ROballer wrote:lazybatman wrote:I wanna talk about KCP a bit here, seeing as he has been listed as random throw in, in most of the trade scenarios here based on a 5 game sample size. Our 3 point shooting totally fell apart in the Phoenix series and it's the easy scapegoat for the loss.
Let's take a moment to consider the AD+Lebron injuries & Dennis being way off the boil after he returned from his Covid Vacation. This not only caused reduced direct production from our 3 best players but also a huge drop off in playmaking, ergo the shooting. It wasn't just AD going down. Bron & Dennis were clearly not close to 100%. That right there is 90% of the problem
There aren't many real 3&D(more appropriately D&3) guys better than KCP in the NBA. And those better than him aren't available. For context we just saw 3 of the elitest shooters(Joe Harris, MPJ & Davis Bertans) totally get exposed during the playoffs. As a bonus neither of them (and most of the other 42% 3 fg guys you can pick off basketballreference.com) do not know how to play an ounce of defense.
For a team that hangs its hat Defense, to lose KCP(+other assets like Kuz) for a player like Kemba(injury prone & a seive on defense) is like shooting yourself in the head.
Your points are way off. If you(I'm talking general terms here, not just you) licked his ass after a playoff bubble performance(overrated I might add) but small sample size, you also need to acknowldege his bad play this playoffs. Stop the double standard.
I am not talking in general terms, and I'm talking just to you
I do acknowledge it. He sucked, so did the rest of the roster. But so did Joe Harris & Davis Bertans. He shot 41% from the 3 this regular season, 39.5% for the last 2 years - Not a small sample size. Stop harping about 36%. It's ancient history. It's not the player he is anymore.Another thing, stop overrating his **** talents. He's nowhere close to being one of the best 3D guys in the league.
Did you know that he's a 36% shooter from 3 with the Lakers when there are fans in the arena? I'm not making this up, it's real. Bubble play(last playoffs) and empty arenas(this season) is THE ANOMALY. Playing in front of crowds IS NOT. This guy gets rattled, simple as that, an 80ish game sample size in which he didn't have a crowd to boo him and he shot close to 40% from 3( wide open set shots, he doesn't do stepbacks, off the dribble or any kind of other 3's) doesn't make him a good shooter.
"when there's fans in the arena" Idk what that means. So should we start putting an asterisk next to #17 too?He's a damn average shooter. That's the league average, about 36%.
And he's way overrated as a defender by any metric you can find. Way.
Find me 3 better D&3 guys that are available @ 13m, and I'm sold bruh. I don't think there are any.
There are a town full of those 38-42% shooters who can't defend much better than Kemba Walker, but that's just 3, NO D. Matisse Thybulle is a 2nd year guy who plays off the bench for 20 mins a game and he's gotten 2nd team all D and his metrics are outstanding on defense.
Thybull is a All NBA D level defender dude.. Chill tf out. I said KCP is above average, which is like the top 25-200 defenders in the league. Gives consistent effort and follows Vogel's defensive schemes to the T. I didn't say he was all NBA ffs. And Thybull, FYI, shoots a little worse than Schroeder on 3, so why tf are we comparing them. And you were talking all about Offense > Defense. Make up your mind.And there are TONS of better guys, Pope is simply not in the "great" category, he's borderline "good".
Name the tons @ that salary. And don't come up with the Tony Snells and Joe Harrises who can't defend and become liabilities in a playoff series like Ben MacLemore. Go on.. do your research and name them. Hint: I named a couple in the other thread on the Lakers board, but I'm still not trading KCP.And I don't give a **** about what you see him do defensively, if it's not backed by the metrics it doesn't matter.
Okay then.
Source - https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanced/?Season=2020-21&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&GroupQuantity=3&TeamID=1610612747&sort=NET_RATING&dir=1&CF=MIN*GE*400
Those are the 10 top Net Rtg 3 man lineups Lakers ran this season. Filter: => 400 minutes.
KCP is in 5 of the top 7 of them, which is only equaled by Lebron. His utility is understanding and playing the system that makes the Lakers different and great.
You don't need 5 great defenders / players to execute it, but it is a complicated system that Vogel uses, and you need dudes with a decent IQ and buy in to learn and execute it well. The fact that our defense was #4 in the NBA without Bron & AD is because of guys like KCP, Kuz, Morris, Gasol, Dennis. It's not over rating no one. Just giving credit where it's due. This team needs scorers, not defenders. We had defenders and we got teams to score 100ish points, under their average.
But guessed what? We scored 85-90 ourselvez.
Again, our top 3 players were injured / hobbled. Stop friggin over reacting and calm tf down. It was a tough season, where AD came in hobbled and didn't really look like himself, but for maybe 4-6 games including the playoffs. Lebron & Dennis never really reached even 80% fitness in the playoffs. KCP & Caruso kept going in and out of the lineup all season, including the 6 playoff games. And we made those lofty promises to induct Drummond into a team already reeling with continuity issues.You can't win a playoff series with bad offense in this league. You can't. It's not the early 00's, you adapt or die.
But you can win with average and even bad defense on occasions. It's not a 50/50 league anymore, but a 75% O and 25% D league.
Really?? How did the Jazz / Nets lose then? Historically great offenses. And the Clips(hopefully) about to lose soon too.
Exceptions(KD+Warriors, Kobe+Shaq, 90s Bulls, Early Celtics) aside, the playoffs are, and have always been about having the least amount of weaknesses and ability to adjust. The great teams are able to morph into a few different avatars to counter different styles and still impose their will anyhow.
I would love to hear you blaming injuries for the Nets loss, but not acknowledge the same for us, cos it's just fun to panic rn.
And for the record, I'm not saying our offense is good enough. It's anything but rn. But trading away core pieces like KCP is hardly the way to go about improving it.And Kuzma and KCT are nowhere near the difference between good defense and bad one in the first place, come on now. He didn't even play in Game 4 and we still held Phx to 97 points and Booker shot 5/16 with 7 turnovers. Next guy stepped up and that's what she wrote.
So we are down to 1 game sample sizes now. I don't know how to keep reacting to this
Whenever Lebron and/or Davis miss games(and it's happened A LOT lately), you can have your pals KCT and Kuzma come in to dinner because they're as useless as you and me at basketball, and we have no chance of winning.
KCP and Caruso are redundant talent, period. Both do sorta the same things.
Interesting.. do you even watch any Lakers Basketball?One in the rotation is more than enough. If not you can always find more. The notion they're hard to find is ridiculous, Clippers just got Batum from the FA market who's way better, they also got Terrence Man for scraps basically, a very late pick.
Royce O' Neale is one of the league's best 3D guys and was also a late pick. It's the easiest position to fill in the league..
I'm still waiting for names to fill it.Kemba+Caruso >>>>>> KCP+Caruso+Kuzma on a team. More diversity, better fit.
Off topic, what is the reason for your blind love for Kemba Walker
- who is also a career 36% league average shooter
- hasn't played 100 games combined in the last 2 years due to injuries
- ageing superstar on a totally over MV long term contract
- defensive liability
- below average playmaker for a PG
- shot 32% FG & 17% 3FG in the most recent playoffs.. since we are only focused on 5 game sample sizes.
Are you his burner or his agent? Stop the crusade dude. Hard Pass!!!!And to end it, stop throwing other players under the bus if you want to defend these two bozos, it totally refutes your point. As bad as you think they played, they came nowhere close to our two clowns. Danny Green was nowhere near this bad and paid the price, so should they.
Even if one of them had played ok and you wanted to keep him, it's about the salaries here. You need to package them both together if you want to get someone with an all star caliber play and salary. That's why you keep seeing them paired together in trades.