking a game off for "knee/shoulder/load management BS".

Stats-shmats. The important stat is the "W". I like the backcourt but it's not incredible. With Wall, you always had to account for his speed. Give me 2016-17 Wall with 2018-19 Beal and you'd see 10 more wins or more.

Otto has played 74+ games in each of the last 4 seasons.

[Dark Faze]

I don't get the Otto love. He can't stay freakin' healthy, even in Chicago! Good player but not worth the $$$ and we had no choice not to trade him after Wall's injury. We know Chicago is tanking but first it was a knee, now it's a shoulder. Personally, I would have rather have had a pick than Portis and Parker but I understand getting two expiring contracts. The problem is that both guys are hungry as potential free agents so they aren't go to lie down. Nobody is taking a game off for "knee/shoulder/load management BS".

Stats-shmats. The important stat is the "W". I like the backcourt but it's not incredible. With Wall, you always had to account for his speed. Give me 2016-17 Wall with 2018-19 Beal and you'd see 10 more wins or more.

Otto has played 74+ games in each of the last 4 seasons.

To be fair, stretches of "he's probably not healthy" seem to last for huge chunks of seasons explaining away x and y.

[Ruzious]

I don't get the Otto love. He can't stay freakin' healthy, even in Chicago! Good player but not worth the $$$ and we had no choice not to trade him after Wall's injury. We know Chicago is tanking but first it was a knee, now it's a shoulder. Personally, I would have rather have had a pick than Portis and Parker but I understand getting two expiring contracts. The problem is that both guys are hungry as potential free agents so they aren't go to lie down. Nobody is taking a game off for "knee/shoulder/load management BS".

Stats-shmats. The important stat is the "W". I like the backcourt but it's not incredible. With Wall, you always had to account for his speed. Give me 2016-17 Wall with 2018-19 Beal and you'd see 10 more wins or more.

Otto has played 74+ games in each of the last 4 seasons.

To be fair, stretches of "he's probably not healthy" seem to last for huge chunks of seasons explaining away x and y.

And at some point, the pain management that worked in his early 20's on the chronic hip problem that he does have is probably going to be less and less effective as he gets older.
- signed Dr. Ruz of the internet

[NatP4]

20-6-3 on 50/50/90 with Chicago. Hasn't caught up to him yet.

[Ruzious]

3 of 9 last game and won't play tonight, might miss another game or 2 - and this is a new injury.

[I_Like_Dirt]

3 of 9 last game and won't play tonight, might miss another game or 2 - and this is a new injury.

It's stuff like this that has me scratching my head when people laugh at all the load management stuff surrounding Kawhi Leonard. I'm not so sure the Bulls are ahead of the game, either, and Porter is a bit of a different case. In general, though, making sure players are well rested and conditioned and ready to play at their best actually creates a better product and keeps the players healthier and happier. I think Porter would benefit from something like that, though I'm not sure if it would change anything or not.