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is it by design? if not, who is to blame? its not just as simple as "we suck"

30th in pace
over past 15 games we are at 94.05, which is brutally slow.

what are we doing? teams like nuggets, magic and pacers play slow to highlight their low post/halfcourt games. we have no low post offense and a team built to run
-> 2 small PG backcourt that can shoot
-> young athletic wings who excel in open court
-> zeller, a center built to run

yet we spend 18 seconds, walking up the floor, running a few bad DHOs, only to end up with Graham, Monk or Terry begging for a last sec screen to get a desperation shot. WHY???

JB has given no reason for us to think this is by design, in fact he spent all preseason saying the opposite. we were playing at leage avg pace in Oct. what changed? not the players.

thoughts?

i have a theory, about changing to feature graham, at the expense of quick offense

our pgs are incredibly tentative unless they're on fire and our wing action is completely nonexistant. we slowed down after a few games of outrageous turnover streaks and haven't really bounced back yet

its a bit of a problem that our two best scorers are also our best ball handlers. portland has the worst assist ratio in the league because of similar problems but they obviously don't suck like us lol

My first thought is that our guards aren't great ballhandlers. We have to keep moving guys around to find a place to attack.

Rozier is a good slasher, but can't pass so well. Graham isn't a good slasher, but can pass alright.

There straight up isn't an offense.

We're asking a guy who is for all intents and purposes a rookie PG to lead an awful team without any sort of gameplan, and when he isn't, the other guard we have is in love with pounding the rock into the ground and throwing an off-the-mark pass to a teammate with 3 seconds on the shot clock. Graham was playing out of his mind early on, but ever since he cooled off, we are by far the easiest offense in the league to game plan against.

I am incredibly underwhelmed with JB this year. Lacking talent is one thing, but he isn't doing anything at all. The Wizards roster sucks ass and might have the worst defense I've ever seen in my life, but they stay in games by playing at a breakneck pace. They may suck but they have an identity. The last 2 months have been awful to watch unless one of the guys we drafted in the last three years pops off for 25-35 points. We all knew this time last year that JB couldn't care less about defense, and I was hoping to see something similar to what the Wizards are doing.

KEMBAtheMETEOR wrote:
I am incredibly underwhelmed with JB this year. Lacking talent is one thing, but he isn't doing anything at all.

my 2nd thought... JB has done nothing this year to make me think he should stick around once we are done tanking
what is our identity? team looks worse now than in nov, with same core, injuries. thats not exactly a good sign. very luke warm on him currently. fine for now.

fatlever wrote:

KEMBAtheMETEOR wrote:
I am incredibly underwhelmed with JB this year. Lacking talent is one thing, but he isn't doing anything at all.

my 2nd thought... JB has done nothing this year to make me think he should stick around once we are done tanking
what is our identity? team looks worse now than in nov, with same core, injuries. thats not exactly a good sign. very luke warm on him currently. fine for now.

I don't even want him through the rest of the rebuild as of now. Part of rebuilding is creating a culture. I'm not seeing **** here. I'm fine if the team wants to give him next season to sort it out with a better roster and a high lottery pick, but unless we see major improvement, he's a failure.

Graham is top 5 in the league in assists. If that’s just “alright” passing, with who he’s got as a target, I’ll take that any day.

you guys are legit out of your mind if you're pointing fingers at JB

there are teams with far more talent that play worse than us on a regular basis. he had this team playing FAR above expectations. all of these young guys are finally hitting their collective walls and you want to blame him? firing JB is one of the worst takes of the year.

KEMBAtheMETEOR wrote:

fatlever wrote:

KEMBAtheMETEOR wrote:
I am incredibly underwhelmed with JB this year. Lacking talent is one thing, but he isn't doing anything at all.

my 2nd thought... JB has done nothing this year to make me think he should stick around once we are done tanking
what is our identity? team looks worse now than in nov, with same core, injuries. thats not exactly a good sign. very luke warm on him currently. fine for now.

I don't even want him through the rest of the rebuild as of now. Part of rebuilding is creating a culture. I'm not seeing **** here. I'm fine if the team wants to give him next season to sort it out with a better roster and a high lottery pick, but unless we see major improvement, he's a failure.

this team has had a more than a few comebacks this year and its because he's kept guys engaged in a season where no one has to be. but but but the culture tho

the team looks worse now than in november? maybe because these guys are incredibly young or old and limited with no inbetween.

KEMBAtheMETEOR wrote:There straight up isn't an offense.

We're asking a guy who is for all intents and purposes a rookie PG to lead an awful team without any sort of gameplan, and when he isn't, the other guard we have is in love with pounding the rock into the ground and throwing an off-the-mark pass to a teammate with 3 seconds on the shot clock. Graham was playing out of his mind early on, but ever since he cooled off, we are by far the easiest offense in the league to game plan against.

I am incredibly underwhelmed with JB this year. Lacking talent is one thing, but he isn't doing anything at all. The Wizards roster sucks ass and might have the worst defense I've ever seen in my life, but they stay in games by playing at a breakneck pace. They may suck but they have an identity. The last 2 months have been awful to watch unless one of the guys we drafted in the last three years pops off for 25-35 points. We all knew this time last year that JB couldn't care less about defense, and I was hoping to see something similar to what the Wizards are doing.

the wizards have scoring all over the floor and one of the best SGs in the league. we are led in scoring by two guys who've never started this many games in a season. both getting changing defensive looks they've never had to deal with before.

that takes time to understand and develop in. i can't believe you want to talk about coaching then highlight a scott brooks team

he isn't doing anything at all except leaving guys out there to make mistakes and grow through them in a tank year like he should maybe?

okay lets go back to being a top rebounding team in the league and lose the exact same way every time if you want identity back.

yal are just making up reasons to be upset. 'identity' is one of the most nondescript phrases you can use to label a team...

"but but JB doesn't care about defense" help me understand why willie hermangomez doesn't start then bro. help me understand why malik stays in the doghouse. how did cody martin break into the rotation. make it make sense

Dy - did you have any thoughts on the OP?

My observations of the Spurs over the years is as a superior technical team. Helps to have the professor of technical play in Tim Duncan, but it's a cultural norm...ball movement, crisp cuts, solid screens, effective box-outs, balance and exquisite spacing...attack when it's right and defend to the big circle. It's how a small market franchise has remained so good for so long. Again, Tim Duncan.

The Hornets aren't trying to be Spurs East, but the philosophy Borrego brought with him is the same. He's slow because going fast obliterates fundamental development - so many young players that need to learn discipline and fundamentals within a team system. Takes years to establish what Borrego wants to establish.

Going slow is all about development. The pace will get quicker as the players become more instinctual within the system.

Doesn't make it pretty to watch, though. Shortens the game, makes blowouts less likely. But, man, is it frustrating to watch.

Rays Pompadour wrote:Going slow is all about development. The pace will get quicker as the players become more instinctual within the system.

This along with the observation elsewhere that pace slowed down after all the early turnovers. JB tried a faster pace and pulled back for a reason. You can debate if that was a good call or not, but it wasn't random.

I don't know, if the whole point of this rebuild is to lose enough games to get a top pick isn't actually losing those games being successful? I think we were too good in November and needed to pull it back a bit.

Generally the team with more offensive talent benefits from more possessions. We don't have a lot of talent, so it sort of makes sense that we play slow. Borrego is technically paid to try to win games.

Washington still has Beal who is arguably more talented than anybody the Bocat/Hornet's edition of the franchise has had in its history. (Him vs Kemba is an interesting debate.)


I've always been on team get out and run though.

We don’t play slow. We just really value every possession.

Williams and Kidd Gilchrist should have been waived in August.
This team has potential.

They have the athletes to run and defend at a high level. Washington, Bridges, Martin Brothers, McDaniels.

The team needs shooters (who make shots) in the backcourt
No guard is shooting above 45%
Only three players (on the roster) are shooting above 35% from 3.

They have to fix that for any style of offense to make sense.

Because every single coach always says during the summer that they are going to have their team play uptempo and really push the ball - which creates an expectation in the minds of fans (rightfully so).

But very few coaches actually do what they say they are going to do.

JB is no different.

yosemiteben wrote:Dy - did you have any thoughts on the OP?

im the first post in this thread

i've always said... if youre going to suck, at least be somewhat entertaining. we were entertaining in Oct/Nov, now its just a couple of random dunks from monk, the rest is tough on the eyes.

not looking to fire JB. he needs at least 3 years. but i really do hope we pick up the pace next season.

Less possessions gives more talented teams less chances to beat us or blow us out. Simple