Around the NBA - 2024-25 Season Continued Continued

[HEZI]

33 pt lead for Nugz... it's over for the Clips... and imo Lue on the Clips too

With Lue available, he'd be my top choice for our head coaching job

He’s just a more relatable Coach Thibs. His offense, rotations and adjustments are laughable.

He made key adjustments in the series going from Dunn to Jones Jr in starting lineup, and also to Batum, Thibs would NOT make 1 adjustment let alone several

He isn't afraid of playing younger guys if they can contribute unlike Thibs unless his hands are forced

What did those adjustments do? They got blown out. He played Jones Jr 17 minutes and played washed up Batum 28 minutes, the same guy who averaged like 4 ppg all season and did nothing really in the playoffs and especially in game 7. He had a better player in Amir Coffey who was solid all year long and didn’t even give him one minute of playing time in the playoffs. His team got blown out the water after halftime so what exactly did he do that worked?

[NoDopeOnSundays]

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[RHODEY]

He's played 53 minutes, in those minutes with him on the floor we have a +.92 net rating


I mean, it's not much minutes wise but we're not bleeding when he's on the floor.

eye test...he's been bad. We(barely) may not be bleeding when he is on the floor, but again what did he give us in the Detroit series? He's been trash so why not try Shamut or Delon?

I'd like to see Wright play, but I doubt it's going to happen. The point is that if you're not bleeding points when a bench player is on the court it means they're not doing poorly.

Dont agree with that. We need our bench players to be productive - especially versus teams like the Celts - not just place holders.

[Montmorencie]

Ty Lue is Doc Rivers 2.0. Gets one lucky championship carried by superstars and consistently getting outcoached year after year ever since, but for some reason the media loves him and has a high praise of him.

[Clyde_Style]

Happy for Jokic. If there is any one player I can get behind regardless of affiliation it is him.

Hope Denver can make it a battle with OKC

[Clyde_Style]

Am loving this for Russ.

I only watched the recap, but he was the highlight reel in it. Glad he found his role

[Clyde_Style]

He's played 53 minutes, in those minutes with him on the floor we have a +.92 net rating


I mean, it's not much minutes wise but we're not bleeding when he's on the floor.

eye test...he's been bad. We(barely) may not be bleeding when he is on the floor, but again what did he give us in the Detroit series? He's been trash so why not try Shamut or Delon?

I'd like to see Wright play, but I doubt it's going to happen. The point is that if you're not bleeding points when a bench player is on the court it means they're not doing poorly.

Wright and Precious can help us

They add the flexibility to replace Cam or Mitch if they are struggling and see how they do instead

Wright in particular may help with some of our defensive matchups

[Clyde_Style]

He's played 53 minutes, in those minutes with him on the floor we have a +.92 net rating


I mean, it's not much minutes wise but we're not bleeding when he's on the floor.

eye test...he's been bad. We(barely) may not be bleeding when he is on the floor, but again what did he give us in the Detroit series? He's been trash so why not try Shamut or Delon?

I'd like to see Wright play, but I doubt it's going to happen. The point is that if you're not bleeding points when a bench player is on the court it means they're not doing poorly.

Wright and Precious can help us

They add the flexibility to replace Cam or Mitch if they are struggling and see how they do instead

Wright in particular may help with some of our defensive matchups. Put him on someone like White or Pritchard if someone like Deuce can't contain them

[GettinitDone]

^^ Yeah Delon can defend and knock down shots, his team off ball defense is stellar, I find it hard to believe he can't get any playing time after he helped us when JB and Deuce were out

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Now Clips are out, I expect Ballmer to fire Lue

[matchman]

Will JVG become Clippers head coach? I thought their regular season succeeded with his addition to the coaching staff.

[Chanel Bomber]

So melo's champion was game 7 James Harden?

It gets worse and worse.

[Fat Kat]

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[3toheadmelo]

So melo's champion was game 7 James Harden?

It gets worse and worse.

SGA gonna show Jokic who’s the real mvp now mf!

[3toheadmelo]

Love to see it. Stay me7o.

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[HopelessKnick]

Yeah, although this is mitigated by the fact that our bench is weak and on top of that our first 2most dependable guard off the bench have been giving us close to nothing so far in the playoffs. So while he does have much less to work with compared to the Rockets, I think Thibs needs to grow a pair and give Shamut and maybe even Delon some burn versus the Celts.

The question will always be: Is our bench so bad, not confident and thin because all of them genuinely suck or because they have played so little and given so little confidence that they can't be expected to perform reasonably well. Look at that 1 hour video in the Thibs thread--it is a brilliant analysis. They say something along the lines of "Shooter like Shamet etc. are most vulnerable to changes in minutes and opportunities. These guys need to establish a rhythm. They can't do that under these types of circumstances." Shamet is someone that played close to 20 minutes on different teams during the postseason under different coaches. He is playing 5 minutes here in a series where we couldn't by a 3 pointer at times.

If Thibs was coaching the Rockets would he have gone so deep from the get go, playing all of them etc.? I highly doubt it.

I brought the example of the Cavs and Celtics bench: Would Thibs have played guys like Wade, Jerome, Niang, Hauser, Kornet, Pritchard big minutes before they established themselves as strong bench players? Jerome has a career average of like 6points per game. Pritchard was getting 7 points in his first 4 seasons in Boston. All the above guys weren't like automatic 6th man of the year candidates...some were journeymen, some had played very little. If you gave those same exact guys to Thibs, do you really believe he would have sacrificed minutes from Hart, Bridges, OG to build those guys up and possibly endure early season mistakes and losses? Highly, highly doubt it.

The only counter to this is probably Josh Hart who was a bench journeyman when we traded Cam Reddish and a pick for him.
Donte also went from a nobody to valued player with us.
The truth is that as you say Thibs circle of trust is so tight that guys who contribute more than hustle/defense (Mitch, Precious) are likely to struggle.
it's the playoffs now, so we don't have time to build guys up, but we wasted opportunities during the season. Also it was unfortunate that McBride got hurt while JB was out.

That's actually not true. I admit when you wrote it I initially didn't object but then decided to look it up. He was a bench player during his first 3 seasons in the league but also occassionally started games (like maybe 25% of the games). He did however average 25 minutes per game so he always got decent playing time.In 2021 he started all games for NO and when he got traded to Portland he started every single game for Portland as well, averaging 30-33 minutes per game. So he had already established himself as a starter prior to joining us, having started like 100+ straight games. After being traded here he actually came off the bench initially and was subsequently inserted into the starting line-up.

[HopelessKnick]

^^ Yeah Delon can defend and knock down shots, his team off ball defense is stellar, I find it hard to believe he can't get any playing time after he helped us when JB and Deuce were out

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Now Clips are out, I expect Ballmer to fire Lue

Imagine we fire Thibs and he joins the Clippers as assistant coach under JVG. We hire Lue.

BTW Wright has a pretty strong playoff track record.....having played 41 playoff games and averaging 16minutes a game. His shooting numbers are even much better across the board compared to the regular season:

49%/43% from 3 and 75% from the FT line. Mind boggling that in a situation where Deuce can't buy a bucket we see no Wright.

Shamet has also played tons of playoff games in the past, averaging close to 20 minutes per game. This is what I have been trying to tell Thibs defenders for the entire post all-star break time: The bench looks so thin because Thibs made zero effort to establish a rhythm, trust and confidence with them. A sane coach would have Hart off the bench and either Deuce, Wright or Shamet in at the 2 (or Mitch).

If you started Wright and then brought Hart, Deuce, Shamet and Mitch off the bench....the entire outlook of the team would change. You essentially would have that experienced veteran with strong defense that does not need the ball at all starting games, making the line-up truly 5 out and then you have an actually strong bench too. You would actually adress 4 current weaknesses of the team:

1) You bolster perimeter defense as Wright is a better defender than Hart
2) You improve the shooting slightly and thus the spacing as Wright is much less hesitant to shoot the 3 and teams would likely guard him
3) You improve the balance because you have someone that does not need the ball at all in his hands, leaving more touches for the other 3
4) You massively improve the bench

What would be the downside? The craziest thing is we had the utmost comfortable situation to experiment with these things the last 20-30 games of the season but just let it pass with no attempt....

[3toheadmelo]

Only 31 years old, maybe we should go after him this summer.

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[spree2kawhi]

Only 31 years old, maybe we should go after him this summer.

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You’ve got to love him. I don’t think shot-blocking is what he does best, and he’s a step slow on defense. Same as Towns, but I’m not sure if I’m right on that one. I absolutely welcome the physicality and jokes.

[Fat Kat]

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[WaltFrazier]

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I didn't think Harden was playing the same way as his peak Houston years which Kobe was referring to. I thought he made a nice adjustment to being a distributor PG while still having the threat of the 3. But I wasn't able to see game 7, I know he had a bad game.