GT charlotte vs 76ers 3-6 7PM EST

[DY_nasty]

i hope the rest of the league didn't notice that all you have to do to shut down Kemba is stick a 6'9 defender on him

it wasn't just that, it was the larger defender combined with a lot of ball denial out high

the guys that can typically get open and in position to score off ball consistently not only didn't play much (lamb/mkg/cody) but the guys that did play a bunch can be rotated on fast enough, denied easily, or simply aren't threats to do much damage

there was a series where graham got 2-3 buckets in row and philly was clearly elated with their defensive possessions despite the score. graham isn't taking over a game, at best howard can only keep a team in the game

but even more than clifford being a clown by giving graham all those minutes ahead of lamb, you HAVE to ask why Batum only took 5 shots in 30+ mintues in a game where kemba has one of their best perimeter defenders catching him and the rest of the defense is pivoting directly off of that action, he HAS to be active at the absolute very least

also does frank even have hot zones? like what he is actually good at. he's still not as good as mcbob

[Joest2003]

i hope the rest of the league didn't notice that all you have to do to shut down Kemba is stick a 6'9 defender on him

it wasn't just that, it was the larger defender combined with a lot of ball denial out high

the guys that can typically get open and in position to score off ball consistently not only didn't play much (lamb/mkg/cody) but the guys that did play a bunch can be rotated on fast enough, denied easily, or simply aren't threats to do much damage

there was a series where graham got 2-3 buckets in row and philly was clearly elated with their defensive possessions despite the score. graham isn't taking over a game, at best howard can only keep a team in the game

but even more than clifford being a clown by giving graham all those minutes ahead of lamb, you HAVE to ask why Batum only took 5 shots in 30+ mintues in a game where kemba has one of their best perimeter defenders catching him and the rest of the defense is pivoting directly off of that action, he HAS to be active at the absolute very least

also does frank even have hot zones? like what he is actually good at. he's still not as good as mcbob

Frank couldn't even wave a stick at Mcbob. McRoberts was the glue and key to the chemistry the year we made the playoffs. From what I see Frank is horrible to play with. No court vision or passing skills and always forces horrible shots, layups. Dude needs to go. Don't even get me stayed on Batum. How does Lamb get less than 20 minutes in a game where kemba is 1-9 and Batum only took 5 shots. So f****** sick of this team.

[catch20two]

i hope the rest of the league didn't notice that all you have to do to shut down Kemba is stick a 6'9 defender on him

Nah. They put Covington on him the last matchup a couple games ago and Kemba had 31 points. It was just one of those games where you could see it on Kemba’s face that he mentally checked out and looked like he wanted the season to be over. Settled for a lot of jumpers because he was frustrated with whenever he attacked the rim the refs were not calling anything on superstar Embiid.

That and a combination of Dwight posting up a lot and not setting screens. That’s why Dwight was scoring a lot and there’s no need to beat on a dead horse about how even Dwight’s good production is usually just empty stats considering his turnovers and free throw percentage.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Frank can frustrate me too, but it's hard for me to tell how much of his "court vision" issue is him and how much of it is the system. As I noted elsewhere this team doesn't pass the ball much, and it's been going down each year that Cliff is here. There are a LOT of set plays and 1-on-1 action going on overall this year. Very little sharing the ball and finding the easy bucket. I'm OK with the team moving on from Frank if that's what happens, but I would also really like to see what he could do with a different coach and different scheme.

Kemba "checking out" is worries me the most though. I was actually kind of hoping he was injured or something ... because the way he looked was not what you want to see in a guy who is going to be a free agent after next season and is likely to earn the max or something close to it.

[WestCoastBadger]

i hope the rest of the league didn't notice that all you have to do to shut down Kemba is stick a 6'9 defender on him

it wasn't just that, it was the larger defender combined with a lot of ball denial out high

the guys that can typically get open and in position to score off ball consistently not only didn't play much (lamb/mkg/cody) but the guys that did play a bunch can be rotated on fast enough, denied easily, or simply aren't threats to do much damage

there was a series where graham got 2-3 buckets in row and philly was clearly elated with their defensive possessions despite the score. graham isn't taking over a game, at best howard can only keep a team in the game

but even more than clifford being a clown by giving graham all those minutes ahead of lamb, you HAVE to ask why Batum only took 5 shots in 30+ mintues in a game where kemba has one of their best perimeter defenders catching him and the rest of the defense is pivoting directly off of that action, he HAS to be active at the absolute very least

also does frank even have hot zones? like what he is actually good at. he's still not as good as mcbob

Frank couldn't even wave a stick at Mcbob. McRoberts was the glue and key to the chemistry the year we made the playoffs. From what I see Frank is horrible to play with. No court vision or passing skills and always forces horrible shots, layups. Dude needs to go. Don't even get me stayed on Batum. How does Lamb get less than 20 minutes in a game where kemba is 1-9 and Batum only took 5 shots. So f****** sick of this team.

Appreciating a past player from your team is fine, but the ridiculous love for a not very good player with one solid playoff-push year is mind boggling. On this team right now Frank is the second best player (maybe third as Lamb is pretty talented but under played) behind Kemba. I don't see how anyone views it otherwise. His defense can be pretty poor but I see an entire team that is suffering from a bad coaching staff more than any particular lack in ability. Batum, Howard and Marv are a huge waste of cap space for what they bring. MKG is a fine player and serves a nice role in the starting lineup, but he's not going to win games for you. I feel the same about Zeller and he'd be welcome on any roster in the league I imagine. I'm leaving Monk out of it because he has been so unused this season we might as well consider him to be a rookie next year. Why is it thought that Monk can't play the PG spot? I feel like that is where his future lies.

On a side note, in no way ever should Howard be taking 17 attempts from the floor. Ever. Do you want to lose an NBA game? Because, that's how you lose an NBA game.

[DY_nasty]

frank can't even pass lol. dude's only good for spacing - and outside of that he's wildly inconsistent at everything at best.

i'm legit wondering where's he's even comfortable at on the floor. if anything its unfair to compare him to mcbob as his versatility and constant effort made him a general presence on the game if nothing else. i can't even tell what frank's supposed to be doing most nights. does he even know?

if you think frank's the second best player for the hornets then like... ok lol

[catch20two]

frank can't even pass lol.

This. Frank is a tunnel vision extraordinaire.

[TheKingofSting]

The bad thing is this season has been the same story we have saw the past several seasons. A team that is definitely bad or at best below average trying their best to "win now" even though we only have 1 star (who isn't even a top star, probably 2nd or 3rd tier star), a bunch of underachieving young players, a few badly flawed/expensive/old players who destroy our cap space and a coach/front office/MJ who seemingly refuse to try something new. We're on the worst treadmill you can be on, the past month or two when we were doing pretty good we made no progress (6 games back still). We keep clawing for mediocrity, trying for the 8 seed while we should be tanking to try to land a star in the draft. all that does is screw our draft position and we end up picking 9th again and get another "meh" player like Frank,Monk or Noah who are either bad prospects/reaches or they fell for a reason and miss out on (or pass on) better prospects.

It is awfully empty here, I actually think there are roughly the same number of posters we have always had (minus the Lin year with like 100000 Lin fans running around) but everyone is just too drained to post. Game threads use to average maybe 250-300 posts, low-end threads would maybe be 180 while the big games might tough 500 while we would maybe have a 700 game once or twice a year. I dont think we have had a thread over 200-250 this year and the average is probably like 50 and that is bleeding into other threads too. We have been debating the same things for like 5 years, everyone is tired of debating the same things with the same posters and it just ends up snowballing into a big old sadness ball of doom and gloom. I can completely and honestly say I have watched maybe 5 minutes of games this season.

The last time I think the majority of posters we're happy/optimistic is when we signed Lance, we all thought we would be good if not really good with Kemba, Lance and stud Al Jefferson. We thought Lance and Kemba was better than Wall and Beal and DeMar and Kyle, several of us thought that only Steph and Klay are the better front court and with Al Jefferson playing like a GOAT post scorer and a top 3 center we thought this was going to be amazing. and then the basketball gods laughed. Lance is a total nut and the worst player ever for us to the point we dump him for junk (lamb turned out good, but he sucked then), Al Jefferson is a sumo wrestler who later turns out to be a fried chicken addicted pothead, Clifford is a moron and everything else went to poo. I dont think many of us have recovered from that season, it was insane.

Basically, we have all been scarred for life because we like this team. Its like an abusive relationship, like Ben Gordon is just sitting in front of you chucking balls at your face while Lance blows in your ear and Al Jefferson steals your food and Cliff is just yelling "DIG DIG DIG in the background.

If we have to go through another full rebuild I can't mentally take it and I'm sure I'm not alone and that is even with seeing what Philly has become (is becoming).


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[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Rebuilds happen. I wouldn't enjoy it, but I can live with if that's the course. What I really want is a team that's fun to watch. I want a reason to watch the games.

This team under Cliff gives me a lot more reasons to not watch. I hate the lack of ball movement.

[TheKingofSting]

frank can't even pass lol. dude's only good for spacing - and outside of that he's wildly inconsistent at everything at best.

i'm legit wondering where's he's even comfortable at on the floor. if anything its unfair to compare him to mcbob as his versatility and constant effort made him a general presence on the game if nothing else. i can't even tell what frank's supposed to be doing most nights. does he even know?

if you think frank's the second best player for the hornets then like... ok lol

I think the Wisconsin fan is new to the Charlotte organization (which there is nothing wrong with) following Frank but people forget (or didn't even know the Bobcats existed then) how good McBob was for us at facilitating the offense, he even improved his outside shot (I don't have the numbers) but made it respectable. That one year under Dunlap he was like a poor mans Ben Simmons (I'm 100% serious), he knew where every player on the floor was and where they were supposed to be. I wonder if LamarMatic7 has video from this season? We sucked but we were a fun team to watch in large part to McBob then he had one more good year here and the Heat paid just a little more than we could / would. I often wonder how McBob's career would be viewed if he'd turned the Heat's money down and stayed here, he's pretty much sucked or been hurt (I believe hurt most of the time) since leaving Charlotte and I feel bad for him.

Rick chimes in with a zinger.

Read on Twitter

Paging LamarMatic.


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[DY_nasty]

i don't feel bad for him lol. everyone knew that he was an injured retirement case his last year here. dude's making bank chillin in miami getting his matt carroll on

[Joest2003]

Appreciating a past player from your team is fine, but the ridiculous love for a not very good player with one solid playoff-push year is mind boggling. On this team right now

Frank is the second best player (maybe third as Lamb is pretty talented but under played) behind Kemba. I don't see how anyone views it otherwise.

...Did you really just say that Frank is our second best player? What exactly is he good at? I would love to know. Because he can't shoot, he can't drive, he can't rebound, and he surely can't even come close to defending NBA PF and centers. Frank is closed to being the second worst player on this team than the second best. And to mention on McRoberts, he actually made guys better. He had great court vision and our chemistry was at a all time high. Our team was way less talented that year but we still got into the playoffs. Look at us now. Stacked with talent and we can't even make the 8th seed.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

I really liked McBob. He was a solid 2-way player. I don't think that any of us considered him a long term answer as PF while he was here. In retrospect losing him was a bigger blow than most of us expected - not just in immediate win/loss numbers but in that he was the exact kind of PF the NBA has evolved into using - a 3 point shooting play-maker who can defend. My memory is that he felt disrespected by Cho in not getting an early call from the team and cited that as one of the main reasons he ended up taking an offer elsewhere.

I suspect that Frank has the potential to be better than McBob - look at their first 3 years vs each other, brutally in Frank's favor - but Frank has a long way to go a number of areas to pull even to what McBob was in the 13-14 season, at this point.

[Eoghan]

McBob is Bobcats royalty. Thou shalt not compare him to Frank.

Watch on YouTube

LEGEND.

[LamarMatic7]

Paging LamarMatic.

I remember thinking that I screwed a pooch by not uploading more McBob material. There are games that I have kept for my archives so maybe I should go back to them some day.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

[Snidely FC]

yeah McRoberts did all the things I wish Batum would do now. He orchestrated the offense from the top of the key, made timely threes, occasionally got feisty as in the LeBron vid, or threw down a badass dunk, and also captained the defense

no longer chillin' in MIA, McBob was traded to DAL this summer for AJ Hammons, barely appeared due to chronic foot injury then was released last week; only 27 when he left CHA, he's 31 now and likely done

[Joest2003]

I really liked McBob. He was a solid 2-way player. I don't think that any of us considered him a long term answer as PF while he was here. In retrospect losing him was a bigger blow than most of us expected - not just in immediate win/loss numbers but in that he was the exact kind of PF the NBA has evolved into using - a 3 point shooting play-maker who can defend. My memory is that he felt disrespected by Cho in not getting an early call from the team and cited that as one of the main reasons he ended up taking an offer elsewhere.

I suspect that Frank has the potential to be better than McBob - look at their first 3 years vs each other, brutally in Frank's favor - but Frank has a long way to go a number of areas to pull even to what McBob was in the 13-14 season, at this point.

I can't ever see a day where Frank will be half as effective as mcbob was the year or 2 he was here. Chemistry was just great and he made guys better. Frank is just not a good basketball player plain and simple. I have never once seen him create a play for someone else. Or even anything that would remotely resemble a high basketball IQ play.

[Joest2003]

yeah McRoberts did all the things I wish Batum would do now. He orchestrated the offense from the top of the key, made timely threes, occasionally got feisty as in the LeBron vid, or threw down a badass dunk, and also captained the defense

no longer chillin' in MIA, McBob was traded to DAL this summer for AJ Hammons, barely appeared due to chronic foot injury then was released last week; only 27 when he left CHA, he's 31 now and likely done

Sad story. Huge mistake to let him go. Hope he can make a comeback

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Frank has done some bone headed stuff on the court for sure. I'm frequently unhappy with his defensive effort. That said,
* Frank is 5th on the team in Assists & APG, though he is only 7th in Assist %.
* He's 4th on the team in passes made.
* His most freqent 5 man lineup is with the bench and has a terrible ORTG, but when Frank starts the team has a much higher ORTG.
* His assists per 36 min are really on track with what McBob did in years 1-4.

We've used the same sorts of arguments with Kemba. Guys who pass look a lot better when they have teammates who can score well and play in a system that emphasis creativity. Frank hasn't exactly had those in spades.

McBob's 2013-14 is his outlier. No season before or after that was even close. But man was he good that year!

[TheKingofSting]

Paging LamarMatic.

I remember thinking that I screwed a pooch by not uploading more McBob material. There are games that I have kept for my archives so maybe I should go back to them some day.

Thanks, I knew you would have some footage. I only wish we could have heard Eric Collins call some of McBob's games and hear his reaction to passes like that cross court one to Ridnour for a corner three. That was a beauty!