OT: Daily Thoughts

[pickaxe]

Apparently Shaw wants to trim the rotation down to 8 players and forgot that there aren't 8 players he can trust to be consistent yet.

Karl just typically had a short rotation to begin with and we speculated all year long why those on the bench were in the doghouse.

And when you'e not winning, ....it looks like you don't know what you're doing. Karl always had previous seasons to fall back on, and also typically had only 3-4 game losing streaks.

Andre believes we can win.....and that he's a part of that winning. Dude has pride.

[pickaxe]

Yeah, I'm nervous it will be another crappy trade. Get Ujiri back maybe, or a proven GM. Someone believes a little too much in players like Randolph, Foye, ......and then you see Arthur have a strangely bad defensive night to the 76ers.

Just not very competitive when you stack this deck against the rest of the league. We made room for marginal roleplayers to expand their game to fit a gap and they are not able to expand.

You could probably take any one of the underperforming players on this team and plug them in on a Miami team, in Indiana, Portland, Clippers and they will fill the small role well. Put them all together and suddenly we have a scrub team and other teams sniff blood in the water....two huge disadvantages.


The reason I appreciated size is, even if you just have a roleplayer like Koufos......you have a big body in the paint that eventually he will be standing in the way. Then, with a Faried, you have all the movement you need. It's kind of a hack and paste philosophy, but it is a sound way to operate if one guy goes down or if you need to shorten rotation...

I'm just talking survival until McGee and Gallinari come back.

I was asked if I just want a bunch of PFs.......no, in reality I just would like to see us match the speed we have in Lawson with twin tower defenses, at all times. Two in, two out.

Faried comes in selectively as we need movement at PF.

Gallo comes back and he's one of the twin towers, but at SF, so Faried can be played.

Once you fix the rotating twin towers, and have a Gallo and a Lawson then SG and sixth man are the only roles that need filling. Andre Miller can be 6th man, Nate can be 6th man....

But do you guys see how when we went for Hickson and Arthur to swap out our serviceable tower in Kosta Koufos, how it was a gamble on a system that functioned well?

I would have been for keeping Koufos and adding Arthur some other way.

Imho you can never have too many 7 footers.....that is the key difference at altitude. A sizeable player that wears you down by being physically imposing.

I would go for four Farieds in the frontcourt......it's all based on the big's ability to use size. So, four PFs like Hickson would suck ass vs. four Koufoses.

Four JaVales would just be cheating on NBA2K14....but damn do you see the damage? Ty has open lanes all night long, and they don't expire during the game, ever.

Look at Detroit's 2004-2007 team. Look at the size and size in reserve. They had 4 bigs. Constantly wearing and grinding down the opponent.

Until we OWN our own home advantage at Altitude, opponents from scrubs to stars will have career nights. Our home court has the tendency to spark runs for any team, where we need to be snuffing out the sparks. Suffocate with size, then knock out with speed.

That's why we keep Ty. Keep Nate too if you want, but don't give him four 6 foot 8 combo guards that cant play defense.

[pickaxe]

Also, the Twin Tower philosophy works even on nights where one of the towers is having a lackluster night. The size always goes to work and so any player that doesn't utilize that advantage won't work hard no matter what you do.

Wear down with size and you don't need to worry about the 76ers looking like Usain Bolt.

The Corey Brewer advantage also came with his length and his size. There were lineups last year where we could literally have 1-4 with the longest wingspans in the league and then Ty the fastest. Skill-wise you take some hit, but the natural advantage was so great it didn't matter.

You could backdoor 'oop with Dre for EASY points, you could fast break with Ty.....anything to get back in the game. Versatility through size advantage.

The shooting issue was not solved when we got rid of size. If it had been, the trade would have achieved its goal. So now, we have no shooting and no size.

[pickaxe]

Koufos also drove his ass across the country in pure excitement when he got news he was playing for the Nuggets. Tell me if you see Hickson doing the same thing. I think it is an intangible when one player is hungrier than another. Hickson got to play with LeBron James in the Finals ....he's not as hungry.

[pickaxe]

Jordan Hamilton would fix our shooting problem immediately.....and we had him the whole time.

Shooting can be contageous as well....let him shoot himself blind and pray ppl like Foye follow suit and start hitting some damn threes for longer than 1 in 9 games......

[Powder Blue]

Is the roster that bad?

I mean we are lacking centers with McGee out, but to insist on playing a terrible defender at center 25 mpg while only giving your actual healthy center 20 mpg.

You are having terrible front court defensive problems, so your answer is to give Hickson and Randolph more minutes, while you have 2 solid/good defenders in Q miller and Arthur?

You are having problems getting open shots, in an interview you say that you are comfortable in fournier's ability to help with that, but you refuse to play him because he is not a spot up shooter?

Guys like faried miss a defensive play once or twice, and you yank them, yet guys are out there that cannot cover a pylon.

To me it really seems like Shaw is over his head, and he needs to figure things out. I do not know why but it seems some guys can do no wrong, while others are constantly on the bench. Take Hamilton, why was he benched and Foye reinserted? Hamilton is the better shooter, the better defender, and the better rebounder, so why Foye?

I'll agree Q Miller or Arthur should get the minutes instead of Randolph. You like to bring up that Fournier quote a lot by Shaw but I haven't seen Fournier put together a solid 4-5 minutes all year which is probably why he doesn't play more, although i'd like to see him play if we're going to lose anyways.

Faried gets worked over bad by stretch 4's or big 4's in the paint. Additionally when he goes against them on the offensive end he ends up taking awful shots because he can't get to the rim against them.

I think because the roster has so many "serviceable" players Shaw tinkers with the lineups too much trying to find the right combination, I don't think he'll be able to find the right combination because most of the players aren't getting steady playtime.

[The Rebel]

Is the roster that bad?

I mean we are lacking centers with McGee out, but to insist on playing a terrible defender at center 25 mpg while only giving your actual healthy center 20 mpg.

You are having terrible front court defensive problems, so your answer is to give Hickson and Randolph more minutes, while you have 2 solid/good defenders in Q miller and Arthur?

You are having problems getting open shots, in an interview you say that you are comfortable in fournier's ability to help with that, but you refuse to play him because he is not a spot up shooter?

Guys like faried miss a defensive play once or twice, and you yank them, yet guys are out there that cannot cover a pylon.

To me it really seems like Shaw is over his head, and he needs to figure things out. I do not know why but it seems some guys can do no wrong, while others are constantly on the bench. Take Hamilton, why was he benched and Foye reinserted? Hamilton is the better shooter, the better defender, and the better rebounder, so why Foye?

I'll agree Q Miller or Arthur should get the minutes instead of Randolph. You like to bring up that Fournier quote a lot by Shaw but I haven't seen Fournier put together a solid 4-5 minutes all year which is probably why he doesn't play more, although i'd like to see him play if we're going to lose anyways.

Faried gets worked over bad by stretch 4's or big 4's in the paint. Additionally when he goes against them on the offensive end he ends up taking awful shots because he can't get to the rim against them.

I think because the roster has so many "serviceable" players Shaw tinkers with the lineups too much trying to find the right combination, I don't think he'll be able to find the right combination because most of the players aren't getting steady playtime.

Fournier had a couple of good games at the begining of the season, and I will give you that he has looked bad since, but he has been better considerably better then Foye especially on defense, and he brings the one thing this team needs off the bench, but he has to get minutes to get confidence and find his rhythm. Let me put it this way, Fournier is 14 points per 100 possessions better on defense then Foye is, and only 9 points worse on offense, so why if it is based on individual performance is Foye getting the starting job and Fournier is struggling to get 10 mpg? Hell for that matter why is Jordan hamilton getting benched when he is 10 points per 100 possessions better on both ends than Foye.

Faried may be getting worked, but what does that say about Hickson? The defense is 2.7 points per 100 possessions worse with Hickson on the court than Faried, and considering how many minutes they get together and that Mozgov is a plus 11.5 pp100p on defense even when playing with both of them, now you want to talk about matchups, even with his struggles this year faried wins 57% of his matchups, Hickson wins 34.8% of his. I would say Faried is being made the scapegoat instead of being the biggest problem.
Oh and the offense is considerably better with Faried on the floor as opposed to Hickson as well, which considering Hickson is a supposed offensive player, tell me how that is possible?

Here are some more reasons for my complaints, according to mysynergysports, Faried scores 9 more points per 100 possessions than Hickson, there is only a 2 point difference on defense in man to man situations. All indicating the faried is the more effective player.


You don't want to play Fournier fine, don't want to play Faried fine, you even don't want to play Hamilton that is fine, Hell leave both Millers on the bench if you want, but then it is your job to win, and all indications are that those 3 are more productive than the players that are getting minutes in their place.

[manchambo]

This seems to me to be a critical juncture for Shaw. I personally would have as much confidence in Andre Miller as head coach as I do in Shaw, and I wonder whether any of the players feel the same. Why humiliate Miller at this point? It strikes me that this is a struggle for respect that Shaw cannot be sure of winning. Not a good situation for the head coach.

[Powder Blue]

I won't disagree with your advanced stats Rebel, the numbers don't lie....I think we all agree the roster sucks

[eathb_au]

Spurs why you disappoint me

[pickaxe]

It's a don't cut off your nose to spite your face situation. We'll find out in due course here.

[nomansland]

Is the roster that bad?

Yeah it is. It doesn't mean the players are necessarily bad, but as a unit it's terribly constructed and full of mediocre-to-decent players.

PG: Ty is the best player on the team by far. That says a lot. Then you have Robinson (Ty 2.0, except he doesn't pass and gets lots of technicals) and Dre, who has talent but can't and shouldn't be getting excessive minutes.

SG: This spot is a mess, honestly. Foye is a 2nd-3rd stringer but somehow manages to start. Fournier and Hamilton show some promise but neither is ready for primetime starter's minutes yet. And that's why we get Nate and Dre playing SG each game.

SF: Chandler is a backup. A backup who can log lots of minutes but he's not a go-to guy. Our 2nd best player Gallo is injured a lot. I love him but we need him on the floor to be successful. After that you have Hamilton and Quincy (see comments above). And Randolph who tries but has no IQ.

PF: At this spot you 2 guys who are terrible on D. One is full of empty stats and doesn't try, the other tries like a mofo but needs a lot of work on his offense still. The 3rd stringer (Arthur) is ok but fairly limited in what he can bring, which is great pnr D and efficiency from the long 2, AKA the worst shot in basketball. And of course the very raw Q.

C: Hickson is not a C. The C we have who is not injured is decent but in no way can carry the team. The injured C we have was a mess before going down, and while I like JaVale and still have hope for him, all of this "wait until JaVale gets back" talk is wishful thinking. He could be a nice piece down the road but isn't someone that exactly inspires fear from other teams.

So, tl;dr:

1 good player (Ty)
1 good injured player (Gallo)
3 marginal starters/good backups (Chandler, Moz, Faried)
1 injured, questionable center (JaVale)
3 decent backups with limitations (Hickson, Arthur, Dre)
3 mediocre-to-crummy backups (Foye, Robinson, Randolph)
3 prospects (Hamilton, Fournier, Q. Miller)

Not a good roster imo. Very few coaches could work magic with this unit.

[eathb_au]

The core is not too bad and can definitely win games for us.

However, usually in the off season you would add players that would actually improve your team (look at Portland). In this off season I'd be willing to go as far and say all 3 in Hickson, Arthur and Foye are actually negative additions, yes I believe that they actually make this team worse.

[pickaxe]

The core is not too bad and can definitely win games for us.

However, usually in the off season you would add players that would actually improve your team (look at Portland). In this off season I'd be willing to go as far and say all 3 in Hickson, Arthur and Foye are actually negative additions, yes I believe that they actually make this team worse.

That's my beef too. It's like we had a badass sandcastle and kicked over a couple of the towers and said, "there, much better!"

[The Rebel]

The core is not too bad and can definitely win games for us.

However, usually in the off season you would add players that would actually improve your team (look at Portland). In this off season I'd be willing to go as far and say all 3 in Hickson, Arthur and Foye are actually negative additions, yes I believe that they actually make this team worse.

I agree on Hickson and Foye but I disagree with Arthur, although that trade was bad, Arthur was a guy the Nuggets needed. Hell with the development of Mozgov this year, I would not even mind losing Koufos so much if instead of bringing in Hickson and Foye they would have went out and got a servicable center.

[RRFB]

I don't even think the Hickson and Foye signings were that bad. The one thing everyone here agreed upon at the time was that they were all (Nate included) signed to good value contracts -- and that's still true. They're just being asked to do too much right now and they're not being put in position to succeed. Foye is not guy you run your offense through, he's a spot up shooter. We shouldn't be relying on him to playmake. And Hickson isn't a center. He's bad defensively to begin with but he doesn't stand a chance when he's always being asked to guard guys significantly bigger than him. Not to mention, he and Faried don't compliment each other whatsoever.

Hopefully getting healthy will fix a lot of problems. Gallinari will take the ball out of Foye's hands and McGee should push Hickson back where he belongs. Not to mention their impacts on the defensive end.

I'm a big fan of the Darrell Arthur trade. How many times this season have you thought to yourself "man, I really wish we had Koufos right now"? Probably not very often. Mozgov has improved more than enough to take his role. Arthur fills a big hole as the stretch 4 that we desperately needed last year. He may take the worst shot in basketball, but he's consistent enough that his defender knows he can't leave him and that really opens the lanes for our slashers. He's also our best defensive big man by a long shot.

[pickaxe]

Two things about the Koufos/Mozgov thing:

1) Koufos is just a serviceable Center but he was also highly motivated....Karl chose to ride Koufos rather than have him be the backup and maybe that's why we don't have the Mozgov development that we would want right now.
2) Mozgov blocked a Koufos shot last night, and if he uses his size like that in every defensive situation we are going to have very few problems at the position.

On a sidenote, though what I consider very important, after observing team after team thrown at us in Denver since 2005 is that having depth at Center is extremely valuable for long haul health. We've tried to ride just 1 player at many positions and end up being screwed in the playoffs because that player has been ridden to death.

Do I see Mozgov being ridden to death yet? No....but do I see him playing like a monster every night like last night yet either? Nope. Soon as we have him playing 110% every night we're going to want a second beast to eat minutes.

Faried/Hickson as the PF tandem is the same idea. Hickson hopefully is there so that Faried isn't ridden to death. At least I hope that is the plan. When I start seeing Hickson BECOMING the go to big..........ew.

That's kind of where I'm coming from when I suggest 4 towering bigs as we had with JaVale, Gallinari, Mozgov, and Koufos. More of spelling each other than outperforming each other. You would just hope that they would attempt to outperform each other just by proxy.

[pickaxe]

JaVale/Mozgov
Faried/Hickson
Gallinari/Arthur = position-wise

6 is better than four?

JaVale/Mozgov/Gallinari
Faried/Arthur/Hickson = height/size-wise

Our big situation improves dramatically once we have Gallo and Javale back. It just appears extremely weak when both are out.

The "big four" thing I think made more sense for when something like this happened where we had one or two of them out, as you would have 2 bigs of unquestionable size to step up when 2 went out.

[Teens On Acid]

been away for a while, missed a bunch of games, copped one here and there and have only been recapping here, youtube/nba.com and at Stiffs. It's been a rough 2 weeks with all these losses.

a)
i didn't get to see what happened with Andre and Shaw, read plenty about it though. read plenty of people standing up for both sides. While i definitely agree with the respect issue, that a vet should get playing time over a 2nd/3rd year, i can't help but think of last years playoffs, and even more recently, watching Andre Miller dribble to the point of falling down, fumbling and finally slipping out a pass to shot clock violation attempt. His time in this league, in this age, is coming to an end. I know there's always room on a roster for a wiley vet who can split the d on a freakishly slow move and flip the shot off the board every time becase he's run that move 1000's on times over, but Anre, on THIS team..nah..it's done...I'm sure he has value to some team, but it's for sure not us.

b)
Moz...clearly needs more minutes?! what did we stumble onto with this guy? I feel he's a force just waiting to be unleashed.

c)
the new guys...Nate, Hickson, Foye and Arthur. I was wondering if maybe there's some ego going on in the locker room...first i though it was nate and Ty...recent events make me think it's Nate and Andre Miller. Nate's our new JR...not much we can do about it unless we can somehow find a way to move him to the Bulls.

Hickson I can live without. Foye..ugh...Arthur? maybe he can be serviceable....i dunno..i know we can't trade any of them, so we're stuck..my only hope is Shaw can work with them.

I knew going into this season we were in for a headache, so I can deal with it for now. A 9th loss though, that would have been hard to deal with. Hopefully the chemistry issues work themselves out.

what do you guys think is in store for us in the next few weeks?

[The Rebel]

Kidnine I will say that my problem is not that Shaw benched a veteran, not even that he benched Miller, my problem is that you discuss it as possible with a veteran leader that has been with the team a long time and is known as a good locker room leader. I doubt it would have made Andre happy, but it would have kept the confrontation out of the game and in the coaches office, and allowed shaw a decent platform to make his point. My standing is that to be a successful coach in the NBA you have to get your team leaders on your side, benching Miller like he did with no warning and having it blowup in his face may end up a good thing considering they reportedly had 3+ hours of a team meeting the next day and finally last night they came out and gave better effort, but there are much better ways to go about benching a veteran with a ton of respect in the locker room.

I could see Nate causing problems, I can also see many of the young guys getting frustrated when they are productive while the veterans are not, but if they start winning again those things tend to work themselves out.