I realize that Aminu and Harkless can play defense, but I am not really seeing it. The SF and PF's on other teams are doing pretty well against us. But I agree initially it would make things worse and that is why I said....wait until after the break. I think Jake can be a good 2 way player. He is a long and athletic SF. Let ssee what he can do On D.......if we are out of it. Worse case scenario we get a better pick.
The problem is that, along with most of the team, the roles are pretty ill defined so he really doesn't get into any kind of offensive groove. With a good ballhandling 3 like ET, he should get better set shots. He usually just comes in very sporadically.
Fire Stotts - we can do his job by committee and achieve at least the same results. We'd also implement changes a whole helluva lot quicker!
To be clear "he" said bring Dame off the bench (6th man) and start Turner/CJ. Yes. AND, it was in the context of a few game experiment before the trade deadline, not the rest of the season or his career. Until we start playing .550+ ball and defending with our guards (not by making our forwards and C do all the work) I will stand by it. If Dame is a very substandard defender at PG then explain how pairing him with CJ is every going to lead to a top 10 defense. If someone can light a fire under Dame and get him to work harder on that end, then maybe. If he can't get motivated to do it this year, then when?
What if he's a substandard defender because he's bad at defense, not because he's not working hard? I think he's plenty motivated. Just like I think Plumlee is motivated, but isn't talented at rim protection.
It's somewhat hard to tell at this point. Dame is obviously physically gifted. Therefore, he either isn't trying or he just isn't mentally wired for playing good defense. I'm not sure which.
Everyone in the NBA is physically gifted. One gift that Lillard doesn't have, especially relative to the NBA at large, is size. That's a pretty big deal. And yeah, a lot of talent resides in the brain. Not everyone is wired to be good (by NBA standards) at defense., just as not everyone is wired to be good at shooting or passing.
Nothing against Dame, but it sure seems like he is the wrong piece to fit with the rest of this team. Either you trade him or you trade CJ, reconstruct the rest of the team, and still may end up short (no pun intended).
Yeah, I agree--I think you trade one of them. I don't think Olshey will, but I think that's the most plausible path to something better.
I'd definitely consider that, yes. It would be an enormous gamble and one that might very well not pay off, but I'm reasonably certain that the team isn't going to contend for a title with this core and with specifically these two stars, and there's no clear path to the kind of flexibility to augment this roster with impact playsers, so that's a situation where I'd be willing to roll the dice.
There not to many pg that play good defense. I think the best is Paul but there real fall off from there.