BigO wrote:emunney wrote:Random notes:
* Bulls waited too long to trade Patrick Williams. He had a good game last night, very Anthony Tolliver-esque.
* On the play where DeRozan had that amazing pass to the corner, Vucevic was complaining that there was a goaltend on Brook's block. Brook practically took it right off his hand. What did he think it looked like?
* Would love to know what was going through Ayo's mind when he tried to throw that pass by MarJon early.
* I don't think we *have* to trade Brook and Pat, but if it's true that Houston would have given us Eason for Brook, hopefully they still will in January (and the salary matching game isn't too obnoxious).
If you trade Brook, what is your plan on defense? I've noted that when Brook was gone for all of the regular season, the Bucks under defensive guru Bud, fell to 15th in defense for the season (and we still had Jrue and Giannis). Part of that was Bud continuing to play the drop defense, but Lopez was valuable.
You don't have to have a great rim protector (we have Giannis), but unlike Boston, which has several interchangeable great defenders, Milwaukee doesn't. What's the plan?
We kept the exact same base defense that we built around Brook. Imagine if we still had Jevon Carter and built our offense around Dame's shot creation at point, but Dame got hurt and we tried to do the same thing with Jevon. It wouldn't work out.
The overall lack of rim protection and size on the roster meant not only it was easier to score inside, but it was easier to get second chances. We started the season with Serge and Semi as our backup bigs. Last NBA season for both of them. It's difficult to overstate how badly it worked to try to replace PJ's role with Semi.
As for this year, I think we have to start from the understanding that Brook is almost useless for this team, because not only do you have to drop him, you have to have guys on the ball who refuse to be screened. If we're going to drop deep, you can't have Dame or Beasley or even MarJon hitting the screen like it's flypaper. We've got one guy who does it and he's our 11th man (10th with injuries). That's not enough in any scheme, realistically, but it's a huge problem if there's nobody else near the screen. And that's the *good* way to use Brook. So if you do keep him, not only do you have to drop him, you have to go out and get other players who don't die on screens (again: do this either way).
If I did trade Brook and I was coaching the Bucks, I still wouldn't be as consistently aggressive. I would ice almost everything on the outside. I would still want to play a fair amount of drop, but it'd be a much shallower drop, like you see from Looney, because the guy I have back there is going to be able to move his feet. I'm going to switch, I'm going to sprinkle in some zone looks. I'm going to get these guys talking to each other on every play. I'll selectively blitz weaker ball-handlers/decision makers. I'd still weak the **** out of Harden. Nothing fancy.
I don't know, man. The world would be my oyster. I would love the job but hate the fame. Am I hired or what?
.....But I'm not exactly a top-tier basketball mind either. 
"
