Everything Nick Nurse

[Rudy Bargnani]

I'm reading Nick Nurse's new book and am about half way through. It's a good read, definitely recommend it.

It definitely reinforces the experimental/nutty professor image I have of him. As of today the raps are 0-3 and there has been criticism of his rotations, how he's not playing Flynn, and how he's using Siakam. My impression is he's definitely smart enough to be aware of these issues but he's testing things out and legitimately doesn't care if there are a few regular season losses. An interesting passage on the Houston game last season when they doubled Harden all game and lost when the rest of the rockets went off and hit over 40% from 3 while Harden had one of his lowest point total's of the season:

"Afterward, the reporters kept asking me if I had considered coming out of that defense. I said yes, I did, but it was an interesting experiment to see play out. And I wanted too see it for 48 minutes rather than bailing on it at the end.......That's how coaching is sometimes. You try to win every game but the NBA regular season is long. To experiment along the way can be a little fun, but mostly it's useful---a part of a long intelligence gathering operation. Who are your best players? How do you put them in a position to succeed? And how do you defend the other team's great players. You're always probing, seeking more information"

So..maybe I'm trying to talk myself into it, but in terms of the things that is frustrating me during the 0-3 start:
--He probably knows Siakam's strength isn't half court iso but he's trying to develop it or see if it works for when playoff basketball slows down.
--He's probably aware of other rotation challenges but wants a larger sample of evidence of how the team plays with Lowry on the bench. Flynn will eventually get his turn but he's testing out other lineups too.

[A.I]

I'm reading Nick Nurse's new book and am about half way through. It's a good read, definitely recommend it.

It definitely reinforces the experimental/nutty professor image I have of him. As of today the raps are 0-3 and there has been criticism of his rotations, how he's not playing Flynn, and how he's using Siakam. My impression is he's definitely smart enough to be aware of these issues but he's testing things out and legitimately doesn't care if there are a few regular season losses. An interesting passage on the Houston game last season when they doubled Harden all game and lost when the rest of the rockets went off and hit over 40% from 3 while Harden had one of his lowest point total's of the season:

"Afterward, the reporters kept asking me if I had considered coming out of that defense. I said yes, I did, but it was an interesting experiment to see play out. And I wanted too see it for 48 minutes rather than bailing on it at the end.......That's how coaching is sometimes. You try to win every game but the NBA regular season is long. To experiment along the way can be a little fun, but mostly it's useful---a part of a long intelligence gathering operation. Who are your best players? How do you put them in a position to succeed? And how do you defend the other team's great players. You're always probing, seeking more information"

So..maybe I'm trying to talk myself into it, but in terms of the things that is frustrating me during the 0-3 start:
--He probably knows Siakam's strength isn't half court iso but he's trying to develop it or see if it works for when playoff basketball slows down.
--He's probably aware of other rotation challenges but wants a larger sample of evidence of how the team plays with Lowry on the bench. Flynn will eventually get his turn but he's testing out other lineups too.

Definitely interesting and I'm not surprised at all. I noticed in the Sixers game, Siakam took a lot of mid range pull ups, its not his game, but after the Playoffs in the bubble, definitely wouldn't hurt to have him develop that. You can practice all you want, nothing beats experience from an actual game.

Hopefully its reassuring to some people after reading/hearing about it. Nurse loves to experiment and we have some new players on the team and a new assistant coach who is in charge of adding to the offense.

[S.R.]

I'd say they're definitely trying to develop Siakam's offensive game in the direction that you usually get out of an NBA star - a guy who can get you buckets on demand, one-on-one.

What's frustrating recently is they kept going to that in the bubble and it helped cost them a crack at the 3rd round. That wasn't playing around on a Thursday evening in February, that was a 7 game series they had within reach.

Anyway, they are taking the long term view with their core players which is also why you don't yank around the minutes of guys like Norm and Fred. They've been working to this point for several years now and hope to keep making progress. They're prepared for some bumps along the way.

That's all good, they just need to be getting guys like TD and Thomas and now Flynn those similar opportunities.

[RandomGuy]

I wonder how many games we will need to lose for Nick to realize that we're not Rockets, we don't have the personnel, or are they literally trying out if we have it so we could pull the plug on the Harden trade?

[JawsGT]

I wonder how many games we will need to lose for Nick to realize that we're not Rockets, we don't have the personnel, or are they literally trying out if we have it so we could pull the plug on the Harden trade?

I sure hope not. Even if we were to get Harden, the last thing I want is for him to play the way he does in Houston. He needs to operate more in the mid range. You let teams off the hook when they know youre only going to shoot from 3 or in the paint. Harden is exactly the type of scorer that should have a mid range game. He would be unstoppable, and his success and that of his team wouldnt be solely dependent on his ability to get to the line or hit 3s. Ive always felt thats beem houstons problem in the playoffs, that inability to deviate from their normal shot selection and allow a couple of their guys to exploit the mid range.

it seems like the raps allow kyle , fred and pascal that opportunity to take those shots. Hopefully pascal figures it out, or if he is traded for harden, then harden would also get that freedom. Cause if kawhi taught us anything, is that the ability to shoot efficiently in the mid range is vital for post season success.

[A.I]

Harden was the product of the system in Houston. Mike D'Antoni and Daryl Morey wanted it that way. D'Antoni ran a similar offense in Phoenix except with Nash as the main guard.

[RandomGuy]

I sure hope not. Even if we were to get Harden, the last thing I want is for him to play the way he does in Houston. He needs to operate more in the mid range. You let teams off the hook when they know youre only going to shoot from 3 or in the paint. Harden is exactly the type of scorer that should have a mid range game. He would be unstoppable, and his success and that of his team wouldnt be solely dependent on his ability to get to the line or hit 3s. Ive always felt thats beem houstons problem in the playoffs, that inability to deviate from their normal shot selection and allow a couple of their guys to exploit the mid range.

it seems like the raps allow kyle , fred and pascal that opportunity to take those shots. Hopefully pascal figures it out, or if he is traded for harden, then harden would also get that freedom. Cause if kawhi taught us anything, is that the ability to shoot efficiently in the mid range is vital for post season success.

Harden is capable of all kinds of shooting, that wouldn't be a problem. He should be held accountable on the defensive end and off the court, that's all, that trade won't happen as we will have to give away too much to remain competitive even with Harden on our roster. I genuinely believe that Ibaka was huge to our team and I'm baffled how they managed to lose him when he clearly wanted to stay here.

[G__Deane]

Harden is capable of all kinds of shooting, that wouldn't be a problem. He should be held accountable on the defensive end and off the court, that's all, that trade won't happen as we will have to give away too much to remain competitive even with Harden on our roster. I genuinely believe that Ibaka was huge to our team and I'm baffled how they managed to lose him when he clearly wanted to stay here.

I was relatively impossible to both keep Ibaka here (unless he would accept a 1 year deal as he got that plus a 1 year player option in LA) and keep the Giannis dream alive. I get that in defense of Masai. But he was either unable to do his due diligence or was purposely played by The Alphabet imo. Giannis waited until the last second possible to sign his super max deal, well after we had to make decisions on both Gasol and Serge. He both strengthened the Bucks, weakened the Raps (arguably their biggest competitor) and immensely padded his bank account with the same single stroke of the pen.

For all Masai's supposed connection to Giannis and his family, we couldn't even get the heads up that he planned on re-upping in Milwaukee in time to take care of our own business.

Masai got played and it cost us Serge. Let the hand wringing all-in defense of Masai begin.

[chris]

I was relatively impossible to both keep Ibaka here (unless he would accept a 1 year deal as he got that plus a 1 year player option in LA) and keep the Giannis dream alive. I get that in defense of Masai. But he was either unable to do his due diligence or was purposely played by The Alphabet imo. Giannis waited until the last second possible to sign his super max deal, well after we had to make decisions on both Gasol and Serge. He both strengthened the Bucks, weakened the Raps (arguably their biggest competitor) and immensely padded his bank account with the same single stroke of the pen.

For all Masai's supposed connection to Giannis and his family, we couldn't even get the heads up that he planned on re-upping in Milwaukee in time to take care of our own business.

Masai got played and it cost us Serge. Let the hand wringing all-in defense of Masai begin.

i'm not sure how you think the league works. you're complaining that we didn't tamper to a pretty unprecedented degree.

like there's a difference between agents talking to teams to line up deals for their unrestricted clients in the time period between the end of the season and the beginning of free agency (which is the kind of tampering that's common), or between players colluding at ASG's or the olympics to join up elsewhere (which is a kind of grey area), versus masai having direct communication with giannis or his representation while he's still under concract with the bucks.

that's never happened before, to public knowledge. if they got caught we'd get spanked hard with the loss of multiple picks and massive fines.

[DanH]

Guys, they didn't want Ibaka. Or Gasol. They wanted to move on and it had nothing to do with Giannis.

They had room to offer Ibaka nearly 20M on a one year if they really wanted him. They lowballed at 12M, basically begging him to leave for another team. Once he left, they could offer Marc the same thing, and by all accounts they probably offered him way less than even the 12M offer for Serge, meaning they wanted him to go sign a minimum deal somewhere.

It wasn't something they were forced into. They wanted to move on from those guys. I disagree with that approach (Gasol would sure be nice to have along with Boucher), but it's what they wanted.

[MixxAOR]

^ well that sucks

[planetmars]

Guys, they didn't want Ibaka. Or Gasol. They wanted to move on and it had nothing to do with Giannis.

They had room to offer Ibaka nearly 20M on a one year if they really wanted him. They lowballed at 12M, basically begging him to leave for another team. Once he left, they could offer Marc the same thing, and by all accounts they probably offered him way less than even the 12M offer for Serge, meaning they wanted him to go sign a minimum deal somewhere.

It wasn't something they were forced into. They wanted to move on from those guys. I disagree with that approach (Gasol would sure be nice to have along with Boucher), but it's what they wanted.

Are you sure about the $20M? You would know, but I think luxury tax was important to them.. but they also needed to replace both Marc and RHJ and wanted to keep some of that mid-level around but also not go into the tax to make it work. The $12M was probably the ceiling so that they can still make moves elsewhere and still avoid the tax.

Serge would be a pretty good trade asset if kept. Even if they didn't want him long term.

[planetmars]

i'm not sure how you think the league works. you're complaining that we didn't tamper to a pretty unprecedented degree.

like there's a difference between agents talking to teams to line up deals for their unrestricted clients in the time period between the end of the season and the beginning of free agency (which is the kind of tampering that's common), or between players colluding at ASG's or the olympics to join up elsewhere (which is a kind of grey area), versus masai having direct communication with giannis or his representation while he's still under concract with the bucks.

that's never happened before, to public knowledge. if they got caught we'd get spanked hard with the loss of multiple picks and massive fines.

Yup.. Lakers did the same thing last year with Kawhi. They waited until the last second to fill in their cap space and ended up with guys they probably wouldn't have taken otherwise. It worked out for them in the end though.

[golden]

Are you sure about the $20M? You would know, but I think luxury tax was important to them.. but they also needed to replace both Marc and RHJ and wanted to keep some of that mid-level around but also not go into the tax to make it work. The $12M was probably the ceiling so that they can still make moves elsewhere and still avoid the tax.

Serge would be a pretty good trade asset if kept. Even if they didn't want him long term.

Yeah, I'm guessing the ownership of most teams are loathe to pay the luxury tax unless they are convinced they have a legit championship contender. And if we're in the tax this year and the Giannis pipe dream came true, it would be a more expensive repeater tax, or something like that. Not my area of expertise.... Dan?

But Deaner could be right... Giannis and the Bucks may have played us.

[G__Deane]

i'm not sure how you think the league works. you're complaining that we didn't tamper to a pretty unprecedented degree.

like there's a difference between agents talking to teams to line up deals for their unrestricted clients in the time period between the end of the season and the beginning of free agency (which is the kind of tampering that's common), or between players colluding at ASG's or the olympics to join up elsewhere (which is a kind of grey area), versus masai having direct communication with giannis or his representation while he's still under concract with the bucks.

that's never happened before, to public knowledge. if they got caught we'd get spanked hard with the loss of multiple picks and massive fines.

Tampering (directly and indirectly) happens every day. The point is Masai supposedly had personal and inside track to The Alphabet plus his family if Giannis were to leave. You don't think, in the last 6 months, Masai or proxy had occasion to get a little better sense of whether Giannis would still be in play this next off-season? Come on.

And Dan I get what you're saying but Masai and Bobby could have also known that if they got Serge back for one year or even 2 at 12 per, they could move him if necessary. But you could be right they wanted to move on regardless because in any event, even if Giannis was still on the potential-market, we were going forward without Marc and Serge anyways.Which is strange to me since it would have made it even less likely for Giannis to turn his gaze towards us with a weaker team this year. Serge/Baynes/Boucher or Serge/Len/Boucher would both have been better than Baynes/Boucher/Len