Discussing Other Teams' Moves Part 3

[dckingsfan]

They've got some talented players, but this is a team that I think is going to have serious chemistry problems and a lot of trouble with outside shooting.

IMO that lineup isn't going to last very long. It may take 10-15 games (if that long) for the coaching staff to realize this isn't going to work. IMO their roster really looks like this...

G Jennings, Bynum, Siva
G Billups, Stuckey, Caldwell-Pope
F Singler, Datome
F Smith, Jerebko, Villanueva, Mitchell
C Monroe, Drummond

They need a SF in the worst way. I think they'd be okay with keeping Monroe at least through this season because Drummond may not be completely ready for 30 minutes a night but they need to take a long look at potentially making a move to balance out their roster going forward. Monroe & Stuckey for an above average starting wing player would make them a clear cut playoff team.

I agree. I can see sense in signing Josh Smith, IF they did it to construct a 3-man PF/C rotation. Coaches tend to curtail minutes for bigs anyway, so dividing PF/C minutes between Smith, Drummond and Monroe would seem to be smart.

But, then Dumars does an interview and indicates their plan is to start all 3 guys. Which makes no sense.

And as for figuring it out... well, it is Cheeks as the coach. I love this quote:

"Well, I've covered the NBA since the days when Jack Ramsay was roaming the Blazer sidelines in paisley pants. And I don't think since that time I've seen a coach as poorly informed, as casual about his duties and as lazy as Cheeks. NBA head coach? He should have been charged with identity theft."

[pancakes3]

I agree. I can see sense in signing Josh Smith, IF they did it to construct a 3-man PF/C rotation. Coaches tend to curtail minutes for bigs anyway, so dividing PF/C minutes between Smith, Drummond and Monroe would seem to be smart.

But, then Dumars does an interview and indicates their plan is to start all 3 guys. Which makes no sense.

I think they HAVE to at least experiment to see if it can work. That frontcourt trio commands too much of the cap to not try and see if it can be successful. Ultimately though, I think conventional wisdom will win out and it'll degenerate to a 3-man rotation but on the 5% chance that it DOES work? They could become a top 4 seed with the defensive potential alone.

[dobrojim]

but in today's NBA are 3 bigs going to be mobile enough to cover the perimeter?

edit to add - is being 3 only going to fuel Smith's enthusiasm for long jumpers
and 3s to the detriment of their team?

[LyricalRico]

edit to add - is being 3 only going to fuel Smith's enthusiasm for long jumpers
and 3s to the detriment of their team?

That's my expectation, that the SF version of Josh Smith is nothing but a low efficiency jumpshooter. Especially if he (or Jennings) over-handles the ball, leading to long jumpers with the shot clock expiring. He'd basically be a suped up Andray Blatche at that point.

Even on defense (which everyone seems to be saying is the reason why it will work), Smith is a great shot blocker but he doesn't strike me as even a good perimeter defender. And won't having him chasing SFs on the outside will pretty much negate his ability to block shots in the paint?

[pancakes3]

I think Josh Smith, athletically, can play SF about as well as Artest does. It's a beefier 3 than most teams play but I don't anticipate perimeter defense, or any other part of the defense to be much of an issue. The point of negated shotblocking? Maybe. The defense as a whole though probably won't suffer with those 3 out there though. It'll be really freaking good actually - at least by my estimation.

The question is of course how that offense is going to work. There's almost negative spacing on that team.

[Ruzious]

Monroe & Stuckey for an above average starting wing player would make them a clear cut playoff team.

What about Monroe+Jerebko+Singler for Porter+Ariza+Seraphin+pick?

Monroe/Okafor
Nene/Jerebko
Webster/Singler
Beal/RiceJr
Wall/Maynor

We'd need another guard for depth, but at first glance I like the look of that team.

A positive about this trade or a trade like this (where we pick up a big without trading Okafor or Nene) is that we would have the ability to re-sign Okafor - so going forward we could have our 3 man big rotation. We lose a chance at max cap room but have enough to get another quality free agent or utilize cap room in a trade. It's thought for food.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I think Josh Smith, athletically, can play SF about as well as Artest does. It's a beefier 3 than most teams play but I don't anticipate perimeter defense, or any other part of the defense to be much of an issue. The point of negated shotblocking? Maybe. The defense as a whole though probably won't suffer with those 3 out there though. It'll be really freaking good actually - at least by my estimation.

The question is of course how that offense is going to work. There's almost negative spacing on that team.

I agree with you, pancakes3. I think Josh Smith should have been an all star at least once by now. Twice in his career he's been NBA player of the week. http://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/pow.html

This past season was a down year for Smith but he IMO played all star worthy basketball in the 2009-2010 and 2011-2012 seasons. http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... hjo03.html

Josh Smith struggles a lot more from the FT line (.517 FT this past season) than he does from the perimeter. He literally cost ATL around 1.5-2 points a game just from shooting so woefully from the foul line.

Smith at PF for the Wizards would put Washington comfortably above 45 wins and probably in the 50-win territory. I think he's going to do very well for Detroit.

[closg00]

"Nick Calathes rated No. 6 in the 2009 NBA Draft, according to John Hollinger’s statistical system – behind only Ty Lawson, Blake Griffin, Tyreke Evans, Austin Daye* and Stephen Curry."

Hollinger gets his man for $1 mil per year, several folks here liked Nick back at that draft.

[FreeBalling]

I was on the net today looking for new on the Wizards and came across this article on prosports daily. It seems like the owner of the Nets is willing to spend major bucks. Is that correct, 187 million for this year? The article is about a hard cap that might come in the future.


"The Nets are on the hook for roughly $187 million in salary this year when you factor in their insane bar tab with the luxury tax. After this season, they're likely to pay $87 million alone in luxury tax, which is more than probably every team (except the New York Knicks) in the league will pay for their players."

http://www.prosportsdaily.com/articles/ ... 61916.html

[LyricalRico]

^ Doesn't the luxtax get redistributed to the other owners? They didn't mind taking money from guys like Cuban and Dolan over the years, why would they have a problem now? Not to mention that the Nets (like Dallas and NY in the past decade) seem to be willing to take anyone's bloated contracts off their hands. It's like having another amnesty clause. LOL

[closg00]

I think Josh Smith, athletically, can play SF about as well as Artest does. It's a beefier 3 than most teams play but I don't anticipate perimeter defense, or any other part of the defense to be much of an issue. The point of negated shotblocking? Maybe. The defense as a whole though probably won't suffer with those 3 out there though. It'll be really freaking good actually - at least by my estimation.

The question is of course how that offense is going to work. There's almost negative spacing on that team.

On the + side, Detroit could be a grinding half-court team and win some games, DET could surprise this year.

Billups
Stuckey
Smith
Monroe
Drummond

[Ruzious]

I was on the net today looking for new on the Wizards and came across this article on prosports daily. It seems like the owner of the Nets is willing to spend major bucks. Is that correct, 187 million for this year? The article is about a hard cap that might come in the future.


"The Nets are on the hook for roughly $187 million in salary this year when you factor in their insane bar tab with the luxury tax. After this season, they're likely to pay $87 million alone in luxury tax, which is more than probably every team (except the New York Knicks) in the league will pay for their players."

http://www.prosportsdaily.com/articles/ ... 61916.html

Not to mention under the table benefits he must be beholden for AK47 taking far less than what he could have gotten elsewhere.

Maybe he's got a mini-zebra farm that finances his operations.

[Ruzious]

I think Josh Smith, athletically, can play SF about as well as Artest does. It's a beefier 3 than most teams play but I don't anticipate perimeter defense, or any other part of the defense to be much of an issue. The point of negated shotblocking? Maybe. The defense as a whole though probably won't suffer with those 3 out there though. It'll be really freaking good actually - at least by my estimation.

The question is of course how that offense is going to work. There's almost negative spacing on that team.

On the + side, Detroit could be a grinding half-court team and win some games, DET could surprise this year.

Billups
Stuckey
Smith
Monroe
Drummond

Then why get Smith - considering he's far more effective when he's running? And you need shooters when you have a team that relies on half-court offense. I think the team is a disaster waiting to happen - but it'll be interesting to see how they do.

[closg00]

Then why get Smith - considering he's far more effective when he's running? And you need shooters when you have a team that relies on half-court offense. I think the team is a disaster waiting to happen - but it'll be interesting to see how they do.

Run with Jennings, grind with Billups, DET will be able to throw some different looks out-there.

[payitforward]

Like the Wizards, the Pistons are run by a GM who can't make bad enough moves to get fired.

That said, the team has gotten lucky w/ two draft picks who have performed better than people projected them to. Monroe has put up a WS40 each year about as good as he did in college -- that's very uncommon. And in terms of actual productivity, Drummond was runaway RoY last year -- but he only played @1200 minutes.

For the rest, there's not much hope. Billups looked over the hill last year, Smith is not as good as he's cracked up to be and started to slide last year, Jennings ain't much, and where's the talent on the rest of the roster? If Pope is an outstanding rookie and Siva is an NBA-caliber PG, that'd be a start.

Still, Drummond and Monroe are good enough that if they play 5000 combined minutes I can see the Pistons challenging for the 8th spot... nah, no I can't.

[LyricalRico]

On the + side, Detroit could be a grinding half-court team and win some games

If Billups was 5 years younger and the team was coached by Popovich, then you might be on to something. But Jennings figures to play most of the PG minutes and Mo Cheeks has only proved to be a mediocre coach.

And you need shooters when you have a team that relies on half-court offense. I think the team is a disaster waiting to happen - but it'll be interesting to see how they do.

Agree with all of this. They don't have enough spacing to be an effective half-court team, so they'll have to run. Sure, they could slow it down and take less shots (which is what I think closg means by "grinding"), but that doesn't mean they'll be good shots. If it ends up being Smith repeatedly taking long jumpshots at the end of the shot clock, then it's going to tough for them to win that way.

But I also agree that they'll be interesting to watch. They have the talent to compete, and if they figure out the right frontcourt rotation, they could be good. They also have the pieces to make other moves if they want to change the mix at the trade deadline.

[pancakes3]

It's possible to grind on defense and run on offense.

[LyricalRico]

It's possible to grind on defense and run on offense.

Is it? Not beings sarcastic, really trying to understand how that could be possible. Doesn't playing fast on offense lead to an overall higher possession/scoring game for both teams? I'm also not sure you can trust guys to stay at home on defense or block out for rebounds if they are trying to sneak out on the break.

When the Spurs changed to a more uptempo team, they still played good defense but their games were still higher scoring. When I think of a grind-it-out defensive team, I'm thinking of the Larry Brown Pistons that wanted to win 80-79. But I don't see these scenarios (the higher scoring Spurs, or the grind it out Pistons) being correlations for this Detroit team because they don't have the players or the coaches to properly execute either IMO.

I think this DET team would be killer on NBA2k14. I just think the real life implementation will be problematic. Doesn't mean they can't be at or near .500 and compete for a playoff spot. But they'd be a sweep waiting to happen like the Josh Smith led Hawks usually were.

[pancakes3]

Rather than boxing out in a team concept, you just have your dominant rebounder snag rebounds with sheer athleticism. The only thing is, he has to be able to make the proper outlet pass. Isn't this how our tough-nosed bullets teams used to operate? Bill Walton and Kareem as well? Drummond *might* be that guy.

The pistons can run a 3-2 zone type defense, having Monroe and Drummond down low, giving Smith a head start in leaking out and finishing the break.

They could also generate a ton of turnovers. That's how the Bulls used to play. The Heat also run like this while maintaining a stout defensive front.

[LyricalRico]

The Heat also run like this while maintaining a stout defensive front.

Yeah, Miami was the team that kept coming to my mind as an example of what you were referring to. But they still have things that Detroit doesn't IMO.

1. LeBron James - You can pretty much run any offensive or defensive scheme you want when you have the premier athlete on the planet on your team. LOL Forget not having a superstar, Detroit doesn't even have a guy that's a lock to make the All-Star team.

2. Shooters - Miami can run 3 good to excellent 3pt shooters out there for stretches with LeBron running the show and a rebounder to clean the glass. Arguably Detroit's best 3pt shooters would be the guys responsible for setting everyone else up (Jennings and Billups), so who will they be passing to?

3. Perimeter defenders - The aforementioned LeBron is All-Defense. And although Wade as slowed a step, he still gets away with a lot that may not be legal but still gets the job done. Even guys like Chalmers and Battier can defend the wings consistently better than most of guys in Detroit's rotation IMO.

That being said, employing your suggested strategy is probably DET's best chance to be a good team. But is Mo Cheeks the guy to pull that off? We'll have to see.