2019 NBA Offseason Discussion

[Dr Spaceman]

Brogdon did 23.4P/6A per 75 poss on 62 TS% without Giannis in the RS/PS on the season.

That’s great. Any chance you ave the numbers without Bledsoe?

Prime Dragic is not a bad comparison, especially with how much of a slasher he is. I was always surprised by how easily he would get a ball on the glass in traffic. Plays "big".

I’ve read this several times and still don’t know whether you’re talking about his rebounding or his finishing.

[ShotCreator]

Brogdon did 23.4P/6A per 75 poss on 62 TS% without Giannis in the RS/PS on the season.

That’s great. Any chance you ave the numbers without Bledsoe?

Prime Dragic is not a bad comparison, especially with how much of a slasher he is. I was always surprised by how easily he would get a ball on the glass in traffic. Plays "big".

I’ve read this several times and still don’t know whether you’re talking about his rebounding or his finishing.

His finishing.

His scoring numbers are lower without Bledsoe. A lot of Giannis minutes overlap. However better TOV economy.

Without Bledsoe:

21PP75/6.7AP75 on 59 TS% and 3.1 TOV.

Without Bledsoe and Giannis: 24 PP75/6.1 AP75 on 62 TS% and 3.0 TOV.

[Dr Spaceman]

His finishing.

Got it. Yeah he’s one of those guys that impresses with the sheer amount of angles he can use to get the ball in. Good poise when finishing among the trees as well. And one of the best floater games in the league as well. Just a good overall awareness of where to fit the ball through those angles.

His scoring numbers are lower without Bledsoe. A lot of Giannis minutes overlap. However better TOV economy.

Without Bledsoe:

21PP75/6.7AP75 on 59 TS% and 3.1 TOV.

Without Bledsoe and Giannis: 24 PP75/6.1 AP75 on 62 TS% and 3.0 TOV.

Those numbers are quite impressive.

[The High Cyde]

KD going off the deep end again lol

[Dr Spaceman]

KD going off the deep end again lol

Excited to see how he handles the New York media. Remember how much he freaked out over “Mr. Unreliable?” Oh boy. He’s in for it.

[Peregrine01]

KD going off the deep end again lol

He basically outright said that he had enough of the Warriors’ ball and man movement style. I just find it ironic that that was one of the main reasons why he went there to begin with.

And then he had the obliviousness to say that he had to go iso-heavy for the Warriors to go deeper in the playoffs when it was exactly that style that got them in deep trouble against the Rockets in 18.

[Dr Spaceman]

KD going off the deep end again lol

He basically outright said that he had enough of the Warriors’ ball and man movement style. I just find it ironic that that was one of the main reasons why he went there to begin with.

And then he had the obliviousness to say that he had to go iso-heavy for the Warriors to go deeper in the playoffs when it was exactly that style that got them in deep trouble against the Rockets in 18.

KD brought them home in game 7 though. GSW made their comeback in the third but KD had 11 points in the 4th quarter and went bucket for bucket with Harden down the end to close it out. Houston easily could have made it close without Durant’s shot making, Harden had 10 points of his own.

[Peregrine01]

KD going off the deep end again lol

He basically outright said that he had enough of the Warriors’ ball and man movement style. I just find it ironic that that was one of the main reasons why he went there to begin with.

And then he had the obliviousness to say that he had to go iso-heavy for the Warriors to go deeper in the playoffs when it was exactly that style that got them in deep trouble against the Rockets in 18.

KD brought them home in game 7 though. GSW made their comeback in the third but KD had 11 points in the 4th quarter and went bucket for bucket with Harden down the end to close it out. Houston easily could have made it close without Durant’s shot making, Harden had 10 points of his own.

The numbers showed the game was close down to the final few minutes but I thought the game was pretty much over by the 3rd after Steph went off. Incidentally, KD got all those easy baskets when he finally stopped ball stopping, gave it up and played the roll man with Steph.

[Dr Spaceman]

He basically outright said that he had enough of the Warriors’ ball and man movement style. I just find it ironic that that was one of the main reasons why he went there to begin with.

And then he had the obliviousness to say that he had to go iso-heavy for the Warriors to go deeper in the playoffs when it was exactly that style that got them in deep trouble against the Rockets in 18.

KD brought them home in game 7 though. GSW made their comeback in the third but KD had 11 points in the 4th quarter and went bucket for bucket with Harden down the end to close it out. Houston easily could have made it close without Durant’s shot making, Harden had 10 points of his own.

The numbers showed the game was close down to the final few minutes but I thought the game was pretty much over by the 3rd after Steph went off. Incidentally, KD got all those easy baskets when he finally stopped ball stopping, gave it up and played the roll man with Steph.

It felt that way with the momentum but HOU twice cut the lead to 6. The first time Steph hit a dagger 3 and the second time KD hit a dagger mid range sshot. But a 6 point lead is not insurmountable at all.

KD scored half of the Warriors’ points in that quarter and here was the log:
K. Durant makes 3 point jump shot from 30 ft
K. Durant makes 2 point jump shot from 16 ft
K. Durant makes 2 point jump shot from 20 ft
K. Durant makes 2 point layup (assist S. Curry)
K. Durant makes 2 free throws

He brought them home with contested iso jumpers and the first 3 pointer he made was after the Warriors had been scoreless for 2 minutes. His 16 foot jumper was after they’d even scoreless for 3 minutes. The game could have easily slipped away from them without KD.

[Peregrine01]

It’s a credit to his finishing ability of course. But that wasn’t what I was getting at. He said in the WSJ article that he “had” to go iso and do more individually for the Warriors to succeed when that was the chief reason why they almost got eliminated by the Rockets.

[The High Cyde]

KD going off the deep end again lol

He basically outright said that he had enough of the Warriors’ ball and man movement style. I just find it ironic that that was one of the main reasons why he went there to begin with.

And then he had the obliviousness to say that he had to go iso-heavy for the Warriors to go deeper in the playoffs when it was exactly that style that got them in deep trouble against the Rockets in 18.

KD brought them home in game 7 though. GSW made their comeback in the third but KD had 11 points in the 4th quarter and went bucket for bucket with Harden down the end to close it out. Houston easily could have made it close without Durant’s shot making, Harden had 10 points of his own.

He was the ultimate insurance policy, they could never lose with him there and healthy. Everyone knows it. It was fun to see them being pushed by the Rockets though.

I don't think he's winning another title, the injury is just too massive. And now the east has there own powerhouses in Philly and Milwaukee. The Nets offense will for sure delve into your-turn-my-turn between him and Kyrie. I just don't see it working. But maybe they've conceded winning titles to play with friends, I don't know.

His legacy is so weird, or it will be viewed as so. As a player though, he's an unbelievable talent, but he's out of touch with reality.

[Dr Positivity]

Durant seems like a miserable person. I would never rank him over a player like Dirk. Unless you're joining a 73 W team where the talent is unfair, relationships, chemistry, ability to be selfless matter.

[eminence]

Hmm, Durant is a bit of a strange guy to be sure, but I'm not sure it's ever caused him problems in terms of getting along with teammates. I never heard about any serious problems in OKC and many of the GS problems while in a way being masked by being on a juggernaut also only existed because they were already so great before he got there.

[mcraft]

KD really needs to stay away from media stuff as much as possible and stop worrying so much about what others think. I'm not sure why he wouldn't expect things to be like they were when he joined such a successful team.

[Dr Spaceman]

It’s a credit to his finishing ability of course. But that wasn’t what I was getting at. He said in the WSJ article that he “had” to go iso and do more individually for the Warriors to succeed when that was the chief reason why they almost got eliminated by the Rockets.

I hear you man, I just disagree. I think the Rockets were just the only team they played that was good enough that they needed all hands on deck to pull out the victory. KD is right in some ways. Houston developed a very unique switching system and played with incredible discipline which prevented Curry from ever getting open in that series. In that sense KD going iso isn’t all that bad an outcome for a possession.

Other times, like when HOU would play Ryno or started making defensive mistakes Curry could smell blood in the water and went into attack mode and could explode for 15 in a quarter. KD didn’t hold him back from doing that.

They needed all of it. In the third quarter of game 7 Steph had 14 points and Durant had 10. In the 4th quarter KD had 11 and Steph had 5. The efforts of both guys were desperately needed because they still almost lost to a short handed Rockets team. And there’s frankly now a very big sample of Curry just not being all that good against the Rockets for various reasons.

[Peregrine01]

It’s a credit to his finishing ability of course. But that wasn’t what I was getting at. He said in the WSJ article that he “had” to go iso and do more individually for the Warriors to succeed when that was the chief reason why they almost got eliminated by the Rockets.

I hear you man, I just disagree. I think the Rockets were just the only team they played that was good enough that they needed all hands on deck to pull out the victory. KD is right in some ways. Houston developed a very unique switching system and played with incredible discipline which prevented Curry from ever getting open in that series. In that sense KD going iso isn’t all that bad an outcome for a possession.

Other times, like when HOU would play Ryno or started making defensive mistakes Curry could smell blood in the water and went into attack mode and could explode for 15 in a quarter. KD didn’t hold him back from doing that.

They needed all of it. In the third quarter of game 7 Steph had 14 points and Durant had 10. In the 4th quarter KD had 11 and Steph had 5. The efforts of both guys were desperately needed because they still almost lost to a short handed Rockets team. And there’s frankly now a very big sample of Curry just not being all that good against the Rockets for various reasons.

Then how do you explain the Warriors offense looking similarly bogged down in this year's Rockets series prior to Durant going down and then magically looking like the offense of old once he went out?

Funny how the OKC brand of play - your-turn-my-turn isolation and spamming high pick and rolls - were the frequent cause of their flame outs in the playoffs and a factor why KD himself said made him leave and yet he yearned for that style and even rationalized its efficacy once he realized the Warriors style didn't feature him as much. Typical disease of me.

[Dr Spaceman]

Then how do you explain the Warriors offense looking similarly bogged down in this year's Rockets series prior to Durant going down and then magically looking like the offense of old once he went out?

In game 2 the Warriors had a 124 offensive rating and in game 3 it was 119 (122 in game 6 for reference). If that is “bogged down” then I guarantee you every team in the league would love to be bogged down by Kevin Durant. Their best offensive results in the series were still with KD.

Funny how the OKC brand of play - your-turn-my-turn isolation and spamming high pick and rolls - were the frequent cause of their flame outs in the playoffs and a factor why KD himself said made him leave and yet he yearned for that style and even rationalized its efficacy once he realized the Warriors style didn't feature him as much. Typical disease of me.

OKC didn’t really “flame out”.

In 2011 they lost to God-mode Dirk when they were babies
In 2012 they lost to God mode LeBron and clearly weren’t ready (and Brooks kept playing Perkins against the small lineups)
In 2013 Russ was injured
In 14 they lost to God-mode Spurs when Ibaka was injured
In 15 KD was injured
16 perhaps they did flame out but I think a lot of it was just fatigue as with the Houston series.

In every season they either lost to the team that won the title and/or had someone injured, and before 2013 they were clearly too young to be serious championship contenders. 2016 was really the only time you can say they “flamed out”.

I just don’t think Durant is totally wrong here. The Warriors depended on him a lot to carry the load in the playoffs. His approach wasn’t pleasing aesthetically but there is a reason every team in the league depends heavily on isolation play- it works. The Bucks, Rockets and Raptors all built a team based on ample shooting around an iso-heavy scorer and they were easily the three best non-GSW teams.

[Peregrine01]

Then how do you explain the Warriors offense looking similarly bogged down in this year's Rockets series prior to Durant going down and then magically looking like the offense of old once he went out?

In game 2 the Warriors had a 124 offensive rating and in game 3 it was 119 (122 in game 6 for reference). If that is “bogged down” then I guarantee you every team in the league would love to be bogged down by Kevin Durant. Their best offensive results in the series were still with KD.

Funny how the OKC brand of play - your-turn-my-turn isolation and spamming high pick and rolls - were the frequent cause of their flame outs in the playoffs and a factor why KD himself said made him leave and yet he yearned for that style and even rationalized its efficacy once he realized the Warriors style didn't feature him as much. Typical disease of me.

OKC didn’t really “flame out”.

In 2011 they lost to God-mode Dirk when they were babies
In 2012 they lost to God mode LeBron and clearly weren’t ready (and Brooks kept playing Perkins against the small lineups)
In 2013 Russ was injured
In 14 they lost to God-mode Spurs when Ibaka was injured
In 15 KD was injured
16 perhaps they did flame out but I think a lot of it was just fatigue as with the Houston series.

In every season they either lost to the team that won the title and/or had someone injured, and before 2013 they were clearly too young to be serious championship contenders. 2016 was really the only time you can say they “flamed out”.

I just don’t think Durant is totally wrong here. The Warriors depended on him a lot to carry the load in the playoffs. His approach wasn’t pleasing aesthetically but there is a reason every team in the league depends heavily on isolation play- it works. The Bucks, Rockets and Raptors all built a team based on ample shooting around an iso-heavy scorer and they were easily the three best non-GSW teams.

That an offense looked bogged down yet still produce a high ORTG for the entire game as a whole is not mutually exclusive. The Warriors in that series prior to KD going down looked like two different teams – they played large stretches of games with their OG style and resorted to ball-stopping KD isos whenever the game got tight. It’s hard to properly apportion ORTG credit to one style over the latter without play by play data but it was fairly clear to me just by watching that the offense looked a lot worse off whenever the Warriors went to the latter.

As for OKC, let’s not make excuses – those teams hugely underachieved given the talent they had. Even after Harden was traded, those teams when healthy ranked among the highest in terms of talent in the league. You can say that they ran into the Spurs buzz-saw in 2014 and were “fatigued” against the Warriors in 2016, but to me the larger issue at play was how their offense went away from what worked, stagnated and became incredibly predictable down the stretch during crucial games.

[Dr Spaceman]

That an offense looked bogged down yet still produce a high ORTG for the entire game as a whole is not mutually exclusive. The Warriors in that series prior to KD going down looked like two different teams – they played large stretches of games with their OG style and resorted to ball-stopping KD isos whenever the game got tight. It’s hard to properly apportion ORTG credit to one style over the latter without play by play data but it was fairly clear to me just by watching that the offense looked a lot worse off whenever the Warriors went to the latter.

Worth noting that Steph was terrible in both of those games- shot 6/16 in game 2 and 7/23 in game 3.

Do you think they went to Durant ISO’s because Durant is selfish or because Steph just didn’t have it those nights?

I see a guy in Durant who’s basketball instincts lead him to think that when things are going well he can take a backseat and when things go badly he needs to take the load upon himself- which explains why the offense “looks terrible” when they start calling Durant’s number. He’s not an idiot, he doesn’t demand the ball when they’re in a flow, he actually paces himself pretty well. Again I’ll go back to that game 7- he got his points in the flow of the third quarter because Harden and Ryno were playing vomit-inducing defense and everyone was open, and then it nut crunch time in the 4th he took over and hit 3 big jumpers after the Warriors had been scoreless for more than half the quarter.

As for OKC, let’s not make excuses – those teams hugely underachieved given the talent they had. Even after Harden was traded, those teams when healthy ranked among the highest in terms of talent in the league. You can say that they ran into the Spurs buzz-saw in 2014 and were “fatigued” against the Warriors in 2016, but to me the larger issue at play was how their offense went away from what worked, stagnated and became incredibly predictable down the stretch during crucial games.

Injuries aren’t an excuse, they’re just a fact. Russ missed 13, Ibaka missed 14 and Durant missed 15. They also did not have a title-quality cast. Championship teams have role players like Shane Battier and Ray Allen or Dias and Mills, the Thunder were throwing out Perkins and nursing home Derek Fisher. Those were not title-quality teams and the front office new it given their radical change in direction recently towards paying the luxury tax.

[eminence]

Haven't followed the whole discussion, but I wouldn't say I had a major problem with KD 'going-iso' too often or at the wrong times (obviously it doesn't work all the time, no strategy does). Steph/Klay/the whole feng shui of the offense will be off at times and KD isos are a very strong option to fall back to. I was more disappointed in how he fit in when things were gelling and going well. A bit of the old floor vs ceiling debate. It may just be the true ceiling wasn't much higher than where the Warriors were already at, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed in how little their best lineups/results improved switching from Barnes to Durant.