The BLAME GAME: Olshey or Stotts or both?

Hopefully someone doesn't realize that and we can dump him.

 

Disagree. $10M/year is not "massively overpaid". At least not in this case. Perhaps Ezeli is massively overpaid though. So in the end, you're right - three.

 

Turner is massively overpaid and in my opinion Crabbe is a scrub. I would argue that Meyers and Aminu are overpaid as well.

 

I think a lot of the blame should go to HCP. He is clearly not doing a good job of filming player errors. They would be reviewing and correcting their errors if he was.

 

I blame Blazer bashers for our middle of the pack season.......! The Blazers are the Bernie Sanders of the NBA whenever they lose...someone will blame someone else. Olshey has enough info that he needs to make a move....I think he knows that.

 

True but they were missing 3 of their top 6 and 4 of their top 8. They started an all-rookie backcourt. Yes, having Mo out hurt us but they were Gasol and 3-4 guys who wouldn't start for anyone else in the league at this point.

Layman can shoot, Aminu can't.....that is one big difference.

 

Didn't we pretty much have the same players last year? The only change in our top 10 rotation players was Evan Turner in, Gerald Henderson out.

We weren't great defensively last season, but after a slow start, we were above league average for the second half and finished the season with the 19th rated defense.

Right now, with basically the same roster, we are dead last, 30th out of 30 in both DRtg and ESPN's DEF EFF.

Last year, our DRtg was 108.67. It's currently 112.68. That 4 point drop is the difference between a middle of the pack defensive team to being the worst in the league.

The swap of Evan Turner for Gerald Henderson does not come close to accounting for that difference. So, what that tells me is the players on this roster are collectively capable of playing average defense, they did it last year, but they aren't doing it this year.

Same roster (pretty much), same GM, same coach, same system.

While I agree we have some roster imbalances and need to make a trade, in this case, given how the team preformed on defense last year, I'd say the GM is the least culpable. Either our guys, some of whom got paid handsomely, aren't putting in the same effort on the defensive end as they did last year, or the rest of the league has found a way to completely exploit our defensive system, and that's on the coach.

So, if were going to assign blame, I'd go in the following order:

Players
Coach
GM

BNM (not part of the list)

 

Has anyone considered that the players are thinking tht they are maybe going to be traded or that their buddys are?

 

I mentioned that once..if a guy is getting shopped, he often starts mailing it in or gets in a funk..I suspect all our bigs have been dealing with something like that.

 

And a questionable call decided the game.

Crabbe has been playing great lately. Wrong time to call him a scrub.

Layman has missed 11 of his last 12 threes.

 

I thought the team overachieved last year and was only in the second round because of a rash of bad luck for the Clippers. The problem? Olshey paid premium prices this summer for a lot of average talent as if it was a true conference title contender.

Is Stotts to blame because he doesn't demand accountability on defense? Maybe a little. Is Olshey at fault for overpaying guys and not balancing the roster? Yeah, a little bit. And are the players to blame for not playing with the same sense of urgency? Yes.

This team's issues are on a lot of people. Not a lot of natural defenders, no rim protection, poor defense from the guard positions, poor communication, and a front-court full of JAGs (just a guy) outside of Harkless.

 

Interesting definition of great. Crabbe has been playing better, but he was 0-5 in the second half against CHI and 2-9 last night. He's still wildly inconsistent. When he plays well (or as you call it, great) it's still a pleasant surprise, not something we've come to depend on.

BNM

 

Yep, but then I remembered they are gown men that get paid tens of millions of dollars to do their job. Time to suck it up and earn those eight figure paychecks.

BNM

 

I think it's simple...we didn't improve defensively....the bench has really underachieved early in the season and we let teams build leads that we tried to shoot out of with 3ptrs. More often than not...we didn't make enough of them. We've had some ugly qtrs. of play and some great ones....now sitting at 500 early in Dec.....Stotts teams are usually better as the season goes on. Hopefully it starts clicking and the second half of the season will balance things out. As constructed, we're not good enough in my view...I think Olshey probably feels the same way

 

If only. When Nic wasn't hitting his shot, at least he brought other things to the table (rebounding and passing). When Crabbe isn't making his shots, he's dead wood.

BNM