2015-2016 Official Speculation Thread

[SOUL]

Dude vuc is NUMBER 1 on the team in defensive win shares..........people are exaggerating how bad vuc is defensively..... I mean Festus Ezeli..... For real?

It's a dangerous thing to look at certain stats that show really good results and then others that show really bad ones. IIRC Vucevic is also really good at defending man to man in the post but on the flip side he is terrible on help defense and we're better on D without him on the floor.

Harden and Lillard and Boozer have also had really high D win shares the last few years, Harden was leading at one point so it's definitely flawed a bit. It makes sense for AG because a lot of the other stats back him up as well.

[Blue_and_Whte]

We don't have guys that want to or can play team defense outside of maybe AG. Maybe it's just too difficult for them but the fact is that Skiles teams compete hard on defense and we're just not anymore.

I don't think Hezonja should start anymore. Slide AG in at SF and start Smith at the 4. Forget spacing.

[Blue_and_Whte]

Houston signed Michael Beasley!!??! LMAO
Wasn't Morey supposed to be some genius GM?!

[npiper17]

First if I were referring to you, you'd know it because I'll don't give a **** about telling people how I feel. Secondly, a simple google search revealed that Thorpes clients include Tyrus Thomas and Deng. Tyrus didn't like Skiles, and guess whos paying Thorpe? It isn't Skiles, so right there is a some conflict of interest when trying to decipher how much of what Thorpe is saying is exaggerated to make it seem worse than it is. It should at least be taken with a grain of salt. Something else that popped up was a Tweet from Thorpe about Skiles that was definitely a little childish and vindictive and seemed un provoked.

IMO there is some sort of history there that makes me wonder, but of course there are people around here (Sheep) that just blindly follow everything that's anti Skiles as fact without researching on their own. Not saying Thorpe is completely wrong because I'm sure a lot of players don't like coaches holding them accountable and making them actually earn anything since they're so used to being handed everything, but lets look at it objectively.

Here is a short piece on Thorpe that I want people to read. It touches on why I take what he says with a grain of salt.
http://thebiglead.com/2010/06/01/should-espn-make-david-thorpe-clients-public-knowledge-we-asked-him-about-it/

Is it possible that Thorpe has an opinion on Skiles? Is it also possible that people on this board have a positive or negative opinion on Skiles?

If so then why do people have to be labelled as sheep? Aren't people capable of forming their own opinions?

its not just possible, its true and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The issue is pushing things as fact when they have no clue if its true or not.

Thorpe has incentive to bash Skiles because one of Skiles former players trained/trains with him and his client didn't like Skiles. Tyrus ended up being a nobody and a waste of talent so I question if it was Skiles or Tyrus but despite that you cant just ignore the conflict of interest there. Other than Deng his only other success story is Kevin Martin so its not like the guy is putting all this talent out there. I willing to be when we look back at his assessment of players that the guys he hyped up either re currently clients or trained at his facility at one point. The only fact is that agents would push their guys to train with him because of his ties to ESPN. Its all pretty shady.

Zach Lowe certainly seemed surprised by the strength of Thorpe's criticism that's for sure. I don't really know that much about him but can see how there might be a conflict of interest between the players he trains and then his being able to rank players / write articles for ESPN.

[rcklsscognition]

Houston signed Michael Beasley!!??! LMAO
Wasn't Morey supposed to be some genius GM?!

Just won MVP in China can't be that bad. At least they got rid of Lawson.

[eddy33]

We don't have guys that want to or can play team defense outside of maybe AG. Maybe it's just too difficult for them but the fact is that Skiles teams compete hard on defense and we're just not anymore.

I don't think Hezonja should start anymore. Slide AG in at SF and start Smith at the 4. Forget spacing.

So getting Hezonja out of starting line-up and inserting Smith somehow improves team defense? Wow, really? And on offense you get two dueling mid-range shooting bigs. I'm missing something here.....