Odin

So, it seems to be mostly a pace based thing. The per-possession defense is basically just as good as it was last year based upon EFG% and TS% (52.1% EFG both this year and last year, 55.6% TS% last year vs 55.8% TS% this year.), but teams are averaging 3 more possessions per game. Average points per game is up 6 points per game vs. last year. If you look further back, teams have been becoming more efficient, however, pace has also been increasing to where teams are averaging almost 10 more possessions per game more than they were 10 years ago.

Haha, I think people are getting a bit grumpy here. This loss was a disappointment. To say anything else would be untrue. It was a game that, on paper, we probably should have won. Some of our guys did good stuff in the game. That is good as it hopefully bodes well for our future. But eventually the good play from some of our guys needs to translate into wins, otherwise it is meaningless. It is still too early to say what this season is going to truly look like. There is a lot of variability that will likely get sorted out. The early results are not promising, but even just last season, we saw a bunch of teams start out strong and crash hard, while others got better as the season went on. Hopefully our fortunes improve.

And just as a reminder, they are on a back to back while we are playing at home with 2 days rest.

When do you look at this team and ask “why are we losing to the King’s?”

I think you can have a team where players dislike each other- but once you have major players that don’t respect each other is when you really get issues.

I think he might help with our issues defending point guards, and is an upgrade over Augustin almost everywhere. Don't know what he would cost that would make sense for us right now though.

Rozier is not very high on my list at all. We need a shooter. His season best EFG% is 49.1% last year, which puts him in the bottom 3rd for efficiency in the league. And we need a facilitator. He only had an assist rate of 17.5%, which is pretty low for a pg. Just for reference, Augustin's assist rate last year was 24.4% and I don't think anyone really thinks of Augustin as a facilitator. I think he gets overrated because he is on Boston and they were able to continue to win with him as a starter and he had some big games in the playoffs. I think at best he is a similar caliber player to a young Brandon Jennings. I guess I am just not buying into the Rozier hype at all. If we don't have to give up/pay a lot to get him, I don't mind giving him the chance as we don't have point guards that are long term solutions on our squad and he is still relatively young and he has flashed some ability. But we shouldn't put all of our eggs in the Rozier basket.

Also, will Lebron be happy having a year wasted? His mood will have an impact as well.

I think we also need to look at Vucevic in a different way in terms of other teams vs. us. For us, Vucevic has often been one of the main, if not main, elements of the team- usually sliding in number 1-2 in shots taken per game, and playing some of the most minutes on the team. And I think this is where a lot of our issues with Vuch come from- he has been called to be a primary outlet and an anchor on both ends of the floor and he hasn't been able to do that well enough. But put him on a team like the Lakers, and his responsibilities would change. You might not want his production as your #1 or 2 option, but I think you'd be at least decently happy with that play as a 3-5 option, especially if your #1 option is Lebron.

They are forced to play Lebron and Kuzma there. A true center like Vuch would help them a lot on both sides. It would free up Lebron and give them a guy that can screen, perform a center's defensive responsibilities (not great, but probably better than Lebron or Kuzma), good passing from the position, another shooting/scoring threat, and can soak up minutes. Honestly, even if Vuch was performing closer to last year's levels, he'd most likely improve their team- we just wouldn't be able to ask for as much.

Obviously this is a long term move, but I am concerned that Bamba isn't ready for that type of minute load. I don't see Birch as much more than a 10 minute a game energy guy, so we'd either be forced to play Mozgov/Zubac some (unlikely) or throw Isaac/Gordon at the 5. Don't get me wrong, I'd still be very interested in the trade- but short term we'd need to figure out the 5 spot.

I'd throw in the OKC pick and maybe one of our 2nds this year if needed. I don't think I would use our own pick unless it was very protected. I am of course operating under the assumption that we don't have a winning record 20 games in. Don't know if we can make the trade if we are 12-8 or something like that. (We probably should for long term reasons, but it is hard to make a move if things finally seem to be going the right direction).

Yeah, annoying but that's what happens when we have been bad for so long. I love the "We were missing wide open 3s!" excuse. Both teams shot poorly from three and missed wide open shots.

Isaac showed up big too. Was much more aggressive on offense and it paid dividends.

Heck Yeah boys!

I don't think they are really that similar of players. Payton often has effort issues, Rubio doesn't Payton only can score around the basket, Rubio can only score from longer shots (their TS% is actually pretty close over the past two seasons- slightly below league average. I think it is debatable whether being able to hit from long range or close is more helpful, but it would probably be better for us to have a good 3 point shooter.) Payton is defensively often out of position, Rubio is positionally sound Payton is a good passer, Rubio is a great passer Besides being the main ball handler generally speaking, the main thing they have in common is their ability to drive into the defense, though Payton is more likely to attempt a FG, while Rubio is more likely to pass it out. And this ability is what we need on the team. I think Rubio has a pretty major flaw in his difficulties scoring, but his skill set might be what our team needs.

I am not sure I understand the point of your trade then. Are you thinking season rental basically? If so, why would we throw in the pick? Just as a cap saving measure?

Maybe. What do you think Rubio would cost if we wanted to keep him? I am not sure about Rubio, but he could be workable. Positives: Would transform our offense with his passing, has decent 3 point shooting. Negatives: Bad shooting everywhere else. Not sure about his defensive impact.

I am bored, so I thought I would do an early season review of what has been good and what has been bad about the team so far: The Good: 1. Aaron Gordon. He has been bringing it so far. I love his energy. He has been playing well, even though he has not yet had a truly great game, like he had a few times last year. I don't think it is sustainable (very small sample size), but he is also drawing fouls at a much higher rate than he has in the past. 2. Vuch's passing. As much as we like to rag on him, Vuch's passing has been pretty legit so far this year. He has had a bunch of really nice passes. 3. Mo Bamba. Still looks like a rookie at times of course, but has been a lot less raw than I think any of us were expecting. 4. Ross: Has been doing Ross things. It would be nice if his offense got back to Toronto levels though. The bad: 1. Dribble penetration: Man are we struggling to consistently get into the paint on dribble drives. This is ugly. According to NBA.com's tracking stats, we are actually in the top half of the NBA in drives per game, but we have the fewest points scored on drives, the second lowest FG% from drives, the second most turnovers from drives, and the lowest number of fouls drawn per drive. I think we can see this in game, where a lot of drives seem to be ending with a wild shot at the rim with multiple defenders on the player. 2. Offensive movement: There seems to be a lot of passivity on offense. A lot of standing around without the ball, ineffective screening, struggling to make the opposing defenses work a lot of the time. 3. Unsurprisingly, we have the second lowest EFG% in the league. Some of this is just missing open shots, but a lot of it falls on bad shot generation. We are not creating good looks really anywhere on the court. I think this should improve as it seems almost unsustainably low, but I don't know if there will be a lot of improvement if we cannot create better looks. 4. Buddy Ball: Vuch and Fournier just can't help themselves. The Meh: 1. Isaac: Still waiting on him. Defensively, he has been okay, but offensively he has mostly just been there. We need more out of him. 2. Defense: for as much as this was supposed to be our calling card we are basically grading out as average just about everywhere. We can be better.

Nuggets are pretty fun to watch. They might be making the jump this year.

Usually we should win if we have great Fournier and Vuch games and a good Gordon game. Even though we lost, if we can get these types of performances rather than last night’s, we should be able to get some nice wins.

Let’s do this!

Might have hit his minutes, and the current line up is on a run.

Triple double for Vuch.

Fournier needed this game.