Here's next year's lineup: Blake/Bayless/Mills Roy/Rudy Webster/Batum LMA/Outlaw/Pendergraph Oden/Joel That's how it stands right now. Not a great team, but still very good.
Could be a great team. If Bayless passes up Blake (learns to run the team), Oden discovers how to stay in for 30 minutes/game, Batum improves normally, and Pendergraph or Cunningham come in tough as the backup PFs, everyone else just improves normally, then this could be a great team. They have plenty of good pieces, just need any two of Oden/Bayless/Batum to break out and nobody would miss the unsigned free agent.
Switch Bayless with Blake and Batum with Webster and actually, I am fine with that, contrary to the belief, team chemistry does win games
Wow..a team wins 54 games, and can only get better with experience of the players and the growth of Oden, all the sudden is crap because we didn't sign Hedo.
Please let the Martell experiment end! And there is a better option(s): -Lamar Odom -Lop-sided ($) trade
Thank you. Our key guys are going to come back that much better, with a better picture of what it's all about, with that much more resolve, and suddenly we're worse off?? I wrote off B-Roy once (when we first drafted him). He's done far more than I EVER expected. I'm not going to write his abilities off now.
Lamar Odom would be worse than Hedo (for the $$ it'd take to get him)..Odom is such an enigma would be the scapegoat instantly imo
Jerryd better be ready this year to handle 15, maybe 20 minutes a game. We're going to need him big time to actually contribute in a positive way. Hopefully by getting regular minutes, we see why he was one of the top-rated players in last year's draft.
Ok, so then the 80% of the NBA is bad by that standards. I understand where you are coming from though.
That team should be good enough to win as many title next year as Milwaukee, but without the cool high draft pick that comes with it.
What people don't seem to understand though is, the West got better. Not just the top teams, but the bottom feeders as well. We might not sweep teams like Memphis, OKC, Minny etc again next year. I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar record next season with the team as is. Well, unless Oden makes a big jump.
I expect a few more losses next year if the roster is the same. I expect crap teams like OKC, Clipps, Grizz and Wolves to be improved as well.
Most players make their biggest jump between their rookie and sophomore year. If Oden, Batum, and Rudy all improve, we're going to be very tough to beat.
What did Denver do to get better? What did Dallas do? Phoenix? New Orleans? Sacramento? Utah? Houston? Arguably 2 teams bettered themselves enough to worry about this off season. The Lakers and Spurs. And I'm not so sure either one did anything drastic enough to alter what was already true (the Lakers were better than us, and the Spurs like to get older players). OKC improved by 3 games last year. I doubt they'll all the sudden improve by 30 games to match us. same with Memphis and Minnesota. We'll get better because we'll have a full year of Greg post MF. The first year of post MF is always the "run in quicksand" year. Look at how much Brandon and LaMarcus improved from their 2nd to 3rd years, are they all the sudden done improving? Is Rudy done improving too? Or Batum? A lot of the teams that "improved" HAD to, to keep up with the Jones (the Lakers). Portland really didn't HAVE to, we selfish fans just wanted them to. Oden, LaMarcus and Brandon are as good of a trio (potentially) as there is in the NBA. that hasn't changed because Hedo's wife has a bigger set of balls than he does.
You're counting on our players becoming THAT much better to offset the gains SA and LAL got. Artest? Jefferson? These are players that will undoubtedly change the way those teams play and are played. Meanwhile, we're sitting here with virtually the same roster. Same strengths, same weaknesses, same everything. It's going to be like living last season all over again.
