So NOW do you understand what I'm talking about??? We are a better team this year.

The year prior with a healthy Wes we were 2nd behind only the Clippers.

Last year Stotts getting the team to 51 wins with Wes injury, LaMarcus thumb, Rolo hand, Batum consistent bricks was very impressive. Remember we started Kaman for a month and Steve Blake played big minutes.

Our bench is so ridiculously much better this year.

 

I'm just love seeing these guys put it together as the season moves along instead of looking burned out..youth is an asset

 

Absolutely. This is when we sucked the last two years. This year's team is surging and winning 45-50 games is looking possible and a higher record ranking that is better than last year's 6th.

 

Still just don't see it. The last few wins are nice but they still lack the talent. Hard work is very fun to watch and will win games. On that you are correct.

 

We have more talent than last year.

 

Talent develops though..especially from youth. Vonleh...perfect example. Harkless..not so long ago nobody knew who CJ McCollum even was

 

And by the way, hard work IS a talent

 

This confuses me; results speak for themselves in most cases. Can you elaborate?

 

That is the big thing. They are growing and i personally would like to see them continue to grow. The best part is that we have been blessed with being able to watch it thus far. I still do not expect huge things this year from them but what i am seeing is great possibilities. This is Lillard's 4th year. He is doing things that Curry was only beginning to do in his 5th and 6th year already. CJ is becoming a threat to take over a game at any time. Plumlee is only a junior at this point also. How about we look at that? Plums is a third year big that is still just learning how to play against the very best.
Yes the Talent is developing and even though this year may end up one round out at best or even not making the playoffs there is lots of reason to be optimistic for sure.

 

I disagree with that also. I work very very hard at what i do but there comes along a guy that is just very very talented and he simply does things better easier. True talent is something that is god given. The very best are the ultra talented that work hard also.
However...The part i do agree with is that there is a type of person that prevails no matter what. So being a hard worker can be though of as a talent. Maybe i don't disagree completely?

 

The results while nice are speaking for themselves. The two teams are very different. Would anyone have been happy last year if they were 29-27? Not on your fucking life! They would have been screaming for changes. Wes goes down and Aldridge essentially made his decision it was over. Wes doesn't go down and they bring in a quality backup in Afflalo (who by the way gets a very bad rap) for 10-12 mins a game and that team gives any team out there a big run. They would have been the favorites to get into the Conference finals no question. Talking about that team dying down the stretch is short sighted at best.

 

Wow, it's actually crazy how close some of those numbers actually are. This years team has room to grow as well. It will be interesting to look at these numbers not only after the end of this season, but at the end of next as well.

 

How much of the free throws is intentional fouls? Davis and Plumlee get hacked a lot and we do more hacking to opponents. Just looking at total stats such as # of free throw attempts can be misleading.

It is interesting how many of those stats are similar though. I wonder how this year compares to 2013-14 when we had our starting 5 healthy nearly the entire year?

 

The only downgrade in talent this year is the loss of our all star PF. Granted that is a big loss. But I think that loss is mitigated by the different style of play we now have because he is gone. And I would argue we have more talent at pf defensively on the perimeter when we go small with Harkless or Aminu

Do we really have less talent at SG with an improved CJ and Crabbe and Henderson? Do we have less talent at SF considering how poorly Nic shot last year? Plumlee and Davis have at least as much talent as Rolo.

Then there is PG........Dame is not the same Dame as he was last year. He is a better. Especially defensively.

So I guess my question is do we really have less talent than last year? You argue that playing hard does not equate to talent. If that is true, then what does that say about Wes? He was a talented 3 pt shooter, but all his other intangibles were from hard work.

 

Lack talent? Bullshit.

Do we lack talent because we don't have a 2nd or 3rd "star" as determined by the NBA media machine? People buy into the star concept because the NBA has made that a major marketing tool, and awards these players with preferential treatment from their corrupt corps of referees. That's the only benefit. It can't change the fact that team basketball is still a superior product, it's what we do, and the players we have are NBA players or they wouldn't be here.

Lillard is a "star" but without his team-first approach and great head on his shoulders he's just another talented, entitled, NBA douchebag. I'll take the talent level on this team, and enjoy watching it develop, and enjoy watching some of our resident basketball experts continue to eat crow because they bought the load of shit that the NBA feeds us.

 

Homer's in a bad mood because I ran out of milk for my coffee. Don't mess with me.

 

That's a bitter pill to swallow...my condolences Homer...I hope the coffee was at least hot....reminds me of classic novels...the coffee was bitter, cold and hit my gut like crank case oil! On the other hand, I think they made some more milk today somewhere...you could probably forage out from the basement and find some..(as I sip my espresso with hot foam and cinamon