This!! This is the moment!! I blow this horn for thee, and for thee, and for every true Warrior fan. Will you heed the summons??
Now, now when fortunes are low, is the hour when we fans are most needed. Clear is the call, will we answer it?
The wins comes few and far between. Player morale sinks into the dreaded abyss. The coaching staff seeks answers and finds none. Injuries upon the battlefield are mounting. The front office is besieged.
Now, Now! my compatriots, now is our finest hour!! Rise up from your phones and spur thyselves on, forward, onward all the way even to your laptops. Clear the throat with your finest mead, and pour forth your most heartfelt posts!!!! This is that moment!! You are being called!! Will you shrink into the shadows, disclaiming any knowledge of this team that has been the lifeblood of your very existence for lo these many years? Will you of a sudden feign to be Celtics fans, like TwoRing, may the post five down from mine forever be cursed? Will you forget your team in its hour of greatest need?
Eric Paschall on how he couldn’t play with Steph because he wasn’t at the point in his career where he could change his mindset from being a scorer to fitting into the system so he asked to come off the bench.
Translation: "I couldn't shoot, I couldn't pass, and I couldn't defend, but I was pretty good at bulling my way into the paint to score until defenses figured me out, so that's all I wanted to do. Why would I want to learn from champions to improve my game? I got three seasons in the NBA, and now I play in beautiful Tuscany."
I wonder if the Twolves would move Naz Reid? They are 22-21 with no 1st round picks for the next 4 years. Maybe a 1st round pick would entice them to give him up.
Aside from the fact that it's the Twolves who are not noted for their trading acumen, why would they want to get rid of him? He's reaching his prime, he's on a team-friendly salary ($42 million/3 years), is the reigning 6th man of the year, and is shooting over 40% from three.
Here's a break in case of emergency trade. So, I'm not trying to trade Dray, this is just a mental exercise and I don't want anyone to get hurt.
Dray to DET Vuc to GSW Tobias to CHI
This is not the final trade, just the foundation pieces.
Detroit. Detroit is playing well. But they could improve in D and they need an auxiliary play maker. It would be a great 'coming home' to Michigan story for Dray. He could sunset his career as the mentor to an up and coming team, getting paid as much for his mind and leadership abilities as for his slowly deteriorating body. Moving of Tobias makes more room for some of the younger more exciting prospects. If Dray was ever traded, outside of joinng LeBron, I think this would be a great cherry on the top of a storied career.
GSW. We know how much we are dying for a stretch big. Well, here he is. The lane will part like the Red Sea for Kuminga and for Steph. And, even though he is the same age as Draymond, I think he will age a little better. I could see resigning him after next year and get him to finish his career with GSW. He relies on size and skill at this point rather than athleticism, so having a guy like that around can't hurt. And not to through shade, but this is a little 'addition by subtraction'. Aside from everything Dray does, there is a down side. There are many ways in which his presence complicates things for other players, the coach and even the front office. This would represent the end of the Draymond-centric offense.
CHI. Chicago has zero front court depth. I know they are tanking and want to get off salary, but you still need players and having a vet in the front court who knows the East ain't all bad. There would have to be other assets going to CHI from DET and GSW, or additional player swaps (like Loon for Jalen Smith) to make this attractive to Chicago. But that's not too hard to do once you have the main pieces of the trade worked out.
No brainer for DET. One giant spoonful of foul tasting medicine for GSW that would likely make you feel better in a short time. Moving furniture on the Titanic for Chicago.
Hiding behind plausible deniability by saying he ain't the GM making the moves because he knows the replies won't be favourable. The ol' basketball discussion classic.
Vucevic is 34 years old, 1 year older than Dray, 2 years older than Gobert, 3 years older than AD, 4 years older than Nurkic and Capela, 5 years older than Jokic. There is no other starter-level center in the NBA his age or older.
He's going to fall off precipitously soon, maybe already later this year, maybe next year, best case the year after. He makes sense if we try to make a serious push THIS season, but he's not a building block for even the intermediate term.
Front office? I have no issues with the FO. They had a mandate to get under the 1st apron in order to reset the team's financials and they had to cut ties with a statue vet. I compare this work to Mel Gibson in Leathal Weapon working his way out of a straightjacket - which ended with him having to "relocate" his dislocated shoulder. A painful experience, but a necessary one if we were going to free ourselves from the death grip of the new CBA.
I still think Podz and TJD are NBA players. Role players, but for where they were drafted, that is a win. They executed a record breaking trade (# of teams involved) to acquire Melton, Heild & Slow Mo, who were all legit NBA players with resumes. They traded a player who could not play for a PG having one of his best seasons after Melton went down. They are about $5 bucks and a side of fries from the 1st Apron and, as yet, remain incapable of filling the 15th roster spot.
I think the shared comments of Curry-Dray-Kerr lately are almost an admission of guilt. What I mean is that they all shared the belief that the front office has done the best job it could do under the circumstances (which they all did after 15 games) and if there has been any failure to perform up to expectations, it is falling more on the coach and the players. If the front office was really screwing up, you would expect this core to be frustrated and ticked off, like Ted Lasso when Rebecca traded Jamie Tartt. But these guys are showing emotion beyond frustration. They are showing realization with a shot of depression. There is a lot of introspection going on here and, if there is a positive to come out of this, it appears it is coupled with taking responsibility. They are wearing their shared responsibility in how things are going and they have been wearing it publicly.
Although they may feel like there aren't any answers and it may feel like a dark place, they finally see that a) there is a problem, that b) they are part of the problem and that c) true change comes from within. This whole thing starts and stops with these 3 guys. Nothing will change until these 3 find a way to realign themselves with the present. No trade, no FA acquisition, no buyout market addition, no rookie making a big leap will do anything to change where this team is today. And based on those comments we all heard, to a man, I believe Steph, Dray & Steve all know that to be true.
Keep faith gentlemen, if you can get to the other side, you will find Joy again. It's just a B----h in the hallway.
Add to this, the FO drafted Post, who, while certainly not the second coming of Jokic, is an interesting prospect for a #52 pick — especially for a team that needs size and spacing.
At the risk of incurring the wroth of the community: I sneakily like the Celtics.
They're not my team, but if it was them and OKC in the finals, I'd be rooting for the Celtics.
Tatum seems to be a very likable guy, took the benching in the Olympics well, and there are any number of guys on that team I actively like (Horford, Holiday, White). They play smart team basketball with ferocious defense. Very worthy champions, and not a bad apple in the bunch. I can live with that.
Depending on your point of view, the Holiday trade could be viewed either as a missed opportunity for us (bc there was talk of our getting involved, using Chris Paul as matching salary), or a cautionary tale against trading future picks (because one of the FRPs Boston used to complete the deal was ours, from the '24 draft).
[Incidentally, that '24 FRP became Bub Carrington, whom we saw the other night.]
Feels like the team may have missed whatever window existed to pull off a meaningful trade. Now they're saying they may wait until the offseason—fair enough, given the current options, but I just don't see why they think they can outbid OKC and/or Houston for a player of the calibre they need at this point.
I guess the Clippers being good, and Philly being bad, could diminish OKC's war chest for this year, right? But then it might all come down to Phoenix, and that's a bit of a catch-22: they owe their pick to the Rockets, so the worse they play, the the better HOU's trade package becomes; but if they turn it around and win too many games, their stars (esp. Durant and/or Booker) are less likely to be available this summer...
That's not really different than where we've been for a long time. For any marquee player, we just don't have a package that is going to interest anyone.
Too much of our money was in Steph, Klay, Dray to have a meaningful fourth player to offer (KD, yeah, but that wasn't going to happen). And our picks were lousy.
Now our picks are less lousy, but we still don't have any player we are willing to trade who is going to interest anyone if both Wiggs and JK are off limits. So, we're just looking at tweaks.
Personally, I'm OK with that. Nothing about this season (yet) suggests that we are capable of anything better than making the playoffs and getting beat in the 1st round. I'd rather just try to improve the roster we have, and identify any targets that we might want to go after in the summer, when we'll be out from under the dreaded hard cap (Looney's and GPII's contracts are expirings, too).
If we're at the phase of preparing for the post-Steph future, so be it.
He's scoring at well below league average efficiency (.553 TS) despite often being open and WIDE open. Could be that his teammates are more interested in winning games than in going out of their way to get Klay going?
We’re rarely able to create open looks nowadays but watching us brick the ones we actually do get is infuriating. We either miss it or fumble the catch and allow the defense to recover. Execution is just sloppy and Im not really talking about this game because getting whooped by the defending champs at full strength is expected but we haven’t been sharp offensively in a really long time outside of one out of body experience every now and then.
Lol...These days, that ''one out of body experience every now and then'' is fan-sustaining, as we remember what DUBS BALL...was, and, for me, what it would still be if we kept our OGs intact/kept KLAY while the young 'uns are growing...
If JK and Podz come back and regain their upward trajectory, and Dray comes back soon, and Steph stays healthy enough to play WELL, then maybe we’re #onepieceaway. But that’s a tall ask, and no worthwhile pieces are available for what we would need to trade to make it worthwhile on our end.
Started zooming through my recording when they were lifeless down 15 at the end of the first… and it didn’t get better at any of the time points I paused at… once GP2 missed that bunny layup early, and then Wiggs missed another one half way through the quarter, and dudes missing hella wide open 3s… and a Looney put back on an airballed 3 was the first made FG in 5 minutes (5 minutes that included a Buddy Hield 1/3 from the line after being fouled on a 3PA)… yeah, it was not gonna be an ok night.
>once GP2 missed that bunny layup early, and then Wiggs missed another one half way through the quarter, and dudes missing hella wide open 3s… and a Looney put back on an airballed 3 was the first made FG in 5 minutes
This!! This is the moment!! I blow this horn for thee, and for thee, and for every true Warrior fan. Will you heed the summons??
Now, now when fortunes are low, is the hour when we fans are most needed. Clear is the call, will we answer it?
The wins comes few and far between. Player morale sinks into the dreaded abyss. The coaching staff seeks answers and finds none. Injuries upon the battlefield are mounting. The front office is besieged.
Now, Now! my compatriots, now is our finest hour!! Rise up from your phones and spur thyselves on, forward, onward all the way even to your laptops. Clear the throat with your finest mead, and pour forth your most heartfelt posts!!!! This is that moment!! You are being called!! Will you shrink into the shadows, disclaiming any knowledge of this team that has been the lifeblood of your very existence for lo these many years? Will you of a sudden feign to be Celtics fans, like TwoRing, may the post five down from mine forever be cursed? Will you forget your team in its hour of greatest need?
Or will you Heed the Summons?
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFB487SMrV1/?img_index=1&igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Eric Paschall on how he couldn’t play with Steph because he wasn’t at the point in his career where he could change his mindset from being a scorer to fitting into the system so he asked to come off the bench.
Translation: "I couldn't shoot, I couldn't pass, and I couldn't defend, but I was pretty good at bulling my way into the paint to score until defenses figured me out, so that's all I wanted to do. Why would I want to learn from champions to improve my game? I got three seasons in the NBA, and now I play in beautiful Tuscany."
I wonder if the Twolves would move Naz Reid? They are 22-21 with no 1st round picks for the next 4 years. Maybe a 1st round pick would entice them to give him up.
Aside from the fact that it's the Twolves who are not noted for their trading acumen, why would they want to get rid of him? He's reaching his prime, he's on a team-friendly salary ($42 million/3 years), is the reigning 6th man of the year, and is shooting over 40% from three.
Since he's only 25 I doubt they would move him. They aren't in full rebuild..just missing a couple pieces.
Here's a break in case of emergency trade. So, I'm not trying to trade Dray, this is just a mental exercise and I don't want anyone to get hurt.
Dray to DET Vuc to GSW Tobias to CHI
This is not the final trade, just the foundation pieces.
Detroit. Detroit is playing well. But they could improve in D and they need an auxiliary play maker. It would be a great 'coming home' to Michigan story for Dray. He could sunset his career as the mentor to an up and coming team, getting paid as much for his mind and leadership abilities as for his slowly deteriorating body. Moving of Tobias makes more room for some of the younger more exciting prospects. If Dray was ever traded, outside of joinng LeBron, I think this would be a great cherry on the top of a storied career.
GSW. We know how much we are dying for a stretch big. Well, here he is. The lane will part like the Red Sea for Kuminga and for Steph. And, even though he is the same age as Draymond, I think he will age a little better. I could see resigning him after next year and get him to finish his career with GSW. He relies on size and skill at this point rather than athleticism, so having a guy like that around can't hurt. And not to through shade, but this is a little 'addition by subtraction'. Aside from everything Dray does, there is a down side. There are many ways in which his presence complicates things for other players, the coach and even the front office. This would represent the end of the Draymond-centric offense.
CHI. Chicago has zero front court depth. I know they are tanking and want to get off salary, but you still need players and having a vet in the front court who knows the East ain't all bad. There would have to be other assets going to CHI from DET and GSW, or additional player swaps (like Loon for Jalen Smith) to make this attractive to Chicago. But that's not too hard to do once you have the main pieces of the trade worked out.
No brainer for DET. One giant spoonful of foul tasting medicine for GSW that would likely make you feel better in a short time. Moving furniture on the Titanic for Chicago.
BJ: I'm not trying to trade Dray, so here's my trade ...
The trade: DRAY! (... for something worth less than Dray making it a bad trade, to boot)
Hiding behind plausible deniability by saying he ain't the GM making the moves because he knows the replies won't be favourable. The ol' basketball discussion classic.
Vucevic is 34 years old, 1 year older than Dray, 2 years older than Gobert, 3 years older than AD, 4 years older than Nurkic and Capela, 5 years older than Jokic. There is no other starter-level center in the NBA his age or older.
He's going to fall off precipitously soon, maybe already later this year, maybe next year, best case the year after. He makes sense if we try to make a serious push THIS season, but he's not a building block for even the intermediate term.
Front office? I have no issues with the FO. They had a mandate to get under the 1st apron in order to reset the team's financials and they had to cut ties with a statue vet. I compare this work to Mel Gibson in Leathal Weapon working his way out of a straightjacket - which ended with him having to "relocate" his dislocated shoulder. A painful experience, but a necessary one if we were going to free ourselves from the death grip of the new CBA.
I still think Podz and TJD are NBA players. Role players, but for where they were drafted, that is a win. They executed a record breaking trade (# of teams involved) to acquire Melton, Heild & Slow Mo, who were all legit NBA players with resumes. They traded a player who could not play for a PG having one of his best seasons after Melton went down. They are about $5 bucks and a side of fries from the 1st Apron and, as yet, remain incapable of filling the 15th roster spot.
I think the shared comments of Curry-Dray-Kerr lately are almost an admission of guilt. What I mean is that they all shared the belief that the front office has done the best job it could do under the circumstances (which they all did after 15 games) and if there has been any failure to perform up to expectations, it is falling more on the coach and the players. If the front office was really screwing up, you would expect this core to be frustrated and ticked off, like Ted Lasso when Rebecca traded Jamie Tartt. But these guys are showing emotion beyond frustration. They are showing realization with a shot of depression. There is a lot of introspection going on here and, if there is a positive to come out of this, it appears it is coupled with taking responsibility. They are wearing their shared responsibility in how things are going and they have been wearing it publicly.
Although they may feel like there aren't any answers and it may feel like a dark place, they finally see that a) there is a problem, that b) they are part of the problem and that c) true change comes from within. This whole thing starts and stops with these 3 guys. Nothing will change until these 3 find a way to realign themselves with the present. No trade, no FA acquisition, no buyout market addition, no rookie making a big leap will do anything to change where this team is today. And based on those comments we all heard, to a man, I believe Steph, Dray & Steve all know that to be true.
Keep faith gentlemen, if you can get to the other side, you will find Joy again. It's just a B----h in the hallway.
Add to this, the FO drafted Post, who, while certainly not the second coming of Jokic, is an interesting prospect for a #52 pick — especially for a team that needs size and spacing.
At the risk of incurring the wroth of the community: I sneakily like the Celtics.
They're not my team, but if it was them and OKC in the finals, I'd be rooting for the Celtics.
Tatum seems to be a very likable guy, took the benching in the Olympics well, and there are any number of guys on that team I actively like (Horford, Holiday, White). They play smart team basketball with ferocious defense. Very worthy champions, and not a bad apple in the bunch. I can live with that.
WHAT?????????? It's like I don't even know who you are any more.
You go wash yo mouf out
Celtics. f'n smh
Wait for my 'Rondeau de Cleveland Cavaliers' epic poem in three parts. Coming next week!
Mostly agree, especially about Horford, Holiday, and White.
Also I like how they lost to us in the '22 Finals :)
I still can't believe they got Holiday & White on the same damn team! I mean, it's not like us getting KD, but wow. They are so stacked.
They grabbed Porzingis, too. Yes he gets hurt a lot but when he's in there, he's formidable. And to get him AND Holiday the same year — yikes!
I know, right?
Depending on your point of view, the Holiday trade could be viewed either as a missed opportunity for us (bc there was talk of our getting involved, using Chris Paul as matching salary), or a cautionary tale against trading future picks (because one of the FRPs Boston used to complete the deal was ours, from the '24 draft).
[Incidentally, that '24 FRP became Bub Carrington, whom we saw the other night.]
Feels like the team may have missed whatever window existed to pull off a meaningful trade. Now they're saying they may wait until the offseason—fair enough, given the current options, but I just don't see why they think they can outbid OKC and/or Houston for a player of the calibre they need at this point.
I guess the Clippers being good, and Philly being bad, could diminish OKC's war chest for this year, right? But then it might all come down to Phoenix, and that's a bit of a catch-22: they owe their pick to the Rockets, so the worse they play, the the better HOU's trade package becomes; but if they turn it around and win too many games, their stars (esp. Durant and/or Booker) are less likely to be available this summer...
That's not really different than where we've been for a long time. For any marquee player, we just don't have a package that is going to interest anyone.
Too much of our money was in Steph, Klay, Dray to have a meaningful fourth player to offer (KD, yeah, but that wasn't going to happen). And our picks were lousy.
Now our picks are less lousy, but we still don't have any player we are willing to trade who is going to interest anyone if both Wiggs and JK are off limits. So, we're just looking at tweaks.
Personally, I'm OK with that. Nothing about this season (yet) suggests that we are capable of anything better than making the playoffs and getting beat in the 1st round. I'd rather just try to improve the roster we have, and identify any targets that we might want to go after in the summer, when we'll be out from under the dreaded hard cap (Looney's and GPII's contracts are expirings, too).
If we're at the phase of preparing for the post-Steph future, so be it.
Lol. *cries*
r/Mavericks
8 hr. ago
u/taygads
Klay has been open, in some cases WIDE open, but ignored 19 times over the last 3 games.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mavericks/comments/1i63q6x/klay_has_been_open_in_some_cases_wide_open_but/
He's scoring at well below league average efficiency (.553 TS) despite often being open and WIDE open. Could be that his teammates are more interested in winning games than in going out of their way to get Klay going?
Shhh... dinohealth might hear you talk about KLAY that way, and then you're in BIG TROUBLE.
I mean they aren't winning games though.
True, but that doesn’t (necessarily) mean they would be winning games if they passed it to Klay more.
This is why Mavs need Luka back. He has a great synergy with Klay.
Also, the Mavs fans in the thread say that Lively is great at finding Klay open.
I mean, the Mavs need Luka back because he's their franchise player and a top 5 guy in the league.
I don't think it's gonna be our year. I know. I'm as shocked as you are.
Bulls beat the Clippers 112-99. The 3rd quarter was the most important quarter of the game, as the Bulls outscored the Clippers 36-16.
And with that, the East teams have gone 5-0 against the West tonight.
It's like the West is begging us to wake the fuck up.
Today, I can use memory wipe for more than just this game.
Sigh!
i stayed iff TV all day today just for that reason and I guess, in retrospect, not watching the DUBS today was just fine!
I was working on my lawn mower and as far as I know, there was no game today.
hi guys!! i missed the ball game hahaha!! totes jelly if u got to see it!! was it super fun?
We’re rarely able to create open looks nowadays but watching us brick the ones we actually do get is infuriating. We either miss it or fumble the catch and allow the defense to recover. Execution is just sloppy and Im not really talking about this game because getting whooped by the defending champs at full strength is expected but we haven’t been sharp offensively in a really long time outside of one out of body experience every now and then.
Lol...These days, that ''one out of body experience every now and then'' is fan-sustaining, as we remember what DUBS BALL...was, and, for me, what it would still be if we kept our OGs intact/kept KLAY while the young 'uns are growing...
We created some. They just didn’t look open in retrospect cuz of all the bricks.
If JK and Podz come back and regain their upward trajectory, and Dray comes back soon, and Steph stays healthy enough to play WELL, then maybe we’re #onepieceaway. But that’s a tall ask, and no worthwhile pieces are available for what we would need to trade to make it worthwhile on our end.
Started zooming through my recording when they were lifeless down 15 at the end of the first… and it didn’t get better at any of the time points I paused at… once GP2 missed that bunny layup early, and then Wiggs missed another one half way through the quarter, and dudes missing hella wide open 3s… and a Looney put back on an airballed 3 was the first made FG in 5 minutes (5 minutes that included a Buddy Hield 1/3 from the line after being fouled on a 3PA)… yeah, it was not gonna be an ok night.
>once GP2 missed that bunny layup early, and then Wiggs missed another one half way through the quarter, and dudes missing hella wide open 3s… and a Looney put back on an airballed 3 was the first made FG in 5 minutes
Nice summary of the season
So, why don't you give the guy a like, Cap? I agree with you, too...