***Official 2022-23 Training Camp/Preseason Thread***

MGrand15 · Post #101 » by **MGrand15** » Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:06 pm

If anyone wants to nerd out for a minute. Nash described our new assistant Igor Kokoskov as an offensive encyclopedia. He's very well respected across the league and in Europe and he has a ton of NBA experience. Guys like Kyrie + Patty were in practice talking about less isolations this season. I know some of you don't really believe it but when we had Mike D'Antoni our offense was brutally efficient no matter who we had on the floor. Our offense was outrageous even though KD played less than half the season. KD + Kai are capable of buying in.

When you have great players like KD + Kyrie, you're always going to play a lot of iso ball + hunt for mismatches. It's just smart. We just need to mix it up enough so teams actually have to make decisions + the offense just flows naturally.

Anyway, here's some of the type of stuff that he likes to run.

Watch on YouTube

Paradise · Post #102 » by **Paradise** » Fri Sep 30, 2022 4:06 pm

I love how Blake went from “lol washed” on the GB board to “great signing! hope he has something left!” soon as he joins Boston

Lol

Post #103 » by **NyCeEvO** » Fri Sep 30, 2022 5:02 pm

Paradise wrote:I love how Blake went from “lol washed” on the GB board to “great signing! hope he has something left!” soon as he joins Boston

Lol

I mean...fans do this all of the time. No games have been played yet and every team is still "undefeated" so optimism tends to be at its highest now.

DeAndre was clearly done when he was in Dallas, yet us, Philly, and now Denver still took a flyer on him. Hope springs eternal...or at least until the first 10 games have been played. :lol:

I hope Blake plays well except against us. I think he was a great 10-15 min reserve who got pushed to play a lot more than he should've played towards the end of 2020-21. Then, he just racked up tons of DNPs in 2021-22. I think most of us would agree that Nash hasn't been great at modulating and optimizing minutes played for us.

MrDollarBills · Post #104 » by **MrDollarBills** » Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:46 pm

No hard feelings towards Blake, I wish him the best. He came in here and was an absolute pro.

MrDollarBills · Post #105 » by **MrDollarBills** » Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:53 pm

MGrand15 wrote:If anyone wants to nerd out for a minute. Nash described our new assistant Igor Kokoskov as an offensive encyclopedia. He's very well respected across the league and in Europe and he has a ton of NBA experience. Guys like Kyrie + Patty were in practice talking about less isolations this season. I know some of you don't really believe it but when we had Mike D'Antoni our offense was brutally efficient no matter who we had on the floor. Our offense was outrageous even though KD played less than half the season. KD + Kai are capable of buying in.

When you have great players like KD + Kyrie, you're always going to play a lot of iso ball + hunt for mismatches. It's just smart. We just need to mix it up enough so teams actually have to make decisions + the offense just flows naturally.

Anyway, here's some of the type of stuff that he likes to run.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

I have no issue with attacking mismatches, but that should be mixed in with sets to generate offense that relies on ball movement and getting open looks. I can't tell you how many contested threes I watched guys have to take after getting a garbage bail out pass from KD or Kyrie with 4 secs left on the clock.

Looking the offensive sets in these clips, Claxton is probably going to have to make good reads when he catches the ball on the elbow. Lots of backdoor screening as well. I can see Simmons generating a lot of offense in this kind of system too, and the shooters will feast. Now I'm starting to get excited.

gigantes · Post #106 » by **gigantes** » Sat Oct 1, 2022 12:05 am

+1 to the ND article and the Nash interviews about retooling the offense.

Out of all possible news to restore some of my hope in this franchise, that was probably it.

MrDollarBills · Post #107 » by **MrDollarBills** » Sat Oct 1, 2022 4:06 pm

Read on Twitter

?t=U6t7GRRWCyJrKUpKNo4Cog&s=19

Ok i am excited again.

Pablo Escobar · Post #108 » by **Pablo Escobar** » Sun Oct 2, 2022 3:41 am

MrDollarBills wrote: I have no issue with attacking mismatches, but that should be mixed in with sets to generate offense that relies on ball movement and getting open looks. I can't tell you how many contested threes I watched guys have to take after getting a garbage bail out pass from KD or Kyrie with 4 secs left on the clock.

Looking the offensive sets in these clips, Claxton is probably going to have to make good reads when he catches the ball on the elbow. Lots of backdoor screening as well. I can see Simmons generating a lot of offense in this kind of system too, and the shooters will feast. Now I'm starting to get excited.

They ran quite a few stagger screens and pin downs for Kd when he was with this warriors. But he would get into it with Kerr for whatever reason and just break the offense to iso. Now of course having one of the goat scorers iso isn't the worst thing lol but I don't know bro Kd is very odd. Even if this new assistant were to revamp the offense do you think he will buy in? or just the same old my turn, your turn. Also if Nash resorts to iso ball then that'll make Simmons useless and his defender will just sag off and help on Kd or Kyrie.

NetsWorld · Post #109 » by **NetsWorld** » Sun Oct 2, 2022 1:19 pm

Pablo Escobar wrote:
MrDollarBills wrote: I have no issue with attacking mismatches, but that should be mixed in with sets to generate offense that relies on ball movement and getting open looks. I can't tell you how many contested threes I watched guys have to take after getting a garbage bail out pass from KD or Kyrie with 4 secs left on the clock.

Looking the offensive sets in these clips, Claxton is probably going to have to make good reads when he catches the ball on the elbow. Lots of backdoor screening as well. I can see Simmons generating a lot of offense in this kind of system too, and the shooters will feast. Now I'm starting to get excited.

They ran quite a few stagger screens and pin downs for Kd when he was with this warriors. But he would get into it with Kerr for whatever reason and just break the offense to iso. Now of course having one of the goat scorers iso isn't the worst thing lol but I don't know bro Kd is very odd. Even if this new assistant were to revamp the offense do you think he will buy in? or just the same old my turn, your turn. Also if Nash resorts to iso ball then that'll make Simmons useless and his defender will just sag off and help on Kd or Kyrie.

KD was 28-29 and still learning, he came here at 30, he’s 34 now, don’t you think he would have matured somewhat to understand the game changes and evolves. This is eerily similar to Kobe’s situation. KD was humbled in the post season to know he has to put his ego aside and buy into a system. He will be operating on the post more often.

MrDollarBills · Post #110 » by **MrDollarBills** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 12:05 am

Kyrie, KD, and Ben are all playing tomorrow night

Curry and Warren are out. Warren will probably be held out til November

sashaturiaf · Post #111 » by **sashaturiaf** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 5:27 am

The Suns just got handedly beaten by an Australian team headed by Craig Randall, if he sounds familiar it's because he was on our G League team last season and balled out. Think he led the G-League in scoring and shot the lights out from 3, based off today's performance that was no fluke since he was clearly a better scorer than anyone on the Sun's bench. I know we had a glut of small scoring guards on the roster last season but it's interesting we decided not to give him a camp invite ahead of someone like Chiozza. With Kyrie bound to miss time with his history having him around would have been insurance, and allowed us to shop Curry as a trade piece for a big.

Also, Shamet still sucks. He looked like he'd be the third best guard on that Australian team at best.

Hello Brooklyn · Post #112 » by **Hello Brooklyn** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 3:03 pm

MrDollarBills wrote:Kyrie, KD, and Ben are all playing tomorrow night

Curry and Warren are out. Warren will probably be held out til November

Honestly I think the Warren signing has been overrated.

Guy hasn't played in 2 years. Who knows if he will even be the same ever again.

I wouldn't mind him earning his minutes.

But at this point I would way rather just develop Kess or Duke Jr.

MGrand15 · Post #113 » by **MGrand15** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 3:38 pm

Only thing I'm looking for tonight is how Ben looks athletically and how Ben + Claxton play together.

Paradise · Post #114 » by **Paradise** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 6:38 pm

I’m excited for the first half. Obviously, we won’t play these guys beyond that but I am seriously looking forward to seeing how Ben fits in with Kyrie, KD and Joe in the lineup again.

The Sixers hiding Harden and Embiid tonight is hilarious. It’s game 1 off training camp. Both are healthy. No excuse to avoid this game but I know Harden is weak enough to make up some injury reported excuse not to show up in Brooklyn for the first time since the trade. Deron Williams vibes through the roof.

MrDollarBills · Post #115 » by **MrDollarBills** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 6:57 pm

Paradise wrote:I’m excited for the first half. Obviously, we won’t play these guys beyond that but I am seriously looking forward to seeing how Ben fits in with Kyrie, KD and Joe in the lineup again.

The Sixers hiding Harden and Embiid tonight is hilarious. It’s game 1 off training camp. Both are healthy. No excuse to avoid this game but I know Harden is weak enough to make up some injury reported excuse not to show up in Brooklyn for the first time since the trade. Deron Williams vibes through the roof.

It's just preseason so I won't put too much in it but you know Harden wants no parts of Kyrie after what happened last season when Kyrie dominated him so bad the dude just gave up.

Starters should get a clean 20-22 minutes, after that let Cam and the boys play it out.

MrDollarBills · Post #116 » by **MrDollarBills** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 6:58 pm

MGrand15 wrote:Only thing I'm looking for tonight is how Ben looks athletically and how Ben + Claxton play together.

Yeah I'm curious about the fit with those two and as well as what kind of offense we are running.

Born_Ready · Post #117 » by **Born_Ready** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 7:06 pm

It's gunna be weird seeing Joe back out there - feels like it's been forever.

sashaturiaf · Post #118 » by **sashaturiaf** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 9:31 pm

Points of interest, want to see some good minutes from these guys.

Ben - obviously
Clax - has he filled out, is the free throw shooting less awful
Sharpe - is he ready for real minutes against real rotation bigs. If not we need proper backup inside (Dwight) asap
Kessler - were still short on reliable rotation wings. His progress will be a huge factor this season
Watanabe - has tools to really help us if he fits in the system

Everyone else I'm not too concerned about. We either know what we're gonna get or they won't be in the playoff rotation anyway.

MrDollarBills · Post #119 » by **MrDollarBills** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 11:01 pm

sashaturiaf wrote:Points of interest, want to see some good minutes from these guys.

Ben - obviously
Clax - has he filled out, is the free throw shooting less awful
Sharpe - is he ready for real minutes against real rotation bigs. If not we need proper backup inside (Dwight) asap
Kessler - were still short on reliable rotation wings. His progress will be a huge factor this season
Watanabe - has tools to really help us if he fits in the system

Everyone else I'm not too concerned about. We either know what we're gonna get or they won't be in the playoff rotation anyway.

One note, I will say that Claxton is noticeably bigger from last season in preseason vids/photos I've seen.

therealbig3 · Post #120 » by **therealbig3** » Mon Oct 3, 2022 11:28 pm

Paradise wrote:I’m excited for the first half. Obviously, we won’t play these guys beyond that but I am seriously looking forward to seeing how Ben fits in with Kyrie, KD and Joe in the lineup again.

The Sixers hiding Harden and Embiid tonight is hilarious. It’s game 1 off training camp. Both are healthy. No excuse to avoid this game but I know Harden is weak enough to make up some injury reported excuse not to show up in Brooklyn for the first time since the trade. Deron Williams vibes through the roof.

I've really softened my stance on Deron given what's happened since. I think the biggest issue at the end of the day wasn't his sulking, or his passive aggressiveness, or his mental weakness...it was the fact that he simply didn't play up to expectations. And injuries played a big part of that.

Ultimately though, Deron played through a lot of injuries (he should get credit for that), and he probably was dealing with some sort of mental health issues before mental health for athletes really ever got a spotlight, so he got the "mentally weak" label instead. And he led us to the most successful years of the franchise since the Kidd era.

He's in no way, shape, or form as bad as Harden, not on his worst day. Harden gave up on the team less than a year in, was out of shape the entire time, and he did NOTHING for us when it really mattered. Deron at least had some productive moments, and like I said, led us to the playoffs multiple times, despite playing through injuries. Deron had more heart in his pinky finger than Harden had in his entire body, and I really can't believe I'm saying that, because I would never have accused Deron of playing with "heart" while he was here.