Pels were just really missing their defensive captain tonight.
. |
Pels were just really missing their defensive captain tonight.
For Zion to really flourish, the team needs a stretch five. Zion (and to a lessor extent BI) will be facing a "Wall Defense" more and more as the season progresses...just like he/they saw tonight.
Pop was daring Adams to shoot; wouldn't you?
DISCLAIMER: This is not to knock on Adams at all; it's a simply a matter of fit.
At this point, I can deal with our starting 5.... However our bench just needs MUCH MUCH help. That's out biggest weakness. Our defense overall.... Yeah lol
I disagree with the take that the team needs a stretch 5, but I do support trying for Mobley.
I usually don't support drafting for need if you're in the lottery: I endorse just collecting as much talent as you can, and working out the rest later. You can never have enough great players.
BUT. Mobley is a really great prospect (clear #2 this year imo) and fits needs, so it makes almost too much sense. Elite defensive prospect with legitimate switchability who can guard 3-5, including on the perimeter, who is also a very very good passer and projects pretty well as a shooting prospect. It just slots right in.
If Mobley slipped and instead of going 2nd went, say, 4th or 5th, and some team was willing to take our pick (presuming we were worse than that) plus a future Lakers/Bucks pick, I'd do it in a heartbeat. No second thoughts.
Basketball.
With how the league kind of covet guards and really don't want to draft big high. You probably have a better chance to trade up for Mobley than a Suggs or Green more likely than not. Especially, the top 5 lotto team are looking to be dreadfully in need of guards.
I agree about the stretch 5 or stretch 4s. I'm not in the business of chasing overrated unicorns. We are pretty close to topping out on scoring potential and people think the solution is to add more shooters. Nah... Defense and synergy workers is definitely the direction that we need to go with in the future.
Oh yeah... we need to build a bench.
The only thing that sucks is that we are in the middle of nowhere... not good enough to be in the playoffs and not bad enough to get a good pick.... im encouraged with Zion's development though...hopefully we surround him with a good team...
Have to give Pop and the spurs credit, before the season everyone wrote them off already... look where they are now, sitting at the 5th spot in the West... having a great system from top to bottom and hitting on their picks even if its outside the top 10 makes wonders.
Last edited by As I See It; 02-28-2021 at 12:28 AM.
Yeah I absolutely agree. Don't get me wrong, if you could design a 5 in the lab to fit this team they'd have the ability to shoot, but in reality those players don't come along that often: most bigs who can shoot are garbage at most other things, and I'd rather have a centre who can rebound, defend, pass, screen, box-out, etc, but just not shoot than a 5 who can shoot but who does basically nothing else. As you say, offense is not the problem right now. Far from it. Our offense is great: we put points on the board despite all of our issues, and if our bench wasn't so garbage and inconsistent from 3 we'd be a top 3 offense right now.
Our problem is the everything else. Draft Cade if the heavens align and you can: if you can't, shoot for Mobley. As you say, he's a big and they often slip, and also teams usually make mistakes. Every year there's someone that people think should go in the top 5 or 6 that ends up slipping down to 12th or something. Who says Mobley goes #2 despite being the #2 player in the draft? For all we know he's available at #5.
When you have your all defensive NBA point guard is taking every night off defensively, of course everything will fall apart. We don’t stop other teams guards. We don’t apply any pressure to them whatsoever. Opposing teams could run pick and roll 100 times a game and still come up with 120. I do blame Stan a great deal for the fact that we take too long to adjust because it’s always too late. But as AD says you have to stop them at the point of contact. We don’t
The secret is that Bledsoe was never a legitimately all D point guard. He's capable of being a good defensive point guard, but his efficacy was greatly inflated by playing next to Giannis, a deserving DPOY, and Middleton, another deserving all-D guy, backed up by people like Lopez who are extremely good back-line defense guys.
On this team, Bledsoe has no such security: he's being asked to actually stop guys, rather than just kind of funnel them into a meatgrinder. The result is that he's flailing, hard, because he's not actually that tier of defender, and he robbed Jrue of all-D, because Jrue was one of those guys for us.
Combine that with the fact that Ingram has been pretty lacklustre on D this year, Lonzo's D is not as advertised, Zion's still playing catchup (improved from game 1, sure, but still not a consistent good defender), and we have no actual reliable bench to speak of (for a number of reasons only partially related to the players themselves), it turns out we just have nobody, nobody at all who is a legitimate point of attack defender and very few guys who are good team defenders.
I always question why people think this about B2Bs. I mean, if these same 20-24 yo kids were playing ball on an outdoor court in heat and humidity they could play 10 hours a day, and be back there playing again the next morning. How is it these "elite" athletes play a game every 2nd or 3rd day, and if they're asked to play 30-35 minutes, two days in a row, its so difficult? I just don't believe that.
There is no comparison between playing leisure basketball, and playing in front of millions of people, on a practical stage, where EVERYTHING you do counts.
The amount of adrenaline/heart rate/stress playing in an NBA game (or even high school and college) is not on the same planet. Versus where nobody really cares much besides your garbage teammates playing pickup.
Then add on the stress to your body having to immediately get on a plane to fly to the next game.
B2B puts a toll on your body.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)