2019-2020 Official Regular Season Thread

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

1 minute ago, magicblue said:

I hear you. I think he could average 17/6 the second half of this season with only a light increase in mins, usage, and the team just shooting league average.

The thing is I'm using his recent numbers and if you look at his stat breakdown he's already driving the ball like a franchise player. Only 5 players have more drives per game over the last 5 games. 

So there's not a ton of juice left to squeeze out of what he's currently doing other than just playing a few more minutes per game unless we're going to give him Trae Young usage which I'm not sure is conducive to winning. 

The increase from 17ppg in 32ish mpg to 20 or 25 or 30 isn't going to come from more of how he's currently playing, it's going to come from his spot up shooting, pull up shooting, and cutting off ball (which comes as a result of teams defending him off ball). While we're seeing signs of him being able to improve in these areas I'm not ready to pencil them in yet. 

 

But this is all pretty much validating why several members on here were excited about trading for him. He's a good defender (not great) who is really good at getting through screens and has a really high basketball IQ on defense which is evident by all of the clutch plays he makes on that end regularly. And on offense he can get wherever he wants whenever he wants and beats good defenders off the dribble.

 

If the shot never comes back he's an above average starting point guard. 

 

 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

1 hour ago, ML6 said:

If you'd provided me with these statements before the season started

• Fultz will be about as good as you could expect him to be coming off the injury
• Fournier will play the best he ever has

I would probably have guessed this team would be 13-6 or 12-7 at this point.  That initial team-wide slump and now injuries have really derailed us early on.

I think we could probably be up there but I think realistically we're only about -2 in wins vs expectation right now. 

But I think our advanced numbers are way off what they should be. But a lot of that is probably based on the reality of instead of losing by 15, losing by 5. 

[JJZFL 618]

1 hour ago, Fultz4thewin said:

I think we could probably be up there but I think realistically we're only about -2 in wins vs expectation right now. 

But I think our advanced numbers are way off what they should be. But a lot of that is probably based on the reality of instead of losing by 15, losing by 5. 

We were always supposed to be a defensively oriented team, but I don’t think that anyone expected us to have the very worst offensive rating in the league after 20 games.  Especially not given the two points ML6 made about Fultz and Fournier playing better than expected.  

[magicblue 315]

21 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

We were always supposed to be a defensively oriented team, but I don’t think that anyone expected us to have the very worst offensive rating in the league after 20 games.  Especially not given the two points ML6 made about Fultz and Fournier playing better than expected.  

Its really hard to understand what the deal is with this team. I think Vuc and TRoss came in a little content after getting paid this summer and AG is clearly not understanding or accepting his role and is trying to be something he's not. If he would just be 2018-19 AG we'd be a much better team. Right now he's forcing everything and I still think there's a strange rift between he and Fultz. I think maybe AG knows he's not going to be the face of this franchise and its bothering him. I could be wrong

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

19 minutes ago, JJZFL said:

We were always supposed to be a defensively oriented team, but I don’t think that anyone expected us to have the very worst offensive rating in the league after 20 games.  Especially not given the two points ML6 made about Fultz and Fournier playing better than expected.  

A lot of that is still impacted by the poor start. 

Last 12 games we're at 106.7 offensive rating which would be ranked 19th on the season. First 7 games we were at 95.3.

The Fultz-Fournier-Gordon-Isaac-Vucevic starting lineup is the 13th best lineup in the league with over 100 minutes played and the 14th best offense. 

All iterations of a "starting" lineup with fultz have elite offense. 

Fultz-Fournier-Gordon-aminu-Vucevic has a 119 offensive rating

Fultz-fournier-iwundu-Isaac-Birch has a 123 offensive rating.

Fultz-Fournier-aminu-Isaac-Vucevic has a 113 offensive rating. 

The only bad offensive starting lineup has been fultz-Fournier-Gordon-Isaac-Birch at 93 but it makes up for it by holding opponents to an 88 offensive rating. And we only have 29 minutes of that. 

[HeartAndHustle 11]

1 hour ago, Fultz4thewin said:

The thing is I'm using his recent numbers and if you look at his stat breakdown he's already driving the ball like a franchise player. Only 5 players have more drives per game over the last 5 games. 

So there's not a ton of juice left to squeeze out of what he's currently doing other than just playing a few more minutes per game unless we're going to give him Trae Young usage which I'm not sure is conducive to winning. 

The increase from 17ppg in 32ish mpg to 20 or 25 or 30 isn't going to come from more of how he's currently playing, it's going to come from his spot up shooting, pull up shooting, and cutting off ball (which comes as a result of teams defending him off ball). While we're seeing signs of him being able to improve in these areas I'm not ready to pencil them in yet. 

 

But this is all pretty much validating why several members on here were excited about trading for him. He's a good defender (not great) who is really good at getting through screens and has a really high basketball IQ on defense which is evident by all of the clutch plays he makes on that end regularly. And on offense he can get wherever he wants whenever he wants and beats good defenders off the dribble.

 

If the shot never comes back he's an above average starting point guard. 

 

 

We all talk about his shot coming back, but outside of the three, it's effective. He's second on the team in mid-range %, and he's shooting 80% from the free throw line. Even his three is improving nicely. He's at 33% over the last 7 games. I'm excited to see where he'll be by year end.

 https://stats.nba.com/players/shooting/?Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular Season&DistanceRange=By Zone&sort=Mid-Range FG PCT&dir=1&PerMode=Totals&TeamID=1610612753

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

17 minutes ago, magicblue said:

Its really hard to understand what the deal is with this team. I think Vuc and TRoss came in a little content after getting paid this summer and AG is clearly not understanding or accepting his role and is trying to be something he's not. If he would just be 2018-19 AG we'd be a much better team. Right now he's forcing everything and I still think there's a strange rift between he and Fultz. I think maybe AG knows he's not going to be the face of this franchise and its bothering him. I could be wrong

It's not that hard to figure out. 

We're still in small sample sizes. 

Vucevic started in a slump which he recovered out of before he was hurt. Previous 5 games he was averaging 21 and 15 on 53/53/79 shooting. 

Ross started out the first 7 games averaging 8ppg on 19% shooting. Last 10 games he's at 15 ppg on 35% three point shooting

Gordon started in a slump. Then he got out of that slump and averaged 17 and 7 on 50/34/72 shooting over 8 games. Then he fell back into a slump again and tends to do dumb stuff when he is trying to get his offense going. 

Augustin is the only major concern because he only has 5 good offensive games on the season and they're all spread out, he's 32 and past 800 career games which is when guys play typically falls off, and he's tiny and tiny guys don't age well in the NBA. 

[ML6 520]

1 hour ago, JJZFL said:

We were always supposed to be a defensively oriented team, but I don’t think that anyone expected us to have the very worst offensive rating in the league after 20 games.  Especially not given the two points ML6 made about Fultz and Fournier playing better than expected.  

Fournier playing this well just seems like a giant windfall.  I felt that last year if he had just played to his averages we probably would've had several more Ws.  Now he is exceeding them all but the team's slump and injuries occurred simultaneously which really sucks.

Quote

Augustin is the only major concern because he only has 5 good offensive games on the season and they're all spread out, he's 32 and past 800 career games which is when guys play typically falls off, and he's tiny and tiny guys don't age well in the NBA. 

DJ is killing us.  If he continues this way he needs to be removed from the rotation, but now that we're starting to see some of the Clifford stubbornness come into play, I'm not sure that's going to happen. 

[Mike1989 68]

2 hours ago, Fultz4thewin said:

Many. Many people were. He was can't miss with a floor of a better hedo and a ceiling of whatever you want it to be. 

There was hype and talk of a high ceiling. A lot said he was one of the best to come out of Europe. But did anyone realistically think he would take the league by storm like he has done? His numbers beat pretty much anyone’s at this point in his career. His rise has been insane and even his most avid supporters would probably say this rise has been insane and unexpected at this stage of his career. 

Anyway my main point is back then it would have been unlikely to have gained 100% approval of our fan base pre-draft. After his rookie season and certainly now it would but that’s using hindsight. 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

10 minutes ago, HeartAndHustle said:

We all talk about his shot coming back, but outside of the three, it's effective. He's second on the team in mid-range %, and he's shooting 80% from the free throw line. Even his three is improving nicely. He's at 33% over the last 7 games. I'm excited to see where he'll be by year end.

 https://stats.nba.com/players/shooting/?Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular Season&DistanceRange=By Zone&sort=Mid-Range FG PCT&dir=1&PerMode=Totals&TeamID=1610612753

Yeah but that's not a big part of his game yet. He's 18th in the league at points off of drives over the last 5 games. Extra minutes is only going to get him another 1-2 ppg on drives. 

Let me put it this way. Last 5 games fultz is at 14.6ppg or whatever. Westbrook is at 23ppg. Jrue is at 23. 

Fultz is averaging 8ppg on drives. Westbrook is at 8.4ppg on drives. Jrue is at 9.2. 

Fultz gets 3.8ppg on pull ups. Westbrook 6.4. jrue 8.6

 

So the difference between fultz game and similar players isn't driving more. It's shooting more. And we don't know if he's going to be able to incorporate that into his game yet. 

[JJZFL 618]

55 minutes ago, Fultz4thewin said:

A lot of that is still impacted by the poor start. 

Last 12 games we're at 106.7 offensive rating which would be ranked 19th on the season. First 7 games we were at 95.3.

The Fultz-Fournier-Gordon-Isaac-Vucevic starting lineup is the 13th best lineup in the league with over 100 minutes played and the 14th best offense. 

All iterations of a "starting" lineup with fultz have elite offense. 

Fultz-Fournier-Gordon-aminu-Vucevic has a 119 offensive rating

Fultz-fournier-iwundu-Isaac-Birch has a 123 offensive rating.

Fultz-Fournier-aminu-Isaac-Vucevic has a 113 offensive rating. 

The only bad offensive starting lineup has been fultz-Fournier-Gordon-Isaac-Birch at 93 but it makes up for it by holding opponents to an 88 offensive rating. And we only have 29 minutes of that. 

That’s somewhat encouraging.  If that holds up, we should see our offensive rating climb off the bottom, as the first 7 games become a smaller part of the sample size.  So we can reassess in another 15 games or so and see if our offensive rating has improved.  

[HeartAndHustle 11]

1 hour ago, ML6 said:

DJ is killing us.  If he continues this way he needs to be removed from the rotation, but now that we're starting to see some of the Clifford stubbornness come into play, I'm not sure that's going to happen. 

Right now he doesn't have much choice, but when MCW comes back, I wonder if DJ loses some minutes.