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2018-19 Official Season Discussion Thread

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So here's something to watch the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs when we're looking at roster construction moving forward. 

The reason to be pessimistic about vucevic over the past few years is the assumption that playoff basketball is different than regular season basketball and teams tend to slow the game down to hunt mismatches. In our case, the mismatch teams hunt has been almost exclusively vucevic via the 1-5 pick and roll. 

Either the guard kills vucevic by forcing him to move

Or by lobbing it to centers when Vuc steps up. 

 

 

This year we're not seeing it nearly as much. 

Teams aren't running at him over and over again but you do see it a couple times here

 

So are we seeing it less because Vuc is defending better? Maybe. 

Regardless of what happened so far, the main thesis is "we can't resign vucevic because he hurts us on defense and will get played off the court in the playoffs. We'll get the chance to test that hypothesis this year. 

If vucevic is a valuable contributor throughout the playoffs it really opens the door to resign him. 

If the hypothesis proves to be correct, it doesn't make sense to resign him. 

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24 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

So here's something to watch the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs when we're looking at roster construction moving forward. 

The reason to be pessimistic about vucevic over the past few years is the assumption that playoff basketball is different than regular season basketball and teams tend to slow the game down to hunt mismatches. In our case, the mismatch teams hunt has been almost exclusively vucevic via the 1-5 pick and roll. 

Either the guard kills vucevic by forcing him to move

Or by lobbing it to centers when Vuc steps up. 

 

 

This year we're not seeing it nearly as much. 

Teams aren't running at him over and over again but you do see it a couple times here

 

So are we seeing it less because Vuc is defending better? Maybe. 

Regardless of what happened so far, the main thesis is "we can't resign vucevic because he hurts us on defense and will get played off the court in the playoffs. We'll get the chance to test that hypothesis this year. 

If vucevic is a valuable contributor throughout the playoffs it really opens the door to resign him. 

If the hypothesis proves to be correct, it doesn't make sense to resign him. 

Yeah if he raises his game on both ends  or just is better defensively and his usual 20+ 10+ I'd keep him. I like this way of thinking.

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19 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

So here's something to watch the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs when we're looking at roster construction moving forward. 

The reason to be pessimistic about vucevic over the past few years is the assumption that playoff basketball is different than regular season basketball and teams tend to slow the game down to hunt mismatches. In our case, the mismatch teams hunt has been almost exclusively vucevic via the 1-5 pick and roll. 

Either the guard kills vucevic by forcing him to move

Or by lobbing it to centers when Vuc steps up. 

 

 

This year we're not seeing it nearly as much. 

Teams aren't running at him over and over again but you do see it a couple times here

 

So are we seeing it less because Vuc is defending better? Maybe. 

Regardless of what happened so far, the main thesis is "we can't resign vucevic because he hurts us on defense and will get played off the court in the playoffs. We'll get the chance to test that hypothesis this year. 

If vucevic is a valuable contributor throughout the playoffs it really opens the door to resign him. 

If the hypothesis proves to be correct, it doesn't make sense to resign him. 

Not strictly true. Does defense win championships in today's NBA?

We currently concede an average of 106 per game. That's better than the Bucks 108, the Raptors 109, the Warriors 112 and the 76ers 112 per game.

But are we in the same tier as those teams? No. All four of them are better than us and more likely to lift the title at the end of the season.

The big difference with them is offense. We average 106 per game while they average 117 (Bucks and Warriors), 115 (76ers) and 114 (Raptors). That's not to say those teams can't play defense - they can - but their advantage comes in being able to offensively overpower their opposition. 

Now think about how good we could be if we managed to up our scoring to say 108 per game. We would likely have a greater win count and be a top four seed contender like the Pacers. So while defense can be important, teams in today's NBA need to be able to score and shoot. If we can continue to improve on both counts we'll be fine even with Vuc in the line up.

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Candace Parker has spoken...we must resign Vuc. 

In all seriousness it’s worth exploring. Do you guys think the Blazers would pursue him now if they stay the course with CJ/Lillard? 

Not poking fun at Parker btw. She knows her **** more than I could ever. 

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49 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

So here's something to watch the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs when we're looking at roster construction moving forward. 

The reason to be pessimistic about vucevic over the past few years is the assumption that playoff basketball is different than regular season basketball and teams tend to slow the game down to hunt mismatches. In our case, the mismatch teams hunt has been almost exclusively vucevic via the 1-5 pick and roll. 

Either the guard kills vucevic by forcing him to move

Or by lobbing it to centers when Vuc steps up. 

 

 

This year we're not seeing it nearly as much. 

Teams aren't running at him over and over again but you do see it a couple times here

 

So are we seeing it less because Vuc is defending better? Maybe. 

Regardless of what happened so far, the main thesis is "we can't resign vucevic because he hurts us on defense and will get played off the court in the playoffs. We'll get the chance to test that hypothesis this year. 

If vucevic is a valuable contributor throughout the playoffs it really opens the door to resign him. 

If the hypothesis proves to be correct, it doesn't make sense to resign him. 

Are we seeing it less? Mia ran 1-5 picks all night last night. Vuch as usual floated back. The difference I saw was our wing guys collapsing and running like a hybrid 1-3-1. As our PG fought through the screen the ball handler was funneled into the lane with 3 guys collapsing. 

If this is true in other games I just think our team philosophy has improved and our help guys are doing a better job of cutting off those passing lanes once the PG is funneled through. 

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55 minutes ago, Mike1989 said:

Not strictly true. Does defense win championships in today's NBA?

We currently concede an average of 106 per game. That's better than the Bucks 108, the Raptors 109, the Warriors 112 and the 76ers 112 per game.

But are we in the same tier as those teams? No. All four of them are better than us and more likely to lift the title at the end of the season.

The big difference with them is offense. We average 106 per game while they average 117 (Bucks and Warriors), 115 (76ers) and 114 (Raptors). That's not to say those teams can't play defense - they can - but their advantage comes in being able to offensively overpower their opposition. 

Now think about how good we could be if we managed to up our scoring to say 108 per game. We would likely have a greater win count and be a top four seed contender like the Pacers. So while defense can be important, teams in today's NBA need to be able to score and shoot. If we can continue to improve on both counts we'll be fine even with Vuc in the line up.

This is misguided. Both defense and offense matters in today's (and every year's) NBA. Golden State won championships, not because they score a bunch, but because they score a bunch and had the number 1, number 5, number 2, and then coasted last year with the number 11 defense. 

And if vucevic (or anyone) is getting carved up on the defensive end they need to be a transcendent offensive player to make up for it (vucevic isn't). 

 

Edit: also ppg isn't the right way to look at offense because pace is different. 

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16 minutes ago, ?4thewin said:

This is misguided. Both defense and offense matters in today's (and every year's) NBA. Golden State won championships, not because they score a bunch, but because they score a bunch and had the number 1, number 5, number 2, and then coasted last year with the number 11 defense. 

And if vucevic (or anyone) is getting carved up on the defensive end they need to be a transcendent offensive player to make up for it (vucevic isn't). 

 

Edit: also ppg isn't the right way to look at offense because pace is different. 

I was also thinking about this last night

do we resign ross and vuc?

in a logical way, it doesnt make much sense since this season has been a one year wonder for nikola, he will also be 29 years old next season

as the best way to go is letting BIG develop, I would ONLY keep vuc if it is a short term deal, 2-3 years tops. I dont think the money should be the problem, but the length of the contract should be short, and dont have another fournier like unmovable contract if he goes back to what he was.

worst case scenario, he is there for 2 more years, with declining minutes that go to bamba

best case scenario, he keeps us competitive in the playoffs like he has done this season, while bamba improves with limited minutes

as for ross, I would go for a longer term, but not breaking the bank for him. he is a great 6th man, we shouldnt pay him like an all star

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10 minutes ago, alwaystragic said:

I was also thinking about this last night

do we resign ross and vuc?

in a logical way, it doesnt make much sense since this season has been a one year wonder for nikola, he will also be 29 years old next season

as the best way to go is letting BIG develop, I would ONLY keep vuc if it is a short term deal, 2-3 years tops. I dont think the money should be the problem, but the length of the contract should be short, and dont have another fournier like unmovable contract if he goes back to what he was.

worst case scenario, he is there for 2 more years, with declining minutes that go to bamba

best case scenario, he keeps us competitive in the playoffs like he has done this season, while bamba improves with limited minutes

as for ross, I would go for a longer term, but not breaking the bank for him. he is a great 6th man, we shouldnt pay him like an all star

The goal is to build the best team possible over the next few years with a team that's built to go further than a first round sweep. If vucevic shows this playoff series that he can be a weapon, we resign him. If he's played off the court we don't. 

We shouldn't look at this situation as Vuc vs Bamba. It's entirely "is vucevic capable of being the starting center of a team that can get into the second round". If that answer is "no", given his age we should move on. 

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26 minutes ago, alwaystragic said:

What are our chances of getting in ? 50%?

Basketball reference's predictor has us at 70.7%

Fivethirtyeight has us at 80%. 

Both have us getting to 40 wins which means we need 3 more. 

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