So why didn't we use him during the Mav game? The game was lost inside the paint. TJD is not a 5 but a 4. Dray body cannot handle playing the 5 anymore.
Does TJD’s rim pressure positively affect the overall defense more than Looney’s presence? Seems like he often takes himself out of position chasing blocks.
I’d like to request a special point-counterpoint debate by Sleepy and Asher. Subject: “Looney: good, good enough, or kinda sucks?” Moderated by EA to ensure kindness. I know there’s a bunch of this down thread but Substack formatting makes it too hard to consume. Plus add in EA E1P explainers mixed with Shaqtin a Fool type video interludes.
Not sure what's up with PHO. They got off Nurkic (and his 19m next year) and took back Cody Martin & Vasa Micic, both around 8mil, both non-guaranteed next year. I can't imagine they will keep either next year, so will they buy them out this year? They would save oodles of cash because of their luxury tax bill to cut players that don't seem to be in their long range plans.
What I am getting at is, that if they cut Micic, I'm giving him a call.
No cap/tax savings *this season* to the Suns if they buy those guys out, unless maybe for some unfathomable reason those players agreed to a buyout amount less than the remaining salary due ... but why would they? All a buy-out would do is open roster spots that have to be re-filled with vet mins, so their tax problem would get worse.
So your argument makes sense for teams that want to improve (assuming the new additions are going to be better than the ones being bought out). Then it doesn't make sense for bad teams to buy out any players. But we see it all the time. Why?
Steph/BP/Jimmy/Dray is your 4 best play makers on the court at the same time. Sure. But on the backside you end up with minutes where there is only Steph or only BP with no secondary play maker which happened several times last night. We survived the Steph-only minutes, bolstered by some defensive plays by Loon and Moody. But when we left BP on an island in the 3rd, Houston started its run.
And Steve announcing that BP is now a starter seems a little silly, because there are only 3 things certain in life: death, taxes and Steve tinkering with the lineups. This concentration of our 4 best play makers as a starting group won't (or shouldn't) last because it steals play makers from lineups later in the game. We should always try to have 2 of these 4 players on the floor at any given time. None of our play makers are of the old-school type, the kind of point guard that doesn't need a secondary play maker.
While it's good to see Steve shake the soda bottle and play BP 39 minutes in a game before the break, BP in the starting lineup isn't the solution for the rest of the season. It's a 48 minute game and they all count the same. With the minutes these guys average, I don't think it's too hard to always have either Curry/BP matched up with JB/Dray for the entirety of the game. I can handle Curry alone in small doses. But leaving BP on an island? Nah.
BP was only on that island for 90 seconds, but it only took 90 seconds for Houston to get momentum back.
I agree. Unless the plan is to bench Hield entirely, I'd keep starting him personally. Not only is it better for his game to play with Curry/Green/Butler to limit his decision making, but Podz is in his best role in a Butler-led second unit. Unless the plan is to really cut the rotation a lot, if you are going to play both of these guys then you should play them in their best roles. Barnes didn't start over Iguodala because he was better than Iguodala.
Hield's weakness is everything but shooting, although lately it has been shooting as well so all he's really offering is the threat of the shot to get the defense's attention. Hopefully after the All-Star break he gets his shot back. But the threat still matters, for instance there is no other player on the team who could cause a defender to leave Curry to an open shot like this:
Last year they tried starting Podz and he just couldn't score the ball enough to take pressure off of Curry. Is it different this time with Butler in there? Hopefully, but against the better teams I could see it still mattering that he's scoring 13.8 points per 36 on an awful 53% TS.
Really my main hope is that the Warriors don't talk themselves into Podz as their starting 2 guard for the next few years and try to get a real starting 2 guard in the offseason. They did that last offseason with Melton and it looked great for the few games Melton was available, hopefully nothing has changed.
Warriors ranked by playoff minutes, in seasons where they made the finals:
Draymond Green 4629, Klay Thompson 4610, Stephen Curry 4206, Andre Iguodala 2912, Shaun Livingston 1793, Kevin Durant 1782, Harrison Barnes 1424, Kevon Looney 1267, Andrew Bogut 984, Andrew Wiggins 767, Jordan Poole 606, Leandro Barbosa 483, David West 396, Festus Ezeli 386, Ian Clark 373, Otto Porter Jr. 371, Quinn Cook 368, JaVale McGee 307, Jordan Bell 279, Marreese Speights 268, Zaza Pachulia 238, Alfonzo McKinnie 235, Nick Young 205, Gary Payton II 203, Patrick McCaw 197, Nemanja Bjelica 150, Jonathan Kuminga 138, DeMarcus Cousins 133, Damion Lee 124, Jonas Jerebko 121, Brandon Rush 117, David Lee 107, Moses Moody 105, James Michael McAdoo 104, Anderson Varejão 93, Matt Barnes 61, Juan Toscano-Anderson 49, Damian Jones 40, Jacob Evans 18, Justin Holiday 11
I’d been looking so much at Steph’s combined playoffs + reg season threes count (4,566) that I’d almost lost track of the fact that he’s closing in on #4,000 in just the regular season: now 3,948. Seems like he should get there pretty easily after the AS break (knocking wood!) even if we give him a bunch of rest games.
Reminder that before Steph, Ray Allen was the all-time king with 2,948.
Come playoff time I really like a top 8 of Steph, Podz, GP2, Moody, Butler, Kuminga, Dray, and Looney. It’s got some young guys who’ve earned it and won’t be in roles they’re not ready for.
But really it’s a mix of what’s worked here in the past and what’s worked around Butler in Miami. That’s pretty interesting.
New thread up!
So why didn't we use him during the Mav game? The game was lost inside the paint. TJD is not a 5 but a 4. Dray body cannot handle playing the 5 anymore.
New thread https://dubnationhq.com/p/explain-jimmy-butler-and-steph-curry
He not a true 5 he's a 4. Post is 7 footer shooting 3's, why? Held no comment.
What happen to TJD? Is he still hurt sure could have use against the Mavs.
He’s currently worse than Post, Looney, and Dray, there’s no minutes available at center for him
I don't even know if he's worse than Post but the current roster composition makes it so Post's shooting is more important than TJD's rim pressuring
Does TJD’s rim pressure positively affect the overall defense more than Looney’s presence? Seems like he often takes himself out of position chasing blocks.
I don't think TJD is better than Looney, I was comparing him to Post
I wasn’t implying that you were. I meant that TJD doesn’t give Kerr a reason on either side of the ball for Kerr to play him.
I’d like to request a special point-counterpoint debate by Sleepy and Asher. Subject: “Looney: good, good enough, or kinda sucks?” Moderated by EA to ensure kindness. I know there’s a bunch of this down thread but Substack formatting makes it too hard to consume. Plus add in EA E1P explainers mixed with Shaqtin a Fool type video interludes.
How much are tickets?
Not sure what's up with PHO. They got off Nurkic (and his 19m next year) and took back Cody Martin & Vasa Micic, both around 8mil, both non-guaranteed next year. I can't imagine they will keep either next year, so will they buy them out this year? They would save oodles of cash because of their luxury tax bill to cut players that don't seem to be in their long range plans.
What I am getting at is, that if they cut Micic, I'm giving him a call.
No cap/tax savings *this season* to the Suns if they buy those guys out, unless maybe for some unfathomable reason those players agreed to a buyout amount less than the remaining salary due ... but why would they? All a buy-out would do is open roster spots that have to be re-filled with vet mins, so their tax problem would get worse.
I've always wondered why teams buy out players.
So your argument makes sense for teams that want to improve (assuming the new additions are going to be better than the ones being bought out). Then it doesn't make sense for bad teams to buy out any players. But we see it all the time. Why?
Ahhh, thanks for that! And for dashing my hopes! ;-))
Steph/BP/Jimmy/Dray is your 4 best play makers on the court at the same time. Sure. But on the backside you end up with minutes where there is only Steph or only BP with no secondary play maker which happened several times last night. We survived the Steph-only minutes, bolstered by some defensive plays by Loon and Moody. But when we left BP on an island in the 3rd, Houston started its run.
And Steve announcing that BP is now a starter seems a little silly, because there are only 3 things certain in life: death, taxes and Steve tinkering with the lineups. This concentration of our 4 best play makers as a starting group won't (or shouldn't) last because it steals play makers from lineups later in the game. We should always try to have 2 of these 4 players on the floor at any given time. None of our play makers are of the old-school type, the kind of point guard that doesn't need a secondary play maker.
While it's good to see Steve shake the soda bottle and play BP 39 minutes in a game before the break, BP in the starting lineup isn't the solution for the rest of the season. It's a 48 minute game and they all count the same. With the minutes these guys average, I don't think it's too hard to always have either Curry/BP matched up with JB/Dray for the entirety of the game. I can handle Curry alone in small doses. But leaving BP on an island? Nah.
BP was only on that island for 90 seconds, but it only took 90 seconds for Houston to get momentum back.
I agree. Unless the plan is to bench Hield entirely, I'd keep starting him personally. Not only is it better for his game to play with Curry/Green/Butler to limit his decision making, but Podz is in his best role in a Butler-led second unit. Unless the plan is to really cut the rotation a lot, if you are going to play both of these guys then you should play them in their best roles. Barnes didn't start over Iguodala because he was better than Iguodala.
Hield's weakness is everything but shooting, although lately it has been shooting as well so all he's really offering is the threat of the shot to get the defense's attention. Hopefully after the All-Star break he gets his shot back. But the threat still matters, for instance there is no other player on the team who could cause a defender to leave Curry to an open shot like this:
https://www.nba.com/stats/events?CFID=&CFPARAMS=&GameEventID=78&GameID=0022400784&Season=2024-25&flag=1&title=MISS%20Curry%203PT%20Jump%20Shot
Last year they tried starting Podz and he just couldn't score the ball enough to take pressure off of Curry. Is it different this time with Butler in there? Hopefully, but against the better teams I could see it still mattering that he's scoring 13.8 points per 36 on an awful 53% TS.
Really my main hope is that the Warriors don't talk themselves into Podz as their starting 2 guard for the next few years and try to get a real starting 2 guard in the offseason. They did that last offseason with Melton and it looked great for the few games Melton was available, hopefully nothing has changed.
When everyone is back, I think it’s pretty easy to start BP, stagger him out for rest in the 2nd half of Q1 before Curry rests in Q2.
He’s been mixing it up a little more, but Kerr’s traditionally liked to have Draymond go where ever goes. He may want to do that with Jimmy and BP.
For non-Steph minutes, maybe BP, Jimmy, Loondawg, Moody or JK, Buddy or GP2.
Dubs 7-0 in games Moses Moody starts! LMAO Stay ready, babe.
Will watch replay of the game but I guess I have to skip half of the 4th to lessen my wear and tear...
Apologies if this got shared before
Stephen Curry's 10 Best Plays? The Professor Decides
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JzT6vfS9MI
Warriors ranked by playoff minutes, in seasons where they made the finals:
Draymond Green 4629, Klay Thompson 4610, Stephen Curry 4206, Andre Iguodala 2912, Shaun Livingston 1793, Kevin Durant 1782, Harrison Barnes 1424, Kevon Looney 1267, Andrew Bogut 984, Andrew Wiggins 767, Jordan Poole 606, Leandro Barbosa 483, David West 396, Festus Ezeli 386, Ian Clark 373, Otto Porter Jr. 371, Quinn Cook 368, JaVale McGee 307, Jordan Bell 279, Marreese Speights 268, Zaza Pachulia 238, Alfonzo McKinnie 235, Nick Young 205, Gary Payton II 203, Patrick McCaw 197, Nemanja Bjelica 150, Jonathan Kuminga 138, DeMarcus Cousins 133, Damion Lee 124, Jonas Jerebko 121, Brandon Rush 117, David Lee 107, Moses Moody 105, James Michael McAdoo 104, Anderson Varejão 93, Matt Barnes 61, Juan Toscano-Anderson 49, Damian Jones 40, Jacob Evans 18, Justin Holiday 11
Rick Barry era excluded?
Current dynasty only.
Shaqtin' a Fool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iznNMpdoj28
#4: Kevon Looney's multiple pump fakes
#3: Bucks missed shots
#2: PJ Washington's defense
#1: Joel Embiid's questionable decision in the final seconds of the 76ers-Raptors game
The PJWashington defense is prize worthy
Feels like they’ve leveled up the production on Shaqtin A Fool lately
sparrows cannot understand the vision of an Eagle
/🦆
Why a duck?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kHMrLpDHXc0
I’d been looking so much at Steph’s combined playoffs + reg season threes count (4,566) that I’d almost lost track of the fact that he’s closing in on #4,000 in just the regular season: now 3,948. Seems like he should get there pretty easily after the AS break (knocking wood!) even if we give him a bunch of rest games.
Reminder that before Steph, Ray Allen was the all-time king with 2,948.
Come playoff time I really like a top 8 of Steph, Podz, GP2, Moody, Butler, Kuminga, Dray, and Looney. It’s got some young guys who’ve earned it and won’t be in roles they’re not ready for.
But really it’s a mix of what’s worked here in the past and what’s worked around Butler in Miami. That’s pretty interesting.
This is a long-winded way of saying “Keep Buddy on the bench!” and I agree. 😁
Hopefully Gui is 9th and Hield is on the margins
And Dray, lol
Ha, yes, edited. He was counted in the 8, but not written out.