So we have one exceptional player with Steph, two very good ones with Loon and Wiggs, one Dray (somewhere between essential and WTF), two players that could/should be more than fine with Klay and Poole - and then the maybes. Does not sound too bad to me. So go on Kerr, make it work again. Somehow…
"It'll be better for everyone to think about how we'd like to deal with the death rattle of the Warriors as we've come to know them."
It seems like just 6-8 weeks ago many people here were posting about wanting to keep Mac McClung and whether the team should bring Andre Iguodala back...?
Our local team that won the last championship just started the season, and it has not gone as well as we'd liked.... lots of moving parts and intrigue as the season progresses. As a fan I'm interested in seeing how things play out with the team that our ownership, management and coaching staff have assembled.
I do like that most of what we now read is actually about the on the court basketball ... however fascinating all the line-ups, trades, contracts, coaching decisions may be.
Knicks had a huge late comeback against the Nuggets (sans Jokic) last night; the Nuggets were up 10 with 7 and change left but only scored seven points down the stretch and lost the game. Randle was a beast and finished with 34. We’re at home so I actually have hope we can win it.
I think the Warriors are suffering from a systemic problem. They still have five excellent starters three of whom are aging. And after that almost nothing. They gave away five bench players which was essentially their whole bench and replaced it with one guard who may or may not turn out to be a real help to the team and one forward who may or may not learn the warrior system over the course of this fall term. Five guys gone, one good replacement one possibly OK replacement. But basically they decimated their bench.
Meanwhile over the last five years the league has changed in the types of players that are succeeding on teams, that are getting drafted and developed on teams. Teams are now built to be like the Warriors. Teams have drafted for large wings, large shooters, good backup shooters, requiring people who can shoot three-point shots, even switch fives one of whom, the inimitable Jokić, spends most of his time playing at the three-point line. These teams are full of middle aged (sic!) and talented players who are to some degree running wing rings around the Warriors. The coaches know how to defend the warriors, the best ones know how to defend Curry, and they have shooters among their starters and on their benches. They are built like the Warriors to beat the Warriors and they are younger and springier than the Warriors’ starters.
To me the question is not whether you play Poole here or play Poole there, it how do you evolve a middle. How do you evolve a viable bench starting with only one or two good players?
But then I am a basketball neophyte and there may already be an answer to this systemic issue that I perceive. (But it does not seem to be one young talented player who is basically just out of high school and another talented player who basically missed college and the amount of training on how to play basketball he would’ve received there. Moody is moot. As an ecologist I can tell you, you do not depend on babies from the bottom to fill out those intermediate niches)
Alas, is it possible that last night’s absence of his Ass Holiness, Chris Paul actually contributed to our loss. He may well have slowed the game down; engaged in a long distance shooting contest with our King and thereby prevented his merry men from going thermonuclear from three. Just a melancholic reflection from a character who has obviously enjoyed better days.
If you think it’s a good idea to bench Klay and start Poole in his place, the lineup stats say otherwise. With Klay out of the lineup, the +/- goes from 6.4 to .7. Rebounds per game decrease from 13 to 3.5 and assists decrease from 11 to 3.3.
As much as we all want to try something new, keeping the starting lineup together for a significant part of the game still makes sense.
The gap between Steph and 2nd place right now is the same size as the gap between 2nd and 39th (three-way tie between Devin Booker, KCP, and Trae Young at 32 made.) In addition to shooting by far the highest volume of 3PA in the league (both on a per-minute and in absolute numbers of attempts) he's also shooting a better percentage than 90% of the league. Raw stats: 72 made of 161 attempted.
Less fun stat, overall the Warriors have 3 guys among the 21 players with at least 100 3-point attempts, but Klay (38/115 for 33%, T-10th in attempts) and Poole (34/101, 33.7%, T-20th in attempts) are near the bottom of that group in accuracy, above only the following guys:
- Kelly Oubre Jr., 39/122 (32%)
- CJ McCollum, 34/107 (31.8%)
- Trae Young, 32/104 (30.8%)
- Luka Doncic, 30/103 (29.1%)
Some other dudes from that group who are shooting better than Klay & Jordan include Ant-Man, Donovan Mitchell, Max Strus, Keldon Johnson, Jordan Clarkson, etc.
To make up for it, here's a "well, it could be worse" moment:
LeBron James, 17/71 (23.9%) is the Laker with the most 3PA. He's the only Laker in the league's top 100 by attempts, but that percentage is even worse than Westbrook (18/53, 34%). Is it time to roll out "LeBrick James"???
moving on from pairings to 3-man lineups, there are only three high usage (100+ minutes) trios on the Warriors with a negative net rating:
Poole-Wiggins-Dray (-7.2)
Poole-Steph-Wiggs (-6.2)
Poole-Steph-Dray (-3.1)
Poole is not in any other high usage lineups; the high usage trio with the next worst net rating is Steph-Wiggs-Dray at +6.4 (the best is Steph-Wiggs-Loon at +20.4 in 226 minutes, wow)
OK, so, I said last night's game would be a good test of how well the team has retooled.
Poole and Klay are looking out of sorts again. I still have faith they'll find their game.
I'm less confident in JaMychal Green finding a way to become a bigger contributor to winning; he had another pretty bad game. The box score has him with team-high +/- at +7, but this is one of those cases where I don't put stock in that. There were some minutes early in the 4th where he was getting bodied by Landale and I was begging Kerr through my TV to put Loon back in. (Looney did not play at all in the 4th quarter for some reason; Kerr subbed in Green instead; I understand why, but it didn't work out.)
We did see some more zone D but it wasn't exactly working.
Steph's offensive explosion was awesome but I spotted at least one or two transition plays where he wasn't back and in position on defense in time, leading to scramble rotations and an open shot which, of course, the Suns canned.
Wiggins had a rough game. Got in foul trouble early (perhaps unfairly) and seemed to struggle to get in rhythm when he came back in. Was *not* crashing the boards as we've seen him do for much of this season so far.
Overall it wasn't that bad of a loss on its own, but the trend that it continues definitely sucks. It seems that in pursuit of the "two timelines" plan, the front office trimmed down the "win now" core as thin as they dared and it turns out they trimmed too much. It doesn't take much going wrong for the team to lose winnable games now.
My view is that the team still *can* win a championship this season but unless the roster changes it's pretty unlikely now. We need a few players to figure some stuff out, the core guys to stay healthy and if it doesn't happen soon we're going to need even more just to crawl back up the standings. Some of that will definitely happen but there are also plenty of things that could still go even more wrong to offset it.
We need more looney, looney should damm near match all of steph's minutes and then non steph minutes run out a small ball unit of poole ddv wiggins kuminga green.
Let lamb klay and sometimes moody play with looney and curry, no more poole kuminga looney units
Ramona with a good take on overall chemistry: https://youtu.be/GV1Px6A9ZoE
Nets beat the Blazers 109-107
Some good news: With the Spurs losing tonight, we're about to take over sole possession of 12th place in the West.
:)
So we have one exceptional player with Steph, two very good ones with Loon and Wiggs, one Dray (somewhere between essential and WTF), two players that could/should be more than fine with Klay and Poole - and then the maybes. Does not sound too bad to me. So go on Kerr, make it work again. Somehow…
"It'll be better for everyone to think about how we'd like to deal with the death rattle of the Warriors as we've come to know them."
It seems like just 6-8 weeks ago many people here were posting about wanting to keep Mac McClung and whether the team should bring Andre Iguodala back...?
Our local team that won the last championship just started the season, and it has not gone as well as we'd liked.... lots of moving parts and intrigue as the season progresses. As a fan I'm interested in seeing how things play out with the team that our ownership, management and coaching staff have assembled.
I do like that most of what we now read is actually about the on the court basketball ... however fascinating all the line-ups, trades, contracts, coaching decisions may be.
Knicks had a huge late comeback against the Nuggets (sans Jokic) last night; the Nuggets were up 10 with 7 and change left but only scored seven points down the stretch and lost the game. Randle was a beast and finished with 34. We’re at home so I actually have hope we can win it.
I think the Warriors are suffering from a systemic problem. They still have five excellent starters three of whom are aging. And after that almost nothing. They gave away five bench players which was essentially their whole bench and replaced it with one guard who may or may not turn out to be a real help to the team and one forward who may or may not learn the warrior system over the course of this fall term. Five guys gone, one good replacement one possibly OK replacement. But basically they decimated their bench.
Meanwhile over the last five years the league has changed in the types of players that are succeeding on teams, that are getting drafted and developed on teams. Teams are now built to be like the Warriors. Teams have drafted for large wings, large shooters, good backup shooters, requiring people who can shoot three-point shots, even switch fives one of whom, the inimitable Jokić, spends most of his time playing at the three-point line. These teams are full of middle aged (sic!) and talented players who are to some degree running wing rings around the Warriors. The coaches know how to defend the warriors, the best ones know how to defend Curry, and they have shooters among their starters and on their benches. They are built like the Warriors to beat the Warriors and they are younger and springier than the Warriors’ starters.
To me the question is not whether you play Poole here or play Poole there, it how do you evolve a middle. How do you evolve a viable bench starting with only one or two good players?
But then I am a basketball neophyte and there may already be an answer to this systemic issue that I perceive. (But it does not seem to be one young talented player who is basically just out of high school and another talented player who basically missed college and the amount of training on how to play basketball he would’ve received there. Moody is moot. As an ecologist I can tell you, you do not depend on babies from the bottom to fill out those intermediate niches)
Alas, is it possible that last night’s absence of his Ass Holiness, Chris Paul actually contributed to our loss. He may well have slowed the game down; engaged in a long distance shooting contest with our King and thereby prevented his merry men from going thermonuclear from three. Just a melancholic reflection from a character who has obviously enjoyed better days.
I went from eh to now slightly worried about whats going on with Twitter
If you think it’s a good idea to bench Klay and start Poole in his place, the lineup stats say otherwise. With Klay out of the lineup, the +/- goes from 6.4 to .7. Rebounds per game decrease from 13 to 3.5 and assists decrease from 11 to 3.3.
As much as we all want to try something new, keeping the starting lineup together for a significant part of the game still makes sense.
Fun season stat so far, 3-pointers made.
5. Kevin Huerter, 50
2-4 (three-way tie). Buddy Hield, Keldon Johnson, Jayson Tatum, 52 each
1. Stephen Curry, 72.
The gap between Steph and 2nd place right now is the same size as the gap between 2nd and 39th (three-way tie between Devin Booker, KCP, and Trae Young at 32 made.) In addition to shooting by far the highest volume of 3PA in the league (both on a per-minute and in absolute numbers of attempts) he's also shooting a better percentage than 90% of the league. Raw stats: 72 made of 161 attempted.
Less fun stat, overall the Warriors have 3 guys among the 21 players with at least 100 3-point attempts, but Klay (38/115 for 33%, T-10th in attempts) and Poole (34/101, 33.7%, T-20th in attempts) are near the bottom of that group in accuracy, above only the following guys:
- Kelly Oubre Jr., 39/122 (32%)
- CJ McCollum, 34/107 (31.8%)
- Trae Young, 32/104 (30.8%)
- Luka Doncic, 30/103 (29.1%)
Some other dudes from that group who are shooting better than Klay & Jordan include Ant-Man, Donovan Mitchell, Max Strus, Keldon Johnson, Jordan Clarkson, etc.
To make up for it, here's a "well, it could be worse" moment:
LeBron James, 17/71 (23.9%) is the Laker with the most 3PA. He's the only Laker in the league's top 100 by attempts, but that percentage is even worse than Westbrook (18/53, 34%). Is it time to roll out "LeBrick James"???
moving on from pairings to 3-man lineups, there are only three high usage (100+ minutes) trios on the Warriors with a negative net rating:
Poole-Wiggins-Dray (-7.2)
Poole-Steph-Wiggs (-6.2)
Poole-Steph-Dray (-3.1)
Poole is not in any other high usage lineups; the high usage trio with the next worst net rating is Steph-Wiggs-Dray at +6.4 (the best is Steph-Wiggs-Loon at +20.4 in 226 minutes, wow)
OK, so, I said last night's game would be a good test of how well the team has retooled.
Poole and Klay are looking out of sorts again. I still have faith they'll find their game.
I'm less confident in JaMychal Green finding a way to become a bigger contributor to winning; he had another pretty bad game. The box score has him with team-high +/- at +7, but this is one of those cases where I don't put stock in that. There were some minutes early in the 4th where he was getting bodied by Landale and I was begging Kerr through my TV to put Loon back in. (Looney did not play at all in the 4th quarter for some reason; Kerr subbed in Green instead; I understand why, but it didn't work out.)
We did see some more zone D but it wasn't exactly working.
Steph's offensive explosion was awesome but I spotted at least one or two transition plays where he wasn't back and in position on defense in time, leading to scramble rotations and an open shot which, of course, the Suns canned.
Wiggins had a rough game. Got in foul trouble early (perhaps unfairly) and seemed to struggle to get in rhythm when he came back in. Was *not* crashing the boards as we've seen him do for much of this season so far.
Overall it wasn't that bad of a loss on its own, but the trend that it continues definitely sucks. It seems that in pursuit of the "two timelines" plan, the front office trimmed down the "win now" core as thin as they dared and it turns out they trimmed too much. It doesn't take much going wrong for the team to lose winnable games now.
My view is that the team still *can* win a championship this season but unless the roster changes it's pretty unlikely now. We need a few players to figure some stuff out, the core guys to stay healthy and if it doesn't happen soon we're going to need even more just to crawl back up the standings. Some of that will definitely happen but there are also plenty of things that could still go even more wrong to offset it.
of Warriors lineup pairings with at least 100 minutes, Poole-Klay has the second worst net rating at -16 (behind/ahead of Poole-Wiseman at -27.2 lol)
A bit of levity...
HOW IS STEPH CURRY NOT A 99 OVERALL IN NBA 2K23?! - Zach Lowe | NBA Today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWWsy4KCAjw
We need more looney, looney should damm near match all of steph's minutes and then non steph minutes run out a small ball unit of poole ddv wiggins kuminga green.
Let lamb klay and sometimes moody play with looney and curry, no more poole kuminga looney units