I'll say it again the biggest problem with this team is they play zero defense
Only the kings and blazers are worse
Lillard is just so good he bails Portland out
The 2 stars ingram and zion need to take the lead on defense
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I'll say it again the biggest problem with this team is they play zero defense
Only the kings and blazers are worse
Lillard is just so good he bails Portland out
The 2 stars ingram and zion need to take the lead on defense
Last edited by Speakthetruth; 04-08-2021 at 01:59 PM.
What bothered me the most is they brought in players that would hinder the development of the younger guys. People tried to say that they would be vet leaders, but not playing 30 minutes a game. I would have loved to start Jax and NAW from day one. I could almost guarantee the record would be better or at least the same. Jax is better than Adams and Kira and NAW have been as good if not better than Bledsoe. Bledsoe had a good game yesterday, but I?m assuming that?s a one time event. It?s just mind boggling how they keep on trying to speed things up by slowing things down. You can?t develop players when the locker room has guys that clearly do not want to be a part of it. Every year people think progress is made but somehow the Pels finish with a below 500 record. If you ask me, that?s not development. Basketball is not an individual sport.Originally Posted by MichaelMcNamara
i get people saying the adams trade was bad in their opinion....thats fine....saying jax is better than adams right now is just not true at all....
I dont agree with that. Starting a guy who isnt ready could destroy his confidence and/or reinforce bad habits. I am not a fan of that unless they are an elite prospect.
I am a fan of bringing in vets to start ahead of them and mentor but you dont have to give up assets for those guys, and the smart teams get assets for those guys. THAT is the issue.
@mcnamara247
LOL
Draymond Green on Kevin Durant's "The ETCs" podcast: "They soft as hell. I've found myself trying to talk sh*t to some of these young dudes that won't talk. And they're like trying to be a friend. That's what these young dudes do nowadays. I don't understand it."
— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) April 8, 2021
Absolutely!!
Management has no idea how to build around Zion.
1. In year one they opted to pickup Utah's placeholder at PF to play center next to the team's newly acquired cornerstone.
Sam Quin of 247 Sports had this to say about Favors when the trade was made:
"Favors is an old-school power forward. He is not a rim-protector, so he struggles to play center on defense, and he doesn’t really stretch the floor, so keeping him on the floor offensively is a challenge at power forward. Favors is the dreaded tweener."
The cost to the franchise for this mistake? Two second round draft picks ('21 and '23, both via GS), so we haven't even to begun to pay for him yet. Let that sink in. So where is Favors today? Back where he started. We were absolutely fleeced by the Jazz.
2. In year one we also had a player who expressed an interest in remaining in New Orleans, Julius Randle. After enjoying the the best year in his career the year before, he and his wife were ready to sign up. Julius would have been a more reasonable sidekick to Zion and BI than what we've 'enjoyed'. But we let him walk, offer-less, and with no remuneration at all. Se La Vie!!!
3. Trajan found Nikola Melli 5,000 miles away in Europe. Christian Wood was in our gym working out with the team. Had we waved half the money we waved at Melli, Wood would be a Pelican today (he was just looking for a home to stick). Instead, Melli is history, and Wood is elsewhere on the brink of stardom.
4. In year one we recognized that we needed shooting. So we must have contacted the folks at AARP and they suggested a two year deal with the declining JJ Redick. We leaped at the opportunity and happily coughed up 13.5MM per year for two years for his services (Is there any doubt that some Pelican RFA will be matched this summer).
5. To their credit, management initially negotiated a good deal for Jrue Holiday this year, but then screwed themselves by letting OKC unload Steven Adams on their terms to the Pelicans. I find it very difficult to criticize Adams' play as his play is representative of the NBA I grew up with, but this isn't the 1980's or 1990's, so....
Today's premier centers are not named Laimbeer, Jabbar, Parish, Olajuwon, Shaq, Ewing, or even Whittington. Today's five has to face the basket and display the quickness necessary to defend in space. Just the other night we were torched by Kelly Olynyk because our "bigs" are so feeble defensively in space. Is there a need for me to say that when our 5's are totally neglected by defenses that another defender clogs the lane making life more difficult for # 1 (and #14 for that matter).
How we ever got taken by OKC defies logic. Don't forget, that Adams also cost the Pelicans their best defender not named Holiday, too...Kendrich Williams.
6. Should I even mention the trade of the # 4 pick in the 2019 draft for the 8th and 17th picks. No I think I won't.
Although I wasn't thrilled with the hiring of SVG, I have to be real. This mess is Griff's and Trajan's. I'll wait until summer to ask for management's heads; but then again, I'm a softy.
Last edited by As I See It; 04-08-2021 at 03:53 PM.
for context-
KD asked Draymond if he wants to coach when he's done playing. Draymond's response: "I don't think I will. The lack of competitiveness in players bothers me more than anything. I don't know how I would handle that as a coach." https://t.co/mpfQmGRMMr
— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) April 8, 2021
Yeah for real, these new kids are always trying to be friends. They're the type to cry on the phone in the parking lot after a finals loss to try and recruit other superstars to come and save them, rather than truly believing in the spirit of competition. Draymond would never be so buddy-buddy with the other teams.
Basketball.
lol..i like it lol.....
its just crazy how people forget their own stuff lol smdh...
Can't disagree. Griffin put such a premium on the need for veterans as "culture builders" (unlike, say, Memphis) that he over paid for their services and neglected other needs on the roster. I'm ok with the formula (though I don't think it's essential), but Griffin was not a value shopper. It's almost like the blank-check assurance granted by Gayle B spilled over into the talent evaluation process.
Worse, the veterans Griffin brought in didn't really inject the maturity, IQ and grit into Pels culture that Griffin claimed they would nor did they help the team compete for the post-season right away despite efforts by the league to help the Pelicans along. In short, Griffin got very little for his (or Gayle's) money on the talent front. Now we are left with a mish-mash of a roster that can't do the two things most essential in the modern game--shoot the 3 and defend the 3--and it's killed us all year...
Contributor
It's like everyone saying "Kids these days." Hell, people back in Jordan's era would say Draymond is soft for being a 3pt shooting big or something absurd.
Everything is relative.
Absolutely. The game changes over time, in terms of on-court play but also the culture surrounding it. People whining about the kids these days or the softness of the modern game or the death of the midrange or whatever the latest old-man-yells-at-cloud story is are just stuck in the mud.
I can agree with this, but as a Pelicans fan, seeing the lack of communication, accountability, and defensive intensity followed by "fit wears" celebration after tough losses just don't groove with me me. Hell, my little twin brothers who are 21( which is the current generation) hate the players "easy going all shucks" quiet good guy nature of this team because the by product is complacency and majority focusing on offensive highlight reels instead of prioritizing what ever it takes to win games.
Draymond sucks at communicating, but it's a reason why it's hard to filter out at least 5 alphas or vocal leaders in this draft class.
CAW CAW!!!
-Founder and valuable member of the Caw Caw Boyz-
There is a reason why young teams do not win championships.
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Yes the pelicans have practiced poor asset management but we still have plenty. The only thing that really matters from a Basketball ops standpoint is the only thing that ever mattered for small market teams: Nailing your draft picks. Which we haven't done yet. Trying to accumulate assets for a big cash in trade isn't realistic. Id be willing to bet OKC will use those picks mostly in trade ups and kicking the can down the road so they can have a continuous source of cheap talent in their competitive years, which is still smart and worth doing.
That being said the lack of the culture reset does concern me. We brought in Adams and SVG to fix this and they haven't. But this is a weird year, so I think giving them a pass is understandable and you don't need to crucify fans for reaching the bargaining and acceptance stages, if you want to be miserable and a masochist forcing yourself to follow a team you hate that's on you.
Some of this I agree with, but to say that we still have plenty of X so throwing away X isnt a big - thats a bad argument. Every asset matters ESPECIALLY when you are a small market. Pick 30 could be Festus Ezili and pick 35 could be Draymond Green. Casually throwing away pick 35 because you already had pick 7 and 30 in that draft would mean no title for the Warriors. The more picks you have the better chance you have to trade up from 15 to 10 when a guy you had in the top 3 is inexplicably falling.
Throwing away picks for Favors and Adams - and not using the cap space instead to take on players and picks was a mistake. We just dont know how big yet and likely never will because we cant know what doesnt happen. But the process was poor
There are issues with this team, particularly, and with youth in general, but I don't think it's a ''kids these days are just too soft'' issue, honestly. Again, the man making this argument is a dude who cried on the phone to a rival in the parking lot after a loss, so if competition died and everyone wants to be friends, that happened a long time ago.
Throwing away picks is obviously terrible, but I'm ok with overpaying for vet leadership if its the right guys. Igoudala and Bogut were invaluable to GS's transformation. The issue is its exponentially hard to find those guys who can actually turn a lockerroom around. And its not an exact science outside of maybe Chris Paul, you're mostly throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks. We've tried at least 5 guys that seemed like the type at this point and they've all flopped. If we had one player who could help this team with the mental errors and effort level and stop bad habits at the root so we can actually play up to our talent level of once, I'd pay 5-10 late firsts and early 2nds for that. Wouldn't you?
So yes considering you can get vets more shrewdly than we have and you never know for sure which ones will work, maybe its better to just not try, and accept which ever ones come with picks attached. But finding those vets does a lot for your young team.
Last edited by Pelifan; 04-09-2021 at 09:36 AM.
Jarrett Jack was actually the first leader of those teams and really helped those guys when they were young. And cost them very little. Then, when you are ready to make the next step, you go pay for the Iggy's. Memphis has gotten solid locker room guys without giving up assets for them. There are plenty around the league, but yeah if you can get an elite one like CP3 - give up assets. But Derrick Favors isnt changing cultures and JJ or Adams clearly arent either. They help, sure, but not so much more than a guy who could have been had for a fraction of the cost or assets. My buddy in Atlanta says that Solomon Hill and Tony Snell have been invaluable for them. Two guys that they were just given and cost them little to nothing.
Today's players have maximized the benefit of the three point line. There are more long distance shooters today by far than there ever has been in the league. And it makes sense. The only strange thing is how long it took the NBA to evolve into what we have today. Now that doesn't mean I have to enjoy todays game more than other eras.
Just because players today better maximize the set up of the court doesn't in my opinion make for a more enjoyable game. Personally I prefer a mix of inside and outside play, and I appreciate guys who could score all over the court. I don't think constant screening actions around the three point arc or guys passing up layups to kick it back out to three point shooters is a really enjoyable brand of basketball. Just like I didn't like the ugly Heat Knicks games of the 90's, I think both are too one dimensional.
But I fully understand why it's happened. It doesn't mean I have to like it.
Nobody's saying you have to like it, but there's a difference between saying ''this is not my aesthetic preference'' - which is fine - and saying ''the modern game is soft and the midrange is dead and these players could never cut it back in MY day!'' which is complete nonsense.
Watched an interview of Wilt Chamberlain on Conan the other day and he said that MJ would be benched and wouldnt be able to get into the paint if he traveled back to "his day"
Every generation seems to think the new generation wouldnt be good in their generation and the new generation is soft/play a less "real" form of basketball.
One day, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant will be talking about how the players in the 2040s wouldnt make it in their day and what they are playing isnt "real basketball
The players today would probably succeed very well in my favorite era of basketball. It would be like todays teams playing the pelicans for every game. They'd give up a lot of paint points, but they'd end up outscoring every team from the three point line so severly it would make up for it. Now if you stick todays players back in the 60's or 70's it would be a different story. Take away the three point line and the type of play we see today would look pretty comical.
Every future generation would destroy the past ones. In every sport. I dont think Babe Ruth would bat .200 if you took todays players back to his time or brought him forward to ours and he is the most dominant player of all time in any sport. Guys from today would go back to the 60s and drain 25 footers with ease, unguarded. And if those guys came out to contest, they would blow by them. The best defender in that time would have tless lateral mobility and speed than Brandon Ingram. I would say an average team like the Bulls would beat the champion Celtics by 40 or 50.
Which is why I am always a fan of measuring a guy only against his era and then saying he is better than a guy in another era based on how much better he is than the guys in his era. So, even though Babe Ruth couldnt bad .200 today, he is better than Mike Trout because he hit more home runs than entire teams when he played. Trout couldnt possibly do that. So, Babe Ruth is the best player of all time, even though Trout would be 5x better than him if you transported Babe to today
Ha, you're probably right. Those slow white guys in the 60's would be shell shocked, and as for the 70's players, well... let's just say, today's players would probably be a lot more sober on the court.
(I still think these darn kids today, would be absolutely lost without a three point line).
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