madmaxmedia wrote:Clemenza wrote:wakelaunch1 wrote:
I have only seen a few games where Lue outcoached his opponent. Mostly he has just won with superior talent. Has he ever coached without a superstar? no. The man has been been gifted unbelievable rosters. I do not want to resign him in the offseason. He should have been fired last year or not brought back this year.
The more athletic Moussa and/Kobe Brown could've bodied up Portis better for a nice 6-10 minute stretch. BBJ could've given PG or Kawhi a few extra minutes of rest so they could be fresher late in the 4th quarter. A few more minutes to Mann and Bones would've worked. The players are there on this team imo. Mike Malone, the Nuggets coach, would've had all these guys in the mix. That's the hidden gem and one of the reasons they're so successful these days. He plays pretty much the entire team. This 8-9 man star reliant rotation Lue has going on is for the playoffs, not the dog days of the regular season. All the player development got shelved and scraped when we got Harden and picked up Theis and this is the net result.
Players have to earn minutes but I also agree that there's also player development to consider. Of the guys you mentioned, Kobe Brown has been the most playable and I think should be getting more minutes. You're taking a short-term hit because these guys are mistake-prone and less dialed in, but the exposure helps.
This season has been tough for that though. It took awhile just to hit our stride with our main guys after the Harden trade and then we had the Grammy trip, and it's hard to argue with the results over that span. Bones is playable too (as he was on the Nuggets), but that was also a difficult situation since we had Russ going to the bench and already seeing his minutes go down a lot.
This has never been a team where players could "earn minutes" though. Its always vet heavy and name brand orientated. PJ Tucker is part of the Harden trade so now he plays instead of Kobe Brown. He's awful, benched, and then complains to the media and gets yet another chance and blows it. Earned minutes? Nope. SGA has promise as a future star but f*ck him we want Kawhi and will gladly do whatever he says. And people wanted Otto Porter to sign with us which probably would've been another PJ situation if he can stay healthy. Everything has to be an imported and finished product with this team and never developed or home grown. The fanbase feels the same way, always hyping up scrubs from other teams we should go after when in reality they're technically not better than the players we have sitting on our bench.
Look I know some guys are green, but they'll remain green forever with this franchise and that's the problem. And I'm strictly talking about a few minutes in a back to back where our 8 man rotation is gassed, aren't defending, and can't even hit a free throw anymore. You have to play some of these guys man imo. There's no x factor on this team to keep things afloat and sailing along.