2016-2017 Season Discussion Thread

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

I hope we pick up RJ Hunter. Aside from Hezonja we don't have much in the way of prospects at that position.

 

I wonder if we'll even have the opportunity as we can't claim him via waivers (I think).

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

for those of you who would rather focus on what can happen next offseason, we currently have about 88.3 million committed to biyombo, Fournier, vucevic, augustin, Gordon, hezonja, payton, Wilcox, Zimmerman, Ibaka's cap hold which is safe to assume we'll keep, and an assumed waived CJ Watson (who leaves us $1,000,000 in dead cap). That gives us about 15 million to play around with or a bit more than 32 if Ibaka wants out.

 

a max contract to a 7-9 year player is about 29 million.

 

a traded vucevic with $0 returning plus a max contract to Ibaka and another player would give us 116.25 million and another 6.5 millionish to finish out the roster and remain under the luxury tax.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

our best player this preseaseon from a pure net rating standpoint was Biyombo. the team had a 101.8 offensive rating and a 97.8 defensive rating while he was on the court. he was the only net positive player when viewed through the entire preseason.

 

when set to the last 3 preseason games, biyombo was still the highest net rating, however, Fournier, Payton, Gordon, and Ibaka were also positive.

 

this is something to remember for the first game. It's possible the player with the most positive impact on the team is out.

[JJZFL 623]

I think we have a really good regular season team. We have length to bother most teams and our defense is going to be tough to crack during the meat of the season when teams don't have much time to prepare. When meeks comes back we'll have a veteran to count on at every position which should help our road record. The fact that we're no longer basically a 23 and under team should help limit the massive swings in performance we saw game to game.

 

 

I think we're being judged by what we look like as a potential playoff team where we don't look good at all. teams will figure out how to scheme against us with the extra days of prep and we don't have anyone we can reliably force the offense through. That's why teams like the Knicks (Carmelo), Wizards (wall), Bulls (butler and wade), Pacers (George), and Hornets (Kemba) are viewed more positively. But that doesn't matter as much during the regular season.

Assuming Ibaka can handle all the minutes we're apparently going to throw at him without injury. Heck we were using him 35+ per game even in preseason. Without him our defense drops quite a bit.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Charlotte, Chicago, dallas, the clippers, lakers, bucks, knicks, philly, and Toronto all had franchise/starting players that were way in the negative for net rating this preseason. Not sure what that means if anything.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Assuming Ibaka can handle all the minutes we're apparently going to throw at him without injury. Heck we were using him 35+ per game even in preseason. Without him our defense drops quite a bit.

 

yeah, ideally we have a rotation so there's never a point where Ibaka or biyombo are not on the court.

 

 

going by preseason numbers you can definitely see the impact both guys had on the lineups. Gordon was weirdly bad on defense. I wonder if that's a limitation from his ankle injury.

 

limiting to the last 3 games the starters plus biyombo were all very good on defense so there's hope for Vucevic that maybe the introduction of biyombo and Ibaka is helping him out. Augustin, Green, and Hezonja were pretty bad but I wonder how much of that has to do with lineups that include Wilcox, Rudez, Zimmerman and Onuaku (they were terrible).

 

I think if we can successfully run lineups with the current 5 starters, biyombo, Augustin, Green, and Hezonja (with meeks and Watson in emergency roles) we should be fine. If we're forced to play the last 4 guys on the bench at all we're in serious trouble.

 

edit: about the impact of Ibaka and biyombo, guys like augustin who are known for not great defense had good defensive ratings in the preseason overall. in the last three games where biyombo played with the starters more you saw significant drops among the bench players.

[Franchero MVP 391]

i hope biyombo starts

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

The biggest flaw in this roster is something that's going to be most evident in game 1. We don't have a capable emergency big man. Biyombo is out. Lets say Ibaka gets in foul trouble. you're back throwing out a Payton-Fournier-Gordon-green-vucevic lineup that is very similar to the Payton-Fournier-Harris-Gordon-vucevic lineup that sucked last year. We need a joel Anthony type sitting on the bench to throw at opposing teams in a worst case scenario. Onuaku isn't that.

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

God help us if Zimmerman plays any meaningful minutes this year.

[TheNameIsOrlando 310]

God help us if Zimmerman plays any meaningful minutes this year.

 

How bad was he?

[HardCutting Franz 51]

God help us if Zimmerman plays any meaningful minutes this year.

 

Can't be worse than *****ing Napier man ...

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Can't be worse than *****ing Napier man ...

 

He's basically the center version of Napier.

 

He's worth a roster spot. His skill set is good enough to see if he can develop. But he's young and there's not a good track record of weak 19 year old centers making an impact year one.