So all we have had this whole year is a #2 option and a #3 option. No #1 option. Yet we spent the whole year bitching that the coach had to go? I agree that it was time for Nate to go, but lets face it, things would not have gotten ugly if the team would of had more talent. It is always fun when you win and shitty when you lose.
See the reason why I think Nate had to go was when we didn't have batman (Roy), we were lottery bound. Even coaches like Sloan and adelman managed to get to the post season with less talent than ours. This is where I see him and the need to go. I don't even consider adelman or Sloan the coach answer for this team to win it all, but we would be a lot better now with them at the helm.
I have. I saw them play the Pistons. Chris Paul was so fucking clutch in the 4th quarter and OT. He couldn't miss. I'd definitely rather have him than Batum.
So who should be the new coach next season? Never a lot of great options. Always a lot of average ones.
Hey Mags! You hear about the new French tank? It has 5 speeds, 4 in reverse, 1 forward in case you have to back out of trouble. But seriously folks, Batum has to man up, be aggressive looking for his shot and attack the rim. I'm sick of watching his scared, deer-in-the-headlights shit.
Batum has been mostly hype and promise his entire career. He's pretty much the same player he was in his rookie year. He's definitely a serviceable player, but I think he's more like a solid roleplayer guy to bring off the bench. He hits the 3 and makes some defensive plays. But overall, he's got a fairly week offensive arsenal, has trouble finishing, and his defense is vastly over-rated. There's only a 3 mil qualifying offer for him next year right? So we'll most likely keep him at least one more year. If he doesn't start fulfilling some of that promise, I think we should deal him, because he's seeking (and may well get) a contract well beyond his production.
I totally get your point, but I think we'd be very lucky to get him for Darius dollars. Wasn't Darius a MLE signing? It only looked bad at the end because of the escalating dollar amounts.
I'm gonna get flamed for this, but what's sad is Gerald Wallace was a legit 2nd option. Having no training camp, a condensed season, Nate McMillan as coach, and his style of play was the perfect storm for it to not work out for him here. Sad to think about.
This was Nic's second game ever in the NBA. [video=youtube;p9jWYZPr_EQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9jWYZPr_EQ[/video] Haven't seen him dunk that hard in a while now. He's clearly out of it.
And he's clearly capable of it. [video=youtube;KeCQhZFjtp8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeCQhZFjtp8[/video] [video=youtube;fAITHRbqlTE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAITHRbqlTE[/video] [video=youtube;aLdL5gwPEwA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLdL5gwPEwA[/video] [video=youtube;bBpc5iaGUKg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBpc5iaGUKg[/video] [video=youtube;wSiiuRuKEJE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSiiuRuKEJE[/video] What happened to this guy?
Every one of those plays were either a nice pass or a fast break which don't happen any more (or that one with piss poor defense when he was the point (neither of which happen here either)). Don't play defense to get rebounds that we inconsistantly get anyways which would lead to fast breaks which Matthews would get stuffed anyhow. Felton rarely looks for the fancy pass anymore because when he does it's just a turnover. It's obvious he's giving up because he doesn't want to be here anymore so he can go to a good team and kick ass. Nothing wrong besides the team.
Nico is a very good role player. That means he will look average on a bad team and look excellent when he plays on a good team. Get the team back on track, sign a good point guard, and the Batum bandwagon will fill back up. He should never be more than the third option on a contender. And I'm fine with that.
This may have been mentioned in one of the draft threads, but here's a thought... Let's say we end up with something like the #5 and #10 picks. How about packaging one of them (presumably #5) with Batum to move up to #1 and grab Davis to pair with Aldridge? The top-10 is full of forwards that don't make sense if we have both Aldridge and Batum, especially if we're drafting two of them, so might as well try to consolidate. Batum might be enough to get it done...
Like Sly said. Only Portland was stupid enough to trade down on draft day. I doubt there would be a single team that won the #1 pick and trade it for even #5, #10 and Batum. Besides, Batum is a RFA, so that type of deal can't even happen on draft day. We would need to resign Batum, then make the deal.
