fan230 wrote:Here is something I just thought of:
We were the best in our championship season 20-21. All our 4 stars were younger and overall healthy: Giannis, Khris, Jrue and Brook.
In 21-22, Brook had this major back problem followed by surgery, Khris too was beginning to get some smaller injuries. We were good but less so. Jrue was great defensively.
In 22-23, Brook had a great year, Khris had a lot of injuries and then our big 3 really was Giannis Brook and Jrue. Jrue had to pick up a lot of the offense in the absence of Khris and his defense was still great but he was tired and therefore defense was less good than before but still good though less so in the playoffs.
In 23-24, Brook and Giannis are both still good. Khris has his offensive skills that he was so good at, but he seems to get tired and cannot sustain it over a game; his defense has worsened with age and injuries.
Now the key point: Dame is a great offensive player much better than Jrue in offense but Jrue was still more than reasonably good in offense as he showed in 22-23. However in defense Jrue is miles better than Dame who gets beaten repeatedly. Overall then, it seems to me that we lost more than gained in the Dame/Jrue trade. If that surmise is correct, together with Khris' decline and tiredness, we truly are a worse team on paper.
This is why we are overall worse today than last season. The optimal time was 20-21. on paper, as reflected in the championship.
Oh I forgot, we had Bud in 20-21, 21-22 and 22-23 and have AG in 23-24. I feel AG is a worse coach than Bud but the team AG has is worse than the previous three years, considering offense and defense both together.
It is not a surprise what we are seeing in the performances then.
Dame's not
that bad defensively. Dame & Beasley as a combo is the issue.
They can get hot & make insane runs together on the court. But against elite guards & intelligent teams, that backcourt is impossible. It makes Brook & Giannis overhelp. Griff wants rebounding to improve but he's putting his box man out of position.
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