Last half of the season: 3rd Best Defense

[Tripod]

Reality is Gradeys best month for defensive rating was 118.8. His BEST. Simply not good enough especially when we started to get a nice identity as a defensive team, hard to play against, etc... He just isn't a "fit" that way.

Now if he was a 38+ 3pt shooter like Robinson was most years, you can work around it and it's nice to have off the bench. But Gradey has to get there.

I have defended him when it comes to getting beat up because he was always going to need to get stronger and only time can fix that, unfortunately. But next year it's about winning games and if he can't defend better, he will be passed by others who can.

Looking forward to this offseason to see what changes are made to the team. The draft placing and who we get could dictate certain moves. Got a feeling Masai still might make a surprising move.

[PoundTown]

Not to be a negative Nelly, but Gradey being injured sure did help.

i maybe willing to trade gradey if needed

He's definitely not untouchable, but if not traded, should be given the 6th man role next year. The rest of the bench is pretty decent defensively and he might fit there. If one of the starting wings is injured, don't move Gradey as fill in starter unless his defence is much better than it currently is. I'd like to see Ochai or Jakobe fill in the starting line up should one of RJ or Ingram be injured.

[tsherkin]

Not to be a negative Nelly, but Gradey being injured sure did help.

i maybe willing to trade gradey if needed

He's definitely not untouchable, but if not traded, should be given the 6th man role next year. The rest of the bench is pretty decent defensively and he might fit there. If one of the starting wings is injured, don't move Gradey as fill in starter unless his defence is much better than it currently is. I'd like to see Ochai or Jakobe fill in the starting line up should one of RJ or Ingram be injured.

3rd year will be big for him. He needs to figure out how not to be a liability on D and how to up his game on O. We don't need 20 from him every night, we just need him to be knocking down shots. And knocking down shots when the defender is 4-6 feet away from him, which has been his critical weakness this year. If he can attack a close-out, great, but we need to start with him being an elite C+S guy. Build from there.

[djsunyc]

Not to be a negative Nelly, but Gradey being injured sure did help.

i maybe willing to trade gradey if needed

He's definitely not untouchable, but if not traded, should be given the 6th man role next year. The rest of the bench is pretty decent defensively and he might fit there. If one of the starting wings is injured, don't move Gradey as fill in starter unless his defence is much better than it currently is. I'd like to see Ochai or Jakobe fill in the starting line up should one of RJ or Ingram be injured.

mogbo needs some 905 time. that leaves us with no reliable backup pf or center.

currently, our 2/3 depth chart is rj, bi3, ochai, jakobe, gradey. it's our deepest positions.

depending on who we draft, i would expect a consolidation move to get a backup 4/5.

[djsunyc]

I’d say playing G League caliber rosters helped even more.

Yeah we’ve had a cakewalk schedule

The defense improved before the cakewalk started. But you both are correct, the bad numbers to start the season look worse than reality because of injuries/high degree of difficulty
end of season looks better than reality due to soft schedule

Still, the eye test and numbers both suggest when Barnes and Yak are on the floor we are going to have a good defense. Upgrading from Gradey to Ingram and second year improvements from our rooks should lead to a pretty solid defense.

Top 10 defense should be the minimum standard for next year

our schedule really got easier starting march 7. if you want to ignore games after that, then our drtg from jan11 - mar7, 25 games, was 111.4 (7th best). only 0.3 drtg points behind 4th best.

[Brinbe]

No Gradey and easier competition but still good to see. Very much a return to the beginnings of the 'We the North' era team which was rooted in a lot of the same principles in terms of effort/hustle/defense.

The lottery/draft will be further instructional in terms of who stays/goes in the next year or so because there's only so many spots to go around and decisions will need to be made on contracts in some cases. RJ/Gradey seem like two who should be sacrificed at the alter of consolidation as they're the two worst defenders and are hardly overwhelmingly great on the offensive end to make up for things, especially consumate to their expected future pay, but we'll see what the FO decide.

[PushDaRock]

i maybe willing to trade gradey if needed

He's definitely not untouchable, but if not traded, should be given the 6th man role next year. The rest of the bench is pretty decent defensively and he might fit there. If one of the starting wings is injured, don't move Gradey as fill in starter unless his defence is much better than it currently is. I'd like to see Ochai or Jakobe fill in the starting line up should one of RJ or Ingram be injured.

3rd year will be big for him. He needs to figure out how not to be a liability on D and how to up his game on O. We don't need 20 from him every night, we just need him to be knocking down shots. And knocking down shots when the defender is 4-6 feet away from him, which has been his critical weakness this year. If he can attack a close-out, great, but we need to start with him being an elite C+S guy. Build from there.

He's in a tricky spot because if his offensive role is going to be reduced to C&S 3's, what's the argument for him playing over Battle who already is doing that at a higher level both in accuracy and volume?

[tsherkin]

He's in a tricky spot because if his offensive role is going to be reduced to C&S 3's, what's the argument for him playing over Battle who already is doing that at a higher level both in accuracy and volume?

I figure we need to see Battle at a comparable level of usage before we really look too deeply at the numbers. I know he's getting a fair number of 3s, but he's a sub-7 ppg player, you know?

[PushDaRock]

He's in a tricky spot because if his offensive role is going to be reduced to C&S 3's, what's the argument for him playing over Battle who already is doing that at a higher level both in accuracy and volume?

I figure we need to see Battle at a comparable level of usage before we really look too deeply at the numbers. I know he's getting a fair number of 3s, but he's a sub-7 ppg player, you know?

Yeah I think that's fine to wait on a bigger sample size, but I am assuming whoever is in that backup 2/3 role isn't going to get many mins with Ingram and RJ both needing over 30 mpg and they will be in a lower USG role too which I think fits Battle more than Gradey based on the small sample size we have seen so far.

[tsherkin]

Yeah I think that's fine to wait on a bigger sample size, but I am assuming whoever is in that backup 2/3 role isn't going to get many mins with Ingram and RJ both needing over 30 mpg and they will be in a lower USG role too which I think fits Battle more than Gradey based on the small sample size we have seen so far.

You're probably right. Battle has looked good for us, and Gradey hasn't really offered a ton as counterpoint. It's interesting to have some choice in that regard.

[Thaddy]

Yeah I think that's fine to wait on a bigger sample size, but I am assuming whoever is in that backup 2/3 role isn't going to get many mins with Ingram and RJ both needing over 30 mpg and they will be in a lower USG role too which I think fits Battle more than Gradey based on the small sample size we have seen so far.

You're probably right. Battle has looked good for us, and Gradey hasn't really offered a ton as counterpoint. It's interesting to have some choice in that regard.

Gradey's defense is so bad that even if he were to improve substantially he'd still be below league average. At this stage I'm hoping his handle improves and he can become more of a guard rather than a wing. Ideally we should look to trade him for a big man, Agbaji, Walter, and our pick this year will probably come before him in the depth chart.

[tsherkin]

Yeah I think that's fine to wait on a bigger sample size, but I am assuming whoever is in that backup 2/3 role isn't going to get many mins with Ingram and RJ both needing over 30 mpg and they will be in a lower USG role too which I think fits Battle more than Gradey based on the small sample size we have seen so far.

You're probably right. Battle has looked good for us, and Gradey hasn't really offered a ton as counterpoint. It's interesting to have some choice in that regard.

Gradey's defense is so bad that even if he were to improve substantially he'd still be below league average. At this stage I'm hoping his handle improves and he can become more of a guard rather than a wing. Ideally we should look to trade him for a big man, Agbaji, Walter, and our pick this year will probably come before him in the depth chart.

If we can get an interesting and compelling offer, sure. But he still has size and shooting ability, and he was showing some ability to attack closeouts and all that. His offensive potential does remain intriguing and a lot of his defensive issues do come from just being rail-thin and struggling with physicality.

[Pointgod]

This is a stat that I can confidently say is useless. We’ve literally had the easiest schedule in the league and on top of that there are a lot of tanking teams not even trying to field competitive rosters. Not much you can take from this since our roster will be different next season

[ConSarnit]

Important note: we were never bad defensively.

We were so bad at turning the ball over to start the year that cleaning up that part alone (going from terrible to middle of the pack) is worth around 5-6 points in defensive rating.

Our defense improving is largely from cleaning up the offensive end. We’ve also played some pure garbage teams since mid season (pretty sure we’ve had the easiest schedule since mid Jan).

90% of our defensive improvement has been from cleaning up the offensive end and playing garage teams. The good news is if we’ve fixed our turnover issues going into next year we should be able to start next year as a solid to good defensive team.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Not to be a negative Nelly, but Gradey being injured sure did help.

I’d say playing G League caliber rosters helped even more.

Um, we have been trying to lose for the past 15-20 games, while still have the third best defence, along with playing the most g-league lineups for most the 4th quarter.

I would say that's pretty awesome.

[S.W.A.N]

Yeah we’ve had a cakewalk schedule

The defense improved before the cakewalk started. But you both are correct, the bad numbers to start the season look worse than reality because of injuries/high degree of difficulty
end of season looks better than reality due to soft schedule

Still, the eye test and numbers both suggest when Barnes and Yak are on the floor we are going to have a good defense. Upgrading from Gradey to Ingram and second year improvements from our rooks should lead to a pretty solid defense.

Top 10 defense should be the minimum standard for next year

our schedule really got easier starting march 7. if you want to ignore games after that, then our drtg from jan11 - mar7, 25 games, was 111.4 (7th best). only 0.3 drtg points behind 4th best.

thats a pretty decent sample size.

[ConSarnit]

The defense improved before the cakewalk started. But you both are correct, the bad numbers to start the season look worse than reality because of injuries/high degree of difficulty
end of season looks better than reality due to soft schedule

Still, the eye test and numbers both suggest when Barnes and Yak are on the floor we are going to have a good defense. Upgrading from Gradey to Ingram and second year improvements from our rooks should lead to a pretty solid defense.

Top 10 defense should be the minimum standard for next year

our schedule really got easier starting march 7. if you want to ignore games after that, then our drtg from jan11 - mar7, 25 games, was 111.4 (7th best). only 0.3 drtg points behind 4th best.

thats a pretty decent sample size.

Here’s the issue with that sample size: during that same period we have the 5th worst offense in the league. A large part of our defensive improvement has come from cleaning up our turnover problem. It’s possible that cleaning up our offense (to protect the defense) also ended up hurting the offense.

If we’re going to say “we are a really good defense now” doesn’t it also stand to reason that we are also a really bad offense now?

[LoveMyRaps]

I still wouldn't trade Gradey yet (unless its in a package for a star player).

[djsunyc]

our schedule really got easier starting march 7. if you want to ignore games after that, then our drtg from jan11 - mar7, 25 games, was 111.4 (7th best). only 0.3 drtg points behind 4th best.

thats a pretty decent sample size.

Here’s the issue with that sample size: during that same period we have the 5th worst offense in the league. A large part of our defensive improvement has come from cleaning up our turnover problem. It’s possible that cleaning up our offense (to protect the defense) also ended up hurting the offense.

If we’re going to say “we are a really good defense now” doesn’t it also stand to reason that we are also a really bad offense now?

for sure but in the context of a developing team, it's nice to see an identity forming. it's easier to identify who fits and what's needed going forward.