GT #1: Bullets @ Bucks 8 PM (MonSportsNet/106.7 FM)

[BearlyBallin]

amazing that Whitmore has an assist yet I'm positive he has not made a single pass

I believe the pass was cross court to Tre for a 3ptr.

Read on Twitter

It’s here if you want to see it. Cam passes the ball to Tre on the first & second 3’s. Cam had at least 2 more passes to open teammates but they missed the shots.

[Jimmy Recard]

Just watched the game. Horrible start but otherwise can’t complain too much.

Someone explain to me why Kyshawn fell so far in the draft last year?! Even the games I watched last year I came away impressed most by him out of all our young guys and was asking myself what am I missing, why wasn’t he a lottery pick??

[FAH1223]

Made it to Inside The NBA

https://youtu.be/UF7W__S7z2M?si=oOj1kz1djWGE454Y

[SUPERBALLMAN]

Small potatoes, but I don’t see why we kept Cooper over Dillon Jones.

promised his dad so we could get Ace

Cut him and go sign Jared Butler

He’s not signed? Yes definitely!

[Tyrone Messby]

Free CJ

[tontoz]

Just watched the game. Horrible start but otherwise can’t complain too much.

Someone explain to me why Kyshawn fell so far in the draft last year?! Even the games I watched last year I came away impressed most by him out of all our young guys and was asking myself what am I missing, why wasn’t he a lottery pick??

He averaged 7/3 at Miami. If a team didnt scout him prior to that they wouldn't know how good he was.

One thing really impressed me in hindsight. As much as he handled the ball last night he had only 2 turnovers.

[tontoz]

promised his dad so we could get Ace

Cut him and go sign Jared Butler

He’s not signed? Yes definitely!

Noooo. We aren't trying to win. I say let Kyshawn play backup pg even if he isn't ready for that workload.

[doclinkin]

I was encouraged. Aside from the first quarter blow out the game was well played. Though Gary Trent Jr was left wide open too many times.

Giannis was slowed early, bothered by Sarrs athleticism and size, Ky checked him a couple times, but Whitmore could do nothing on him. Otherwise I was encouraged. The Freak is going to make anybody look bad but otherwise the young pups played well. Sarr looked like he knew what he was doing in the low post. Active. Good footwork. Rebounded well. Defended as well as can be expected.

Tre’s handle and shot creation are shaky. But he can hit the catch and shoot jumper and did enough elsewhere to suggest he knows what he’s doing. Except on D where he got lost a few times.

Bub was confident dropping in 3’s. Defended with size and activity. Played somewhat passive next to CJ. Plays better as the primary guard when left to initiate the action though he’s not forcing the action. Needs better aggression.

Kyshawn was a revelation though. Solid on both ends. Pulled off a few nifty dribbles in traffic despite his size and seemingly slow motion moves at times. Hit threes. Assertive going to the basket. Involved in every possession. Frankly other than Middleton he looked like our best player out there. Could start on any team. The only sour note was Kuzma blocking him once and he made up for it by returning the favor later on.

Aggressive scoring is what Cam does. I really don’t care that he has a limited team game. He was too strong to stop. Sent Kevin Porter to the locker room. He should be playing 6th man as an instant scorer. Or as I’ve said, put him at 2 guard if you’re bringing Tre off the bench.

Because CJ was off this game. And didn’t look like he was making anyone better around him. He could get his shot off on anyone. It just didn’t go in. And he tried to make up for it with volume. Not great.

[doclinkin]

Cut him and go sign Jared Butler

He’s not signed? Yes definitely!

Noooo. We aren't trying to win. I say let Kyshawn play backup pg even if he isn't ready for that workload.

He looked ready. I say play Riley in that role though. Or anyone else if CJ keeps shooting blanks. Bring the vet off the bench and let him get into rhythm against back ups. It’s early yet but I’m not sure I like the flow with him in the game. Especially on defense. Split him and Middleton and I think it works better.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Maybe need to use some of those 2nd round picks to get someone to take him. Possibly the worst defender in the league, bad signing.

Nobody is going to trade for Kispert as long as he keeps bricking 3s.
Nobody cares that be can put it on the deck, or attack the basket, or move without the ball... If he's missing his 3s he's worthless.

3/7 on 3ptrs and overall 4/8 shooting. He did what is expected of him. He is good trade bait for a 2nd round pick, maybe even a low 1st round pick on a playoff-bound team needing firepower off the bench.

Man, a low 1st for Krispy would be a dream.

[dobrojim]

Considering our primary objective is to keep our pick,
we need to lose about 60 games. So we've got 59 to go. Player development will come with experience.

CJ was not very good. If he plays better, and I think he
will, the final score is more respectable. And we
challenged to make it interesting in the second half. The players that we're waiting to get older and better
all showed glimmers of hope. We mostly allowed too
many uncontested 1st half 3 pointers by a team that was
strong last year in that area. Therefore they put up
72 in the first half. Hard to win (not really our goal)
at that point.

Sarr and Ky, Tre and Cam all gave us positive signs.

I wonder how Bilal will do (shoot) and if Riley can force
coaches to play him more minutes.

[J-Ves]

Just watched the game. Horrible start but otherwise can’t complain too much.

Someone explain to me why Kyshawn fell so far in the draft last year?! Even the games I watched last year I came away impressed most by him out of all our young guys and was asking myself what am I missing, why wasn’t he a lottery pick??

He tested very poorly at the combine in athletic areas. I think people thought he’d lack the foot speed to defend in the modern spaced out NBA. On top of that his counting stats at Miami were not impressive

[nate33]

I just watched the replay this morning.

Keefe made a tactical error selling out so hard to stop Giannis early. The Wizards just packed the paint on every possession and left dudes wide open for 3, and the entire Bucks roster got into a good rhythm. It wasn't complicated at all. Giannis would start to back down, and 2 dudes would leave their man to shade the paint and give help. It was one simple pass and an open look.

In the second half Keefe put Sarr on Giannis instead of Kyshawn, and scrapped all the help. It worked. Sarr actually did a very good job on Giannis. Yeah, when Giannis scored, it was often a highlight dunk on Sarr, but Sarr actually forced a miss more often than not. By my count, Sarr stopped Giannis on 5 out of 8 possessions throughout the 3rd quarter.

One big issue with this game was the absolutely terrible transition defense. The Bucks were gifted 8 points on fast breaks simply because our first guy back lazily jogged back rather than sprinted to catch up with the cherry-picking outlet player, or we screwed up on simple communications. Once it was Cam Whitmore lazily jogging. Another time it was Tre Johnson. And on 2 occasions, Tre didn't recognize that he had to make a switch. Overall, Tre's defensive awareness off ball has been sorely lacking.

Overall Sarr played a very good game. If this keeps up, he is on pace to be a real defensive anchor. And the offense is going to come. We can already see pretty significant improvement with his hands, catching the ball in traffic, and in his shooting touch around the rim.

How in the hell did Kyshawn get this good this fast? The guy looks like an 8-year vet out there. He's already the best PG on the roster. The guy can do everything: shoot, pass, rebound, defend. He has no holes in his game and he is only 21. Is he a star in the making? Does he have Jalen Williams upside?

I was excited to see Whitmore try and match up with Giannis in the post. My hope was that Whitmore, with his incredible strength and athleticism, might try and be a Grant Williams type of defender and really figure out how to give a guy like Giannis some trouble. But it didn't happen... at all. Giannis spun past him like he wasn't even there. It was kind of disappointing. I don't think Whitmore has the length or awareness to be a significantly positive help defender, so I was hoping he would at least become a good defender in isolation. So far, that doesn't look to be the case. Of course, we are talking about Giannis, a HOFer and top 20 all time player, so I guess I should cut him a little slack.

Khris Middleton still looks like a borderline All-Star caliber player. We have got to trade him before he gets hurt and tanks his value.

[tontoz]

Another thing i liked about this game is that nobody took more than 15 shots. I used to get so annoyed watching the shot jacking from Poole and especially Kuzma.

[Frichuela]

I was encouraged. Aside from the first quarter blow out the game was well played. Though Gary Trent Jr was left wide open too many times.

Giannis was slowed early, bothered by Sarrs athleticism and size, Ky checked him a couple times, but Whitmore could do nothing on him. Otherwise I was encouraged. The Freak is going to make anybody look bad but otherwise the young pups played well. Sarr looked like he knew what he was doing in the low post. Active. Good footwork. Rebounded well. Defended as well as can be expected.

Tre’s handle and shot creation are shaky. But he can hit the catch and shoot jumper and did enough elsewhere to suggest he knows what he’s doing. Except on D where he got lost a few times.

Bub was confident dropping in 3’s. Defended with size and activity. Played somewhat passive next to CJ. Plays better as the primary guard when left to initiate the action though he’s not forcing the action. Needs better aggression.

Kyshawn was a revelation though. Solid on both ends. Pulled off a few nifty dribbles in traffic despite his size and seemingly slow motion moves at times. Hit threes. Assertive going to the basket. Involved in every possession. Frankly other than Middleton he looked like our best player out there. Could start on any team. The only sour note was Kuzma blocking him once and he made up for it by returning the favor later on.

Aggressive scoring is what Cam does. I really don’t care that he has a limited team game. He was too strong to stop. Sent Kevin Porter to the locker room. He should be playing 6th man as an instant scorer. Or as I’ve said, put him at 2 guard if you’re bringing Tre off the bench.

Because CJ was off this game. And didn’t look like he was making anyone better around him. He could get his shot off on anyone. It just didn’t go in. And he tried to make up for it with volume. Not great.

Yep. If things break right and the lottery odds grant us Derryn Peterson in next year's draft. I could see the following roster & rotation being a promising up and coming team for the future:

Peterson (#1 or #2 in the draft)/Bub
Cam/Tre
Bilal/Riley
Ky/Champs
Sarr/Hart (signed in free agency)

Given the swap with Phoenix, if we finish bottom 3 and Phoenix ends 7th worst. Our odds for a top 3 pick in the next draft appear to be 63.5% (using Tankathon). Not too shabby!!!

[The Consiglieri]

Tend to think two separate things:
1. Don't get emotionally wrapped up if the performance is erratic or we suck at this or that particular thing. This is player development, like with U10 soccer, except instead of trying to develop a young kid into a competitive soccer player, we're trying to develop young NBA players into legit NBA players. The results, we got waxed in the 1st quarter, we didn't defend worth a ---- the 3, we played weak inside. Man this player sucks quite clearly, he was horrible for 2 games in a row, is immaterial. We're just looking at finding, and developing talent over larger sample sizes of data/game information. The 1st quarter there, or the interior defending here isn't a huge deal at all in any individual games, and won't really matter in a tangible way until winter/spring '27 at the earliest.

2. This is an 82 game sample size of player development, with an overall objective of sucking enough to guarantee our first, and preferably the shortest fall possible if we get hosed (which makes the Suns mega comeback win over Sac last night particularly infuriating, all be it in a tiny sample size, that was nearly a locked in loss to help our ping pong balls until the Suns stormed back to outscore them 66-45 and win by 4). Utah and Charlotte being surprisingly spry was helpful, the Suns pulling a win out their backsides was not. There's this weird sense I get that some of you just want to win, or kinda do, and it's utterly baffling to me. We just want our players to grow, while always losing. Growth Mindset as individuals within team concept (even if the returns on growth mindset are sketchy at best, it's a nice attitude to have individually), so losses are good. Yes we run the risk of indoctrinating a losing culture but who are we fooling, every NBA player in the league including our own, views this team as a historical joke. Clearly one of the worst 4-5 franchises of the past 45 years, and one of the worst 3-4 of the past 25. The culture is embedded, the only thing that will change it is talent acquisition, and then the winning that comes from individual player growth and said talent acquisition. So losing is critical. We lost last night while seeing individual growth in most if not all of the key players. That is a huge win. I hope that happens 82 times though I know it won't.

[DCZards]

Bub was confident dropping in 3’s. Defended with size and activity. Played somewhat passive next to CJ. Plays better as the primary guard when left to initiate the action though he’s not forcing the action. Needs better aggression.

Yes, yes, yes. The same was true last season when Bub shared the court with Poole. Bub was a LOT better at the end of the season when Poole sat and he played lead guard.

[payitforward]

Down by 17 after one quarter, we "won" the other 3 quarters. Overall, we played pretty well. Surprisingly well to me....

Between missing free throws & turning the ball over on the one hand, & suffering through awful shooting by CJ, we turned what would have been a pretty tight game into what looks like a far more lop-sided loss than it was.

Tre passed the first-game test for sure. OTOH, his turnovers contributed to making a 2d half comeback even harder than it should have been.

Kyshawn looks like he's the leader of the team!

[spaceman_E]

amazing that Whitmore has an assist yet I'm positive he has not made a single pass

I believe the pass was cross court to Tre for a 3ptr.

Read on Twitter

It’s here if you want to see it. Cam passes the ball to Tre on the first & second 3’s. Cam had at least 2 more passes to open teammates but they missed the shots.

It's a joke, I didn't see every second but at least 5 times he got a rebound or inbound pass and ran up and shot without passing; he plays into his reputation. As a team we had too many stretches of ISO ball, I'd like to see Sarr involved in more actions

[spaceman_E]

Down by 17 after one quarter, we "won" the other 3 quarters. Overall, we played pretty well. Surprisingly well to me....

Between missing free throws & turning the ball over on the one hand, & suffering through awful shooting by CJ, we turned what would have been a pretty tight game into what looks like a far more lop-sided loss than it was.

Tre passed the first-game test for sure. OTOH, his turnovers contributed to making a 2d half comeback even harder than it should have been.

Kyshawn looks like he's the leader of the team!

aka we got smoked until Whitmore Skattebo'd their Point Guard