Saberestar wrote:The NBA just changed the rules and teams with physical players have an advantage now.
Maybe, but then again, We got bullied by the Bucks back in 2021, and the Mavs too got clear advantages by being really aggressive with us as well. One of the big reasons why so many disliked Ayton but also really liked Nurkic despite his clumsiness and lack of athleticism is that Nurkic was willing to actually consistently play with physicality utilizing his size and too often Ayton would not, and got chided constantly for playing a finesse style instead of capitalizing on his superior athleticism and size. Both players being polar opposites, but our needs remained the same because we were and are a very finesse and mentally soft team. It's really no secret to anyone!
So sure, maybe it's true that the NBA has pivoted back to a more physical and aggressive style of play. With emphasis and favor placed upon the more physical and aggressive teams. But then it's still really up to us to adjust and adapt and evolve accordingly if we want to actually keep pace with the rest of the league. The problem with being such a finesse team is that when our shooting/skill-based offense goes cold and our efficiency struggles, Then the opposition knows that we just don't have the size and athleticism, or physicality and tenacity to beat other teams' top-tier athletes. That's why Ayton was so important to our offensive scheme because he could rely on his size, fluidity, and elite high-end athleticism to create mismatches and get easy high-percentage shots around the basket whenever our shooters struggled offensively. This really helped us in that he could help sustain us offensively in those situations while also being able to switch defensively too.
But ultimately he had to go because he wasn't consistently playing that way enough for us to be truly elite. That's also why so many currently recognize and are pining for more size, length, athleticism, and high-motor physical athletes. But the reality of this team is as I stated, that we're just too small, undersized, unathletic, and a finesse style team that relies on beating opponents with skill and smooth shooting. So the well-known template to beat us is just to play us very physically, beat us up with size and physicality, and because we absolutely are a soft, undersized finesse team, we repeatedly fold against size/athleticism/ and physicality. The fact that the NBA decided to go back to rewarding a more physical, athletic style of play was just incidental really unfortunate timing for us due to the masses' frustrations with so many fouls constantly slowing the game down and making it less exciting.