Not true. My pessism (I prefer realism) with this current iteration of the team started to percolate when KP failed to capitalize on Raef Lafrenz's expiring deal -- Miller falling into his lap doesn't wash for me -- and has continued mostly unabated with the raft of injuries key players on this team have sustained and also because I started noticing things that I consider "fatal flaws" that haven't been addressed in the past 3 or 4 years; mainly a lack of fundamentals or easy shots in an offense predicated on isolation plays, contested jumpers, and corralling offense rebounds instead of generating high percentage looks and a switching defense that allows a pretty high field goal percentage for a team that is led by a supposedly defensive minded coach.
missed the game. was at a house with directv (thanks comcast!) ....looks like i didn't miss much. Roy had a good game on the boxscore at least.
FYI everyone's secret real favorite team the Thunder lost to a worse team than the Blazers did tonight. Time for them to rebuild?!?!??!?!?
Random thoughts: It is disappointing that Aldridge got outplayed by Humphries and did not make his 4th quarter shots. It really hurts the offense that Camby cannot make wide open shots. I think our top priority in draft or trade is to find an athletic, aggressive big. Wish the team could develop Batum's skill set, should be a priority for the rest of the season.
I love Aldridge, but that's pretty much his M.O., isn't it? And since I know someone will question the "clutch" perception, I went looking for supporting data... All I could find is the '08-09 section on 82games.com (has any site ever been built with worse navigation?), but it turned up pretty much what I was expecting -- a fluctuation of shots/points, tapering off in the 2nd quarter of each half, as well as a significant drop in FG% in the 4th quarter. In order of quarters one through four: Code: Fga Fg% 3p% Fta Pts Reb Ast T/o Blk Stl 5.4 .488 .429 0.9 6.0 2.2 0.7 0.4 0.2 0.3 2.7 .491 .000 0.9 3.3 1.1 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 4.8 .494 .273 1.5 6.0 2.4 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.3 2.4 .466 .167 0.8 2.9 1.7 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.1 http://www.82games.com/0809/QTR1S11.HTM http://www.82games.com/0809/QTR2S11.HTM http://www.82games.com/0809/QTR3S11.HTM http://www.82games.com/0809/QTR4S11.HTM
We were so lost when we needed a basket down the stretch. Andre Miller dribbles down the clock and then chooses HIMSELF to shoot a three pointer? Why not find Wes Matthews? Also- you know who this team misses? Juwan Howard. He was a leader on and off the court. He was a big who could hit an open jumper. We won a lot of games against a lot of good teams with Juwan at center last season.
WHY did they get rid of Juwan Howard??? He could sub at 2 positions. He made many, many shots from 15-20 feet in important moments of the game. He bailed us out of many situations when we were losing scoring momentum and the opponent was starting to roll over us. His shooting % doesn't show this. He was 100 times as good as Marks and 10 times as smart as Pendergraph. He clicked in McMillan's system. WHY oh WHY does management think we need to set more records for youngest team? Keep good experienced players when you luck onto one!
He is definitely missed. That is what I was trying to point out in another thread. We have nobody on the team that will bang, lay a big pick, and give some post presence for spacing. Howard did all those thingsfor the second unit, and sometimes for the first unit. All of the problems for the team right now can be traced back to a lack of bigs.
