People... RELAX

Guys,

Last year at this point we were 11-9 Completely healthy... then 11-11, 12-12, 13-13,114-14,15-15,16-16,18-18,19-19,20-20 before fully pulling away.

We have new players and are weathering the storm without EP and are 10-6 when AD plays. The West is crazy competitive this season so this years 10-10 isn't the 10-10 of the past.

So we have had some ups and downs. This is nothing new.

62 games left. Relax and give it some time to come together, wait for us to be at full strength and maybe Dell will pull a Wing out of his ******.

Until then, we can beat anyone we match up with in the West outside of the Warriors and this season with the current roster is FAR from over.

Get some more butts in the SKC. Dude are scoring at an unreal clip at home.

Geaux Pels

Can we ban people for being logical?

Get out outta here!

I wouldn't panic, but with Rondo and Cousins gone and Payton and Randle here that's a key swap to the core. Even though with Cousins eventual injury I think the talent level is tick better (lateral move at worse). The biggest thing that concerns me about this year is how balanced the other teams in WC are.

Agree no call for panic, but ample cause for concern. We are at the quarter pole and rounding into the meat of the season. Ideally, you'd like to have your identity established by this juncture, but we are still very inconsistent and streaky. Of course, injuries play a part in this. But most teams deal with them and it's genuinely disappointing that (so far at least) we can't adjust better to playing without Davis or without Payton. I understand fully struggling against upper tier teams in the West in their gyms when we have key guys out. But this latest four-game dive against the East is depressing. I thought this was an early chance to get well and start building our record with the hopes of being a top-4 seed. Instead we slipped down under .500 again.

It's going to be a tight race in the West. All these games matter. Our defense right now is terrible and we continue to to turn the ball over at a rapid clip. Worse, we seem to be in one of those funks where we play with low energy, especially at the start of the game. It's really on Davis and Holiday to lead the team out of the doldrums. Jrue has to stop being so careless with the ball and Davis needs to step up his game, particularly on the defensive side. We dilly dally around much longer and we're going to be behind the Eight Ball come April.

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Originally Posted by new city champ

Agree no call for panic, but ample cause for concern.

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Basically my view. We aren't doomed, but at some point we need to get it together, and it would be for the best if that was before January.

3.5 more years of Gentry.

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Originally Posted by AstroFire

3.5 more years of Gentry.

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God help us.

Never would have bet that Payton would be so important to this team. We're pretty good with him. Horrible without him. I think Jrue running the point is really a problem he needs to be at the 2.

We have more problems but that's glaring.

As others have said, I’m not sure Gentry is the one to take us to the promised land. It would be different if he was newly appointed and feeling his way around the team, but he has had plenty of time with most of our core players.

He doesn’t seem like a very versatile coach. He calls great plays out of timeouts and has the team playing decently in transition, but we are very poor in our half court sets. His system was probably the biggest thing holding us back when Boogie was here and healthy. The fact that his style RELIES on a true PG worries me. Top managers would have probably found an effective way to run the offense in Payton’s absence. Let’s just hope everyone is healthy for the playoffs (if we make it).

Our team defense is poor. Our help defense is usually late. We give up way too many easy baskets and open 3’s. At some point you have to look at the coach. We can blame the players “They have no BB IQ Dawg,” but I don’t think Moore and Nico became poor defenders over night. Two defensive first teamers in AD and Jrue should not be struggling this much on the defensive side of the ball.

I will say the players could put forth more effort, but Gentry needs to find a way to get the best out of these guys on both sides of the ball. We are lacking atm

Truthfully, it's really hard to relax when the team plays so poorly with the franchise star getting pressured to leave from outside influences. I don't know why everyone here is so optimistic, Davis owes us nothing. Just like Chris Paul owed us nothing.

John Calipari

Gentry isn't the problem IMO, the offense is running fine.

It's the defence that's all the issue and that's on Erman

Correction on something I posted earlier . I made a slight mistake.Last year of contract is performance based so maybe we get only 2 more years of Gentry

https://www.thebirdwrites.com/2018/6...do-finch-erman

in a team sport with 15 players and multiple coaches plus an entire organization behind them all, the idea that any one single person is to blame is overly simplistic. it also is pretty boring to read and discuss because it doesn't really identify or discuss the real issues, and results in people throwing around coach names like a new coach would just fix it all.

To offer something else out there as a discussion, what does everyone think this teams "identity" is? If someone came along and asked "what is the current New Orleans brand of basketball about?", what would you say? are they offensive monsters, defensive guns? do you have a nickname for it - pace n space, grit n grind, steals n feels, oops n alley oops. It may not be a word or phrase, it could be individual focus points is easier to call out as a start. pace would certainly be at the tip of the tongue, I also see other insights and comments from 42 around rebounding (with Kumar asking AD the hard hitting questions around the offensive boards, and them having a goal of 12-14 a game I think it was). Is it constant movement and passing? Defensive stalwarts?

Its been swirling around in the noggin for a little while, and I don't really have an answer. I've watched the team this season and there isn't really something I can put my finger on and say "that's what they do, that's who they are, night in night out". We seem to see glimpses of various things but that is about it. If anything it's a consistent inconsistency. Initially I thought, this is a team that fights hard on the defensive end for stops and drives the energy and offense out of this. I'm pretty sure Gentry and the team have spoken to this (it's not me saying I came up with it). but is it? We've seen plenty of Verónica passes (see: bullfighting) and sleepy defense, ball watching and no boxing out. I seem to recall also when boogie was about, there were comments made about defense not being important anymore it was all about the offense. could be nothing.

Are they being asked to do so many different things of focus, that it makes it difficult to maintain that consistent level of play? Over thinking, or over complicating it all and just throwing themselves out of order. Me personally I always think people over complicate things. So why not get back to basics? Could this team play an entire game locking in on defense for all 4 quarters? and then maintain that over more than 1 game? I don't even think I'd give a rats if we lost and only scored 60 points. if they could show that consistency on one or two points of focus, then that's the groundwork to build upon for a team identity.

I imagine people will talk to personnel and injuries, which is fine and may spur discussion back upstream, but if we can't define what this teams identity is (or aims to be) then how do you know what personnel is really needed? Or how do you get guys to buy into something if they aren't sure what it really is? Anyway, mostly rambling but I'm just interested to see what other people think.

Lack of ball handlers is killing the team. You can see Jrue getting more and more worn down having to be primary ball handler, defend the other teams best player, score himself etc etc. Mentally he's exhausted, which is leading to all these turnovers he's having lately.

This isn't going to get better until we address the point guard problem. No one else on the team is remotely capable of running the point except Frazier who is a liability at everything else (outside of Payton obvs who is out for another month)

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Originally Posted by WildlifeAirGrp

John Calipari

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Rick Pitino much cheaper right now.