Pretend there is no trade until at least this off-season

All three of those guys have sucked in anything more than brief spurts. Layman had one monster game in garbage time. Vonleh is always one step forward two back. Napier...well, did you watch the second half of today's game?

 

Stotts should halt all bb practices.

And then bring in an Irish Folk dancing instructor.

Watching our players river dance at halftime would be far more entertaining than watching what they are doing now.

And then let the cheerleaders play the game, in tank tops.

 

That was a fluke run, in my opinion. Teams often have unsustainable stretches--unfortunately, this one fooled Olshey into thinking the roster was young, good and rising. In fact, it's only young.

I would say that the team's upper bound is a .500 team, not its expected record. You can't have essentially all bad defenders (except Harkless and Aminu, who are solid but not great defenders) and only two good offensive players and expect even .500. And any sub-.500 team can lose back-to-back blowouts. Athletic performance is subject to variance (or, in other words, playing worse and playing better). When a sub-.500 team plays worse, this is the result. When it plays better, it wins a few in a row.

 

These guys are rich enough to charter their own planes. You can't get to them just by taking away free snacks!

 

I think last season was the upper bound of the team. They played much better defense than they have this year. They played that same kind of defense for the 7 or so games before the Magic game. If they can do it for stretches, then they should be able to do it consistently.

Every team, even contending teams, has a few head-scratching losses each season. I'm not sure you can find another example anywhere in the league this year, however, that's fallen behind 18-1 and 10-0 in two consecutive games. That's just not being ready to play when the game starts.

 

I don't think that's true at all, unless you subscribe to the theory that defense is all effort and no talent. I certainly don't, not at the NBA level, at least. I think defense requires talent, just like offense--and as with anything that requires talent, consistency is a big part of talent. A less-talented scorer can have a few good scoring games in a row, but that doesn't mean he can do it consistently--because he's not talented enough to do it consistently. When the team is overperforming, yes, they can string some decent defensive performances together. When they're underperforming, they give up 130 points to a Mavericks team that's missing Dirk Nowitzki. Their "real level" lies in the seasonal averages.

 

Does this team have the talent to be a good, or even average defensive team? No. But they've made up for their defensive lapses in the past by being a high-octane offensive team. Last year, they had the 13th best Net Rating in the league (1.03), with an ORtg/A of 109.48 and DRtg/A of 108.45. This year, the team's ORtg/A is up to 110.49, but the DRtg/A is up even more to 112.00, for a NRtg/A of -1.51 (18th in the league). There is absolutely no reason that they can't get back to a NRtg/A going forward of around 108-109. If they do that, they're good enough to be a .500 or better team.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_ratings.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2017_ratings.html

 

id take all my money and buy the worlds driest towel.









so i could dry my balls after i told all the fair weather fans to suck them.

 

Nothing to see here. Everything is fine.

 

With that you might be able to convince season ticket holders to renew for next season!

 

about a dozen zeros around here wouldn't ..."because"

 

O joy basketball purgatory

 

I don't know about you, but I enjoyed the playoffs last year. I didn't say that Olshey shouldn't make moves, either now or next summer, that are needed to improve the team.

 

Imagine there's no trading
It's easy if you try
No way to blow up
We're stuck with all these guys,
Imagine all this roster, playing for eternity
Imagine there's no championship
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to win or lose for for
And no Meyers Leonard too
Imagine all roster, being the same for the rest of your life, you
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

 

I enjoyed the almost the entire season last year. But that team is not this team..... not by a long shot.... I dont want a playoff run this year they are not CLOSE to being good enough that "playoff experience matters more" and frankly they deserve to miss the playoffs. And all the fans who are happy with just making the playoffs or a single second round bid every 15 years are the reason we suck.

 

I don't follow? Our state of mind doesn't impact the talent level of the roster.

I agree with everything else though. It's probably more important to improve the talent level vs. gaining experience.

 

What im saying is fan expectations of acceptable levels of success can drive the front office/ownership decisions. Until Blazer fans/media hold their franchise to a higher standard we will forever be mediocre thats my 2 cents. We've been duped by nice guys who stink after we had some bad guys who were great players.... and won. I think we've been too happy with just having guys who like eachother and lost sight of the goal an NBA Championship.