I posted this in the "Is anyone ticked off at Nellie" thread, but I figured it deserved its own thread. This stat really blows my mind. Through 14 games, the total minutes for CJ, Buike, D Nelson, and Morrow is 1134 while the total minutes for Brandon Wright, Anthony Randolph, Bellinelli, and M. Williams is 415. I'm not saying anything except WTF! I was pretty naive to think Brandon Wright's minutes would at least be 400 alone... Not to hate on Azubuike, but he's no savior. He's a productive bench player, but he doesn't necessarily make the team better. He keeps the team somewhat competitive but nothing more. I know it's early, but this is a very large discrepancy. I understand that young players make mistakes and can cost you games, but hell, look at our record...it's time to start playing them whether it means tanking the season or not. If we were winning, I would not be posting this.
Yeah this blew me away too although I had a sense of this. Nelson? Nice defender but why put him out there with no NBA offensive skills and a bunch of clowns who don't play D anyways; at least do not know how to play team D? A waste. Morrow? I saw in the Piston game him just get torched by Will Bynum from the top of the key. Just a lack of desire. CJ? Nice flashes at times but if you cannot run a 2 on 1 and cannot break a press dribbling; that's not a PG; get Brevin Knight or Tyronne Lue out there. Only guy who tries to play D is Biedrins and when he goes to defend no one picks up his guy. This will be the reason I disavow Nellie after being his champion for the past 15 years.
I should make a correction: Anthony Morrow isn't technically a D-Leaguer, but he probably should be. Yeah, I got excited about his two performances (37 and 25 points) to where I even picked him up in my two fantasy leagues but he's going to have a rough time if Nellie keeps throwing him out there in the starting lineup.
I think that experiment is over with Azubuike healthy and Crawford here, isn't it? Not that I like Maggette starting at PF any better...
Yeah I think it's time to start bringing him off the bench. Great shooter but defenses are keying in on him more and hes very limited (poor handle, poor passing, can't create well, etc.). Let's get him on the bench and put Wright in the fuggin starting unit. Craw/Jack/Mags/Wright/Beans with Azu, Morrow, Turiaf, Randolph, Watson off the bench.
I like that lineup a lot better than starting Azu or Morrow, pushing Maggette to PF. Wright is ready to play big minutes and even start in this situation. He makes a few mistakes but almost always gives you a lot more positives than negatives. Maggette gets killed at PF and too often his crappy outside volume shooting is outweighing his positives. Warriors play to their competition so even though it's a B2B I think they will play a lot better tonight and make a game of it.
I totally agree. It's making me furious. I know I am very harsh on Don Nelson right now (to the point of being unfair and excessive). I understand it's a team that has to learn how to play together, but I'm not convinced Nelson was the right guy if he was going to give up playing the big lineups he had earlier this season. I wouldn't mind if Demarcus Nelson started, just as long as we had Turiaf and Wright getting more minutes and to stop messing things up by adding more shooters who don't play D or rebound. It's the bigs that makes this team better and give our current starting perimeter players a chance to do more on the court. Nelson keeps handicapping himself. It's like this: Nelson wants to go into a spear fight inside of a telephone booth with another opponent. He uses the spear when he's got knives he can pull out at any freakin time. Why doesn't he use a knife? A spear inside of a telephone booth is useless because it's too long. My point is Nelson doesn't know how to vary his game using the pieces that he has. The most important pieces are the guys that control the paint. I adamantly believe we have those guys right now, and they need to be used so they can get better and be more confident and establish some sort of role for this team. But Nelson... stubborn and not pragmatic at all. I don't even care about his past accomplishments. That's the past. This is the now. A season is based on now and the future.
Marcus Williams sucks. He does not deserve any minutes, especially if you want to say the team needs better defense out there. Randolph is 19 years old and a turnover machine with a bad shot, at least so far this season. His minutes have actually been increasing and he has no NBA experience compared to CJ Watson and Azubuike. Brandan Wright should get more minutes, but he also needs to be a bigger force on the glass. The Warriors have been getting killed on the boards, thus we've seen him start the last game. I think he will get more minutes as the season progresses. He just recently turned 21 years old. He's a young guy still. Marco Belinelli is just playing behind too many players. He's not really anything like instant offense, at least enough to get the PT his talent and skills should probably provide him. Don Nelson will always be the loser in choosing how much to play Marco. Azubuike is a proven vet for this team. He has a lot of strengths that he brings to the table to help the team compete. He makes mistakes, a lot of dumb mistakes. But he is pretty solid overall as a player for this team. He's kind of like Pietrus or Barnes in making stupid decisions, but those two are starters on other NBA teams, and getting a lot of minutes. CJ and Nelson have been the team's PG's where the team has no point guards, so of course they will be getting a lot of PT. Anthony Morrow has basically played about 4 games. There are (a lot) more important things to consider when making substitutions than where players were drafted.
You're right Cliff, on all your points. But sometimes you need to go with your long-term investments otherwise they won't develop. Nellie is playing Brandon Wright way too inconsistently and I think that only hurts his confidence and development as he has no clear role on the team. Same can be said for Marco Bellinelli, but you're right, he's playing behind way too many people. I just feel a bit deceived by Nellie when he said he was going to play the young guys at the cost of winning games. The majority of the games we have not seen this and we've been losing. What we have seen are gimmick lineups that have cease to be effective.
In the NBA you have to compete. I think this team has been very competitive and has had a shot to win most games. They just don't have the consistent play makers and make a lot of dumb mistakes and turnovers late in games, which is not really Nelson's fault. If Wright's confidence is being shot, and it's going to ruin his development, then that would just show me that he is a bit weak mentally. I don't think he's really been thinking that way though. I think he's been making good progress and developing very well. I like what Nelson is doing compared to what happened with Mike Dunleavy where he was just given the starting position just because of where he was drafted. But yeah, winning cures everything.
Like I said (maybe not in this thread), but it's still early. That's how I'll stay optimistic. I forgot to mention that I like Wright's attitude. He hasn't wavered, is saying all the right things, etc. But still, he's human. I think he paid his dues on the bench all last year. I also think his minutes will increase as the season goes on.
I agree. I think after the two games where the Warriors gave up 22+ offensive rebounds in each game, there will be more Wright and Turiaf involved in the rotations (which can kind of be seen in last game's lineups). That's another tough decision that Nelson has to make. Should he play Turiaf or Wright? You may even throw in Anthony Randolph into that question as well. I think in the end the cream of the crop will rise to the top and the roles and rotations will pan out a bit better where everything will be running more efficiently and effectively. Last game the Turiaf/Wright duo had 35 minutes total, where Wright was even a starter. I think Nelson is learning his lessons with this new roster.
Agreed. Nelson is still feeling out the rotation a little bit especially those three guys you mentioned. Ironically Randolph may be the most consistent guy of the three. He can be erratic, turnover prone, low FG%, etc. but he does it consistently and also rebounds, blocks shots, pushes the ball consistently. Generally I know what we're getting when Randolph is in. Wright has been pretty inconsistent. Some nights he looks very solid, others hes non-existent. When hes on hes got an ok post game, high FG%, rebounding pretty well, and changing shots. When hes not on hes not doing anything offensively but even more concerning hes not much of a factor on the glass or on defense. Turiaf has been fairly consistent but also has some days where he just can't seem to get too into the mix. Hes extremely foul prone and his mid-range shot has been way off all year. Offense is pretty poor but his defense has been nice all year.
Turiaf should just never take a shot outside of about 8-feet, period. I can't recall him hitting a single one of those all year, although I'm sure there were one or two somewhere. But it's ugly. Maggette should never take a turnaround jumper. Randolph should never take a jumper of any kind, at least not yet. He's awesome blocking shots, rebounding, and on the break, but just a dreadful shooter.
I remember Turiaf drilling those 17 footers against us like he was David West. Of course he was always on fire when he played us.
