Satoransky or Oubre

[payitforward]

PIF, instead of me calling Beal our "best" player last season maybe I should have labeled him our most valuable player last season. That's much more subjective and goes beyond stats.

Sure. & for that matter, didn't Wall refer to him that way... "he's been our mvp."

Don't get me wrong -- it's not that I agree. But, once you separate "valuable" from "best," you have moved into the territory of narrative, where you can tell a story rather than look at the measurable effect of a player on winning/losing games.

In that scenario, it's more like what I said about Wall's season -- you don't blame a player for being injured or for playing well below his best when he is injured.

Along the same lines we can say about Beal's season -- you don't blame a player for being forced into a role where he has to do things that aren't his strength & aren't what he's usually asked to do, or for playing below his best when he has to do that.

Not to mention that he also had to play almost 3000 minutes. All these things are relevant to giving a guy credit -- just not "best player" credit.

Now... I still don't agree, I wouldn't call him our MVP. But I can't simply refute the assertion with numbers -- because it's an assertion about something more than numbers.

I'd say the biggest problem with accepting it, for me, is that Beal has only had one really good season. His first 4 seasons, before 2016-17, he just wasn't very good overall. Those first 4 years all he did consistently well was shoot the 3. Then he had a break-out year in '16-17. His numbers slipped back last year. Not back to the level of those first 4 years -- not by a long shot -- but significantly all the same.

Was that b/c of the role forced on him by circumstance? & to some degree b/c of the minutes he was forced to play? Maybe.

Or was it that 2016-17 was an outlier year, a special year the equal of which we shouldn't expect to see from him again? That's possible too.

This year will tell us a lot. I expect him to play well (i.e. I hope he will!). But, honestly, I don't think Brad will ever be as good a player as Otto -- who simply shoots, rebounds, & defends too well.

[payitforward]

... The team was fine without Beal playing like a ball hog, he lost us some games by pretending to be James Harden. Brooks lost us some games using that HORRENDOUS no PG lineup. They were at their best this season when they just moved the ball and no-one had to create their own shot. They looked like the spurs for that 10 game winning streak stretch when Wall went down. "shot creators" is an overused term and overvalued "skill". it's like you want a team full of Jodie Meeks'

Basketball is about playing defense and transitioning defense into offense and sharing the ball. Sato and Porter were the only "good" defenders on this team along with being extremely efficient and always playing the right way on offense. If the entire team played like those guys, you have a championship caliber team.

these arguments about who has the ball late in the game, and who gets how many shots are such nonsense to me. play defense, rebound, pass, don't take dumbass shots. basketball

My man Nat has this 100% correct.

I'd say the picture in the dictionary isn't Meeks, however. It's Carmelo Anthony. A guy with incredible gifts who basically has never made a team significantly better, b/c he's always busy "creating his own shot."

When you create your own shot, basically the shot you create is usually a relatively low % shot. If a team takes a high number of low % shots it can't win a lot of games.

Remember the mantra: to win a game you have to either A) shoot a higher TS% than the opponent, or B) take more shots & free throws (i.e. have more chances to score than the opponent), or C) both. It is not possible to win a game without doing one of these things. Literally impossible

You get B by playing solid defense, you get A by having lots of high % shots.

[DCZards]

10-12 wins? this is such a laughable take. Coming from the guy that said Jamal Crawford would've been the difference between us winning/losing against the raptors in the playoffs.

this board is still massively overrating Wall.

remember that game against the lakers? national TV against Lonzo Ball? 7-22 shooting -12

against Miami? 3-12 shooting -5

lost to BKN by 30? 4-11 shooting -21

Atlanta? 3-9 shooting -16

MIL 5-19 shooting (holy ****) 6 turnovers

another loss to MIL 7-22

another loss to Dallas 4-16 shooting

all of those .500 losses, Wall played terribly. Satoransky was significantly better than Wall in 2017-2018, you can't just disregard stats and make these ridiculous statements like "the team wins 12 more games with Wall in place of Satoransky"

I mean use your brain here, not only do you replace Wall with Sato on the court (upgrade), you free up 30 million in cap space, and you get whatever back in exchange for Wall in a trade. If you literally just made a cap dump deal and went with Sato as a starter and freed up that 200 million from the Wall deal, you are better off.

Nat, I noticed you didn't mention any of Wall's playoff performances...when he was healthy. Or talk about how lousy Sato was during the playoffs, forcing Brooks to go with a guy right off the boat from China.

[dckingsfan]

10-12 wins? this is such a laughable take. Coming from the guy that said Jamal Crawford would've been the difference between us winning/losing against the raptors in the playoffs.

this board is still massively overrating Wall.

remember that game against the lakers? national TV against Lonzo Ball? 7-22 shooting -12

against Miami? 3-12 shooting -5

lost to BKN by 30? 4-11 shooting -21

Atlanta? 3-9 shooting -16

MIL 5-19 shooting (holy ****) 6 turnovers

another loss to MIL 7-22

another loss to Dallas 4-16 shooting

all of those .500 losses, Wall played terribly. Satoransky was significantly better than Wall in 2017-2018, you can't just disregard stats and make these ridiculous statements like "the team wins 12 more games with Wall in place of Satoransky"

I mean use your brain here, not only do you replace Wall with Sato on the court (upgrade), you free up 30 million in cap space, and you get whatever back in exchange for Wall in a trade. If you literally just made a cap dump deal and went with Sato as a starter and freed up that 200 million from the Wall deal, you are better off.

Nat, I noticed you didn't mention any of Wall's playoff performances...when he was healthy. Or talk about how lousy Sato was during the playoffs, forcing Brooks to go with a guy right off the boat from China.

So, it comes down to Wall in the postseason. Not Wall's affect on the regular season. You agree that Sato was better in those minutes.

The playoff argument is a legit argument.

Wall was solid in the playoffs - better than he was in the regular season. Sato's 60 minutes were not very good. But we were still one and done. And with Wall's contract we are still strapped to add players that would make a difference in the playoffs.