Over The Top: The James Borrego Thread

[JDR720]

Kemba was the only drafted player that really improved under clifford. the others more or less stayed the same, or got worse.



JB just needs to figure out rotations, which should be easy once we have more than 1 definitely good player. everyone else, minus maybe lamb, is somewhere between inconsistent and terrible.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

So Kemba. I personally feel like Kemba's best year was under Cliff. Kemba's first big jump was defensive and came during Cliff's first year in 2013-14. For 3 solid years Kemba played solid D in that system. And in Cliff's 3rd year his offensive game took a giant step forward too. 2015-16 was the only year where Kemba was reliable on both sides of the court. He has his highest VORP & his best WS that year.

Since then my perception is that Kemba has grown his offensive game at the cost of his D. Kemba's DRtg in years 1 & 2 was 111. During that 3 year run it was 104 to 105. Since the 2016-17 season it's gone back to 111. His DWS numbers aren't quite as strong a signal, but you see a bit of the same thing there. DBPM is only positive during the 3 season run.

I definitely feel like that 3 year defensive effort was in large part due to Cliff. I also feel pretty strongly that Cliff didn't really sell him on keeping it up after that. Good with the bad you know.

The numbers don't really sell me on Kemba being much better or worse this year under Borrego than he was with Cliff.

I feel like Cliff was too insistent on group cohesion - playing all starters or all bench guys for long stretches. But Borrego seems to value that too little. I never felt like any group really had a true chance to build long term chemistry.

[316Hornets]

No excuse for not playing Frank all year. He has the best true shooting percentage of his career at 58.2. You're telling me he couldn't see that in practice? The fact that we are giving him run at the end before he goes somewhere else is a huge facepalm.

Just took a look and Biyombo had the worst BPM out of all our bigs. No idea why he liked him so much.

[BigSlam]

And his best season under JB

Which was a result of playing under Clifford?

lol explain that one to me.

He played for 5 years under Clifford and had his best season as soon as Clifford left.

He didn't play this well or show improvement under Silas or Dunlap.

It's not like JB has been here long enough to impact the improvement of any players.

He didn't miraculously improve this year once JB arrived. He was already good.

Is it not fair to say that Clifford contributed to that good?

And absolutely more so than JB did/has.

[TinmanZBoy]

No excuse for not playing Frank all year. He has the best true shooting percentage of his career at 58.2. You're telling me he couldn't see that in practice? The fact that we are giving him run at the end before he goes somewhere else is a huge facepalm.

Just took a look and Biyombo had the worst BPM out of all our bigs. No idea why he liked him so much.

have to admit that I did not watch you guys much this season... it does baffle me that Frank was out of rotation much of the season... he has been killing it lately, feels like if you played him regular minutes the whole season, the hornets could have squeezed in playoff

[TinmanZBoy]

Kemba was the only drafted player that really improved under clifford. the others more or less stayed the same, or got worse.



JB just needs to figure out rotations, which should be easy once we have more than 1 definitely good player. everyone else, minus maybe lamb, is somewhere between inconsistent and terrible.

MKG and Code all got paid under Clifford, which means they played well under Clifford

[Chapelchilla]

No excuse for not playing Frank all year. He has the best true shooting percentage of his career at 58.2. You're telling me he couldn't see that in practice? The fact that we are giving him run at the end before he goes somewhere else is a huge facepalm.

Just took a look and Biyombo had the worst BPM out of all our bigs. No idea why he liked him so much.

have to admit that I did not watch you guys much this season... it does baffle me that Frank was out of rotation much of the season... he has been killing it lately, feels like if you played him regular minutes the whole season, the hornets could have squeezed in playoff

Not playing Frank steady minutes until March is the #1 reason we lost several games this year. It is ridiculous that our best big man lost minutes to the likes of Biyombo, WHG, MKG and Marv all year. We will likely regret losing him this off season because of that decision and I bet he puts up solid numbers in his next situation.

[Splitta]

Probably one of the biggest mistakes JB made was taking Lamb out of the starting lineup and leaving Marv and Batum as starters. A starting lineup of Kemba, Marv, Bridges, Batum, and CZ was terrible and led to big first quarter deficits unless Kemba was on fire. Big mistake and pretty stupid as well.

[W_HAMILTON]

Probably one of the biggest mistakes JB made was taking Lamb out of the starting lineup and leaving Marv and Batum as starters. A starting lineup of Kemba, Marv, Bridges, Batum, and CZ was terrible and led to big first quarter deficits unless Kemba was on fire. Big mistake and pretty stupid as well.

And you could see it had a noticeable effect on Kemba's energy and emotions: the guy looked depressed out there for a long while, and that depression seemed to turn to anger for a bit before this recent winning stretch, but lately he's been looking more motivated and like his normal self.

[BigSlam]

With the bizarre line ups he trots out at times and his habit of defaulting to a zone defense when things aren't going right, can I suggest a new thread title?

"Desperation Is a Stinky Cologne: The James Borrego Thread"

[SWedd523]

"Cliff is too robotic, too married to lineups, I wish he'd experiment more"

JB experiments

"I wish JB wouldn't experiment with the lineups"

[Hornet Mania]

Not passing judgment on JB yet. A little good, a little bad. I was happy that he was willing to experiment with lineups, but it was frustrating how at time he seemed to just throw stuff at the wall and see what stuck. Keeping Batum/Marv as starters over Bacon/Bridges looks bad in hindsight, it's possible it took our coach the entire year before he realized who his most useful players were which isn't great. He also stressed player development and it actually seemed to work (!!!) with Bacon/Bridges/Graham all noticeably improved by the end of the year. That could be all them, or it could be that our coaches laid the groundwork for their success months ago and finally started seeing some returns. I'm interested to see how the young guys grow from here.

All that being said our roster is a mess. It's arguable we did not have 10 players who should be getting consistent NBA minutes this season. I was happy to see Cliff go and still am, this team needed a change we were set in our ways and it was not doing anyone any good. I'm willing to give JB another year before getting too pessimistic about him, if we bottom out next season and he looks totally lost no harm done we just move on.

[DY_nasty]

No excuse for not playing Frank all year. He has the best true shooting percentage of his career at 58.2. You're telling me he couldn't see that in practice? The fact that we are giving him run at the end before he goes somewhere else is a huge facepalm.

Just took a look and Biyombo had the worst BPM out of all our bigs. No idea why he liked him so much.

have to admit that I did not watch you guys much this season... it does baffle me that Frank was out of rotation much of the season... he has been killing it lately, feels like if you played him regular minutes the whole season, the hornets could have squeezed in playoff

pretty convinced frank's issues came from the front office more than JB

[Bassman]

It’s hard to say that JB should have played Miles more as a starter. He played more minutes early, flashed, then regressed. Rookies take time and maybe it was just the right amount of time for Miles to emerge late in the season with meaningful minutes. I hope that’s what it was. He ticked me off playing Marv and Batum so much but I guess you run largely with the hand you’ve been dealt. I admire he was willing to mix it up late in the season in a way that wasn’t a tank (although I would have been fine with tanking).

I think the young guys benefited from the experience, and the staff has a better handle on just what they have to work with. Monk is still inconsistent. Hopefully he will work on the elements of his game needing adjustment (including mental). Miles has promise and Graham looks like a solid backup in the making. Did JB develop our youth? Appears he deserves some credit there.

[Liver_Pooty]

Frank sucks. He will have 7 or 8 games looking solid then suck for 20.

[DY_nasty]

Frank sucks. He will have 7 or 8 games looking solid then suck for 20.

I think this was the best he's ever looked tbh

not that that's saying much

and the other guys being abysmal may have made him look better than he actually is

[Hornet Mania]

I'm no Frank fan but I'm willing to bring him back next year given the circumstances. He played great over the last stretch of season and we've got very few options at the 5. If we can bring him back for the RFA tender I think we should, it's unlikely we will find a better player for the vet minimum.

[Snidely FC]

Charlotte Hornets coach James Borrego came up through the Spurs system in two stints: first, as an assistant video coordinator like Hardy; and second, as an assistant before taking over his own squad last summer. Borrego isn't surprised with the recent impacts of players such as White, Forbes and Bertans, saying San Antonio's development system set them up for success.

"The reason we were able to sustain the success was these young, core pieces were able to develop at the right rate," he said. "And we had good players around them. Put that together with very good development coaches, and it was a wonderful formula to build these young guys. I think it was also a mixture of learning from great veterans, high-IQ basketball players. Put that together with the great development coaching that goes on there, and then the process there is probably the third layer.

"You're not thrust into an area where you're asked to do too much too early. You would ease your way into a role there in San Antonio, whether that's through the G League at times, whether that's through sitting on the bench, in practice. But you're able through all of that to watch great basketball, watch high-IQ basketball players taught by very good coaches. Then, when your time was called, all these guys seemed ready." http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26425741/san-antonio-spurs-go-great-lengths-player-development

I think this quote from an article about San Antonio player development illuminates exactly why Borrego got the Hornets job. The roster heading into this past season looked ripe for a transition to younger players, so it made a ton of sense to bring in someone who has seen the SA model of mixing young players with veterans, avoiding both a tank or a long rebuild. Our problem of course was our high IQ veterans, guys like Batum, Zeller, MKG, fell well below Spurs standards on the court, and so failed to provide the model for success.

[BigSlam]

Because I notice silly things...

Any one else clue in on the slip screen tactic we seem to be using these days? I think it's mainly at the top of the key. When the screener comes out to set the fake screen and they slip it, they tap the defender on the hip as they slip.

Is this a JB thing?

For those who remember it, is this the new Larry Brown point guard spin move?

[CatgutStitches]

I actually did notice that quite a few times during the Pacers game... first time I'd seen it. Is it to try and distract them for a split second or...?