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  • golden wrote: View Post

    Ok, you got me. I’d rather watch Fred consistently get stuffed at the rim and consistently chuck up a no-chance prayer 3 after dribbling the clock out in crunch-time. There’s comfort in knowing what you’re always going to get....consistently.
    I agree that last play was garbage but I blame Nurse for that. FVV is misused in his offensive role, no one has argued with you there. And yes, he was consistently misused all year. Obviously with intent behind it (to try to expand his game beyond his ideal role and prepare him to take over for Lowry eventually), but it still (consistently) hurt the team.
    twitter.com/dhackett1565

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    • inthepaint wrote: View Post

      Don't forget Gasol consistently not shooting (from 3, midrange or paint), consistently not rebounding, consistently being in foul trouble and consistently passing the ball out the top of the key to heavily guarded teammates without creating any space because Boston knew that consistently that's what he would do. Also consistently missing free throws (3rd worst FT% on the team in the playoffs). I could go on but my wife is calling for supper.

      You give 10 of Gasol minutes on that game 7 to Norm, TD, Serge or Thomas (meaning guys that actually look at the basket and hunt shots) and we'd still have Raptors basketball to watch.
      Which 10 minutes? Because, they, uhh, tried that in the 2nd half. Gasol only played the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half (minutes his lineup actually won, if barely). It was 60-57 at that point. Then they subbed Ibaka and by the end of his shift they were down 8. Then they went small and a few minutes later the were down 10. Over the final 5 minutes they made a run with the small look to make it close, only of course to blow it at the end, and I applaud their effort to make it close. But for all that Gasol’s first half was a disaster, Ibaka’s second half minutes (which we lost by 8) were just as bad for the team’s chances to win.

      And before you say it wasn’t all because of Serge, I KNOW. That’s been my point with Gasol too. If Siakam isn’t going to be a real offensive option, and Lowry is too tired to go insane all game long, and Fred ends up having to run a lot of the offence, the team is going to have these brutal dry spells that put them in a hole, and it doesn’t matter which C is in the game for those stretches.
      twitter.com/dhackett1565

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      • DanH wrote: View Post

        I agree that last play was garbage but I blame Nurse for that. FVV is misused in his offensive role, no one has argued with you there. And yes, he was consistently misused all year. Obviously with intent behind it (to try to expand his game beyond his ideal role and prepare him to take over for Lowry eventually), but it still (consistently) hurt the team.
        An awful lot of blame being spread around on a team that could do no wrong until the last round.
        Many weren't perfect but I can't stand the thought of another year of Marc and then laying the blame more on everyone else and now Nurse lol

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        • Already rumors are circulating with FV going 2 knicks. Knicks are ready 2 give him max money and if that happens, I wish u the best of luck...Don't get me wrong Freddy is good player, love 2 have him back, but not in the expensive of loosing cap money for Giannis,but he ain't player 2 give max..only give superstars that kind of money..he leaves,maybe swing a deal for Victor Oladipo,his got one year left,Indiana is looking 2 move him,he ain't coming back...hopefully Fred takes less than 20 million, but more and more looks like Freddy will be moving from the Raptors..I'm hearing also Detroit are willing 2 give him max,thats crazy..2 horrible franchises,hope u know what your getting your self into.
          "Never apologize for coming to me. Office hours are for patients.
          My kitchen is always open to friends"

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          • Dr Hannibal Lecter wrote: View Post
            Already rumors are circulating with FV going 2 knicks. Knicks are ready 2 give him max money and if that happens, I wish u the best of luck...Don't get me wrong Freddy is good player, love 2 have him back, but not in the expensive of loosing cap money for Giannis,but he ain't player 2 give max..only give superstars that kind of money..he leaves,maybe swing a deal for Victor Oladipo,his got one year left,Indiana is looking 2 move him,he ain't coming back...hopefully Fred takes less than 20 million, but more and more looks like Freddy will be moving from the Raptors..I'm hearing also Detroit are willing 2 give him max,thats crazy..2 horrible franchises,hope u know what your getting your self into.
            If you take max money and move you're family to Detriot or have to play on the Knicks, good luck to you. Easy for me to say, but I'd stay in a good situation and still make $20M per ....

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            • Dr Hannibal Lecter wrote: View Post
              Already rumors are circulating with FV going 2 knicks. Knicks are ready 2 give him max money and if that happens, I wish u the best of luck...Don't get me wrong Freddy is good player, love 2 have him back, but not in the expensive of loosing cap money for Giannis,but he ain't player 2 give max..only give superstars that kind of money..he leaves,maybe swing a deal for Victor Oladipo,his got one year left,Indiana is looking 2 move him,he ain't coming back...hopefully Fred takes less than 20 million, but more and more looks like Freddy will be moving from the Raptors..I'm hearing also Detroit are willing 2 give him max,thats crazy..2 horrible franchises,hope u know what your getting your self into.
              we were one of those teams in the past, offering max contract to players not worth it... good ol days lol

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              • G__Deane wrote: View Post

                If you take max money and move you're family to Detriot or have to play on the Knicks, good luck to you. Easy for me to say, but I'd stay in a good situation and still make $20M per ....
                A lot of people find a huge allure in being the starting point guard in the gahden for the knickerbockers. Theres always gonna be the next guy thinking hes gonna save the Knicks. I could see fred embracing that path
                9 time first team all-RR, First Ballot Hall of Forum

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                • DanH wrote: View Post

                  Which 10 minutes? Because, they, uhh, tried that in the 2nd half. Gasol only played the first 6 minutes of the 2nd half (minutes his lineup actually won, if barely). It was 60-57 at that point. Then they subbed Ibaka and by the end of his shift they were down 8. Then they went small and a few minutes later the were down 10. Over the final 5 minutes they made a run with the small look to make it close, only of course to blow it at the end, and I applaud their effort to make it close. But for all that Gasol’s first half was a disaster, Ibaka’s second half minutes (which we lost by 8) were just as bad for the team’s chances to win.

                  And before you say it wasn’t all because of Serge, I KNOW. That’s been my point with Gasol too. If Siakam isn’t going to be a real offensive option, and Lowry is too tired to go insane all game long, and Fred ends up having to run a lot of the offence, the team is going to have these brutal dry spells that put them in a hole, and it doesn’t matter which C is in the game for those stretches.
                  Which 10 minutes? Any 10 minutes, he was a -19 (team low by a wide margin) in 19 minutes, on a 5pt game. If we could have given all those 19 minutes to someone else we'd be better off. Unless this is one of those games where +/- don't matter, unlike the ones when Gasol is a "+" and that stat all of a sudden gets picked to matter.

                  You talk about Gasol gloriously "winning his minutes" with the starters as if he was this knight in shinning armour carrying the starters (after all, if the starters are "winning their" minutes, Gasol must be doing something right), but in reality he was a liability out there making everyone play 4 on 5 offence and the other starters were the ones carrying him. We put TD, Thomas, Norm or Serge our there with the same safety blanket that Lowry and defensive beasts like OG provided to Gasol and they're winning their minutes too.

                  A group of players winning or losing their minutes is of little value in comparing player X to player Y. The only way that can be apples to apples and therefore useful is if X and Y are playing with the same teammates AND against the same 5 opponents, in a sample that is large enough and recent enough. Otherwise is noisy and meaningless.

                  I recommend everyone to play around with these two links; they show how our team did on the 11 playoff games they played this year, broken down by player:

                  https://stats.nba.com/players/tradit...S_MINUS&dir=-1

                  https://stats.nba.com/players/advanc...mID=1610612761

                  For clarity I'll summarize the top 3 and bottom 3 players on some of these categories (I'm only including people that played 10 or 11 games to exclude the Watsons and Millers of the world):

                  FG%
                  Top 3:
                  1. Thomas
                  2. Serge
                  3. Norm
                  Bottom 3:
                  1. Gasol (worse)
                  2. Siakam
                  3. Fred

                  3p%
                  Top
                  1. Serge (best 3pt shooter on the team for the 2020 playoffs, at 51%, 4 attempts per game)
                  2. Norm
                  3. Thomas
                  Bottom:
                  1. Gasol (again)
                  2. Siakam
                  3. Lowry

                  FT%
                  Top
                  1. Serge (Did not miss one single free throw in the entire playoffs)
                  2. Fred
                  3. Lowry
                  Bottom
                  1. OG
                  2. Siakam
                  3. Gasol (again)

                  Rebounds
                  Top
                  1. Serge (again)
                  2. Siakam
                  3. OG
                  Bottom
                  1. Thomas (a guard)
                  2. Norm (a guard)
                  3 .Gasol (tied with FVV, the shortest player on the team)

                  Plus/Minus
                  Top
                  1. Lowry
                  2. Thomas
                  3. Serge (again)
                  Bottom
                  1. Gasol (only rotation player to be a "minus" in the post season)
                  2. Fred
                  3. OG

                  OFFRTG
                  Top
                  1. Thomas (floor spacing master)
                  2. Lowry
                  3. Serge
                  Bottom
                  1. Gasol (again)
                  2. Norm
                  3. Fred

                  DEFRTG
                  Top
                  1. Thomas
                  2. Norm
                  3. Serge (again)
                  Bottom
                  1. OG
                  2. Fred
                  3. Gasol (again)

                  NETRTG
                  Top
                  1. Thomas
                  2. Serge
                  3. Lowry
                  Bottom
                  1. Gasol (again)
                  2. Fred
                  3. OG

                  EFG%
                  Top
                  1. Thomas (beast)
                  2. Serge (again)
                  3. Norm
                  Bottom
                  1. Siakam
                  2. Gasol (again)
                  3. Lowry

                  TS%
                  Top
                  1. Thomas (who else?)
                  2. Serge (again)
                  3. Norm
                  Bottom
                  1. Siakam
                  2. Gasol (again)
                  3. Fred

                  Turnover Ratio
                  Best
                  1. Thomas (stud)
                  2. Fred
                  3. Norm
                  Worst
                  1. Gasol (again)
                  2. OG
                  3. Lowry


                  As telling these numbers are about Gasol, they don't tell the whole story. There are tons of things not captured by stats, like body language, initiative, off ball movement, off-ball offence relocation etc.. Great players tell you that the way a player look at something, a teammate, the basket, the opponent etc is a huge part of the game. Kobe Bryant used to give classes on how to create offensive advantages by "freezing" defenders with just the way you look. The "no-look pass" is the most clear example of these intangible things most fans and stats miss, but people that actually played/coached the game know.

                  Gasol would rarely glance at the basket past the first quarter. That posed a massive problem and liability to our offence, precisely when it was our offence (much more so than the defence) that was suffocating and in desperate need of movement and space. Theis/Williams were totally free to double/help our guards and wings with impunity. Does that excuse the play of Siakam? Heck no, but it sure didn't help. It was so glaring it was evident on TV. My 8yr old son even asked me once, "hey, that guy was wide open, wide didn't he shoot?".

                  Gasol would park himself at the top of the key, in no position to rebound, set high screens leading to nowhere (because the defenders knew they just had to focus on the ball handler), the guard (Lowry of FVV) would have nowhere to go, eat 10 secs of the shot clock and either finish with a poor quality shot or tunrnover. That was the a common occurrence on our offence. Empty screens and dribble handoffs with no relocation, that created zero space because Gasol wouldn't shoot from 3, midrange, paint, short corner or low post. He couldn't hit his usual cutters either because that only works if the passer is a threat to shoot too, otherwise the defence just plays the pass, and that's precisely what Boston did all series long.

                  Meanwhile, some of our most versatile scorers (like Norm/Thomas/TD/Serge) were out. Are these guys perfect? Heck no, I myself was pissed off at them many times. But this I knew: if they came in, they would suck a ton of attention out the defence, open up the floor for everyone else and knock down shots; we'd be playing 5 on 5, and the game would reward us (as some of the numbers above show). The offence would move, because these guys also move a ton off ball to hunt shots. Had we given these guys (especially TD and Thomas) more rhythm and more of a chance to play with Lowry/FVV/OG/Siakam, providing longer jolts of instant offence (which was precisely the area of the game we lacked) we could very well be in the ECF right now (but we'll never know).

                  Do I blame Gasol entirely? Certainly not, there are many things physically and mentally that can be out of the player's control . Gasol is a class act, a team-first guy above all, and I bet he himself knows that if some of his minutes (just on this series) went to someone else, the result could be different. It falls on the coach to recognize this, find a balance between being reactionary and stubborn, and play the guys that can help you more in the series in front of you (as opposed to over-relying on yesteryear stats with different teammates, against different opponents). He didn't, so we got bounced in round 2 (albeit in 7 games, to a very good team, which is no shame).

                  Does it mean he's a bad coach? No, but it does strengthen the growing notion that he has his favourites (eg McCaw) and will ride these guys regardless of the results in front him, which sometimes doesn't help the fair internal competition you need in order to win games and grow your players.
                  Last edited by inthepaint; Tue Sep 15, 2020, 01:33 AM.

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                  • I agree that it was a poor choice to play Gasol at the top of the arc so much when he is much more effective playmaking from the high post.

                    I love that you dug up all those playoff stats to make your argument and left in the Nets series, which was barely a series and against a team that literally had no NBA quality bench players. Of course our bench demolished them. Try looking again, specifically at the on-court success (net rating) and you'll see there wasn't quite the difference you imagine between the players you are getting so worked up about (and in fact the story is quite bad for Powell). The Celtics killed us no matter which C was on the court (-7.4 vs -9.0 net ratings), in spite of one getting to play most of his minutes NOT against their best lineup.
                    twitter.com/dhackett1565

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                    • The Gasol thing has to stop, it's a moot point now. Every player except OG and Kyle under preformed in the Celtics series. We lost as a team, we were close but couldn't finish. The season is over, and I doubt Gasol will be back.

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                      • If the Clippers lose tonight it will be an epic fail.. but I could see the Clippers looking at Gasol as a free agent acquisition. Especially if Harrell leaves in free agency.

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                        • KeonClark wrote: View Post

                          A lot of people find a huge allure in being the starting point guard in the gahden for the knickerbockers. Theres always gonna be the next guy thinking hes gonna save the Knicks. I could see fred embracing that path
                          Maybe historically but I think the shine is off that apple (see what I did there?) for the most part due to the shape the franchise is in and Dolan.

                          And Fred strikes me as a guy that does what's best for his family as strictly his bank account. Not that any of these guys can make a truly bad decision for their net worth lol

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                          • saints91 wrote: View Post
                            The Gasol thing has to stop, it's a moot point now. Every player except OG and Kyle under preformed in the Celtics series. We lost as a team, we were close but couldn't finish. The season is over, and I doubt Gasol will be back.
                            Yeah, it's always like a "poor choice" or "we used him wrong" when Gasol and FVV crap the bed. It has nothing to do with their limitations or just plain bad play. That same logic (or lame excuse) doesn't apply to other players, apparently.

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                            • KeonClark wrote: View Post

                              A lot of people find a huge allure in being the starting point guard in the gahden for the knickerbockers. Theres always gonna be the next guy thinking hes gonna save the Knicks. I could see fred embracing that path
                              Take the money and run. Insane that NBA guys leave money on the table. If someone throws max money at Fred and the Raps don’t match he should go. Maybe that’s my old baseball fan talking but I don’t get it unless you are making more in endorsements by going somewhere. Like $10MM/year is a whack of money even after tax. Over 4 years it is enough to materially improve the lifestyle of even a multimillionaire.

                              Having said call that, I don’t see any team offering FVV that much.

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                              • slaw wrote: View Post

                                Take the money and run. Insane that NBA guys leave money on the table. If someone throws max money at Fred and the Raps don’t match he should go. Maybe that’s my old baseball fan talking but I don’t get it unless you are making more in endorsements by going somewhere. Like $10MM/year is a whack of money even after tax. Over 4 years it is enough to materially improve the lifestyle of even a multimillionaire.

                                Having said call that, I don’t see any team offering FVV that much.
                                Fred hurt his market value in the Celtics series for sure, but one interesting scenario would be the Bulls. They just hired a new front office and they want to change the culture. If Otto Porter opts in, then they have no cap space. Let's say that Fred wants to "go back home" (Rockford is close to Chicago) and Fred and the Bulls have mutual interest, then one scenario could be a sign & trade FVV for Zach Lavine. Perhaps even toss in Norm for Satoransky, to sweeten the deal.

                                Lavine has a ton of flaws, and is a low IQ player, but the one thing he can do is create his own shot and inject some size and athleticism into our back-court. Nurse would be pulling his hair out coaching him, but if he could unlock the full potential of Lavine, you could have a young star that would be built for the playoffs, under a reasonable contract ($19M) for term.

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