Travis still doesn't get it.

Over and over I noticed Travis couldn't find his man, and that created chaos for our defense. I mean, Linas Kleiza made him look silly two games in a row. In the past two games, he shot 7-10 from 3 and scored a total of 37 points with Travis guarding him. Most of his shots were wide open.

Travis may be able to hit an open corner three, but his value is plummeting at this point. I think he's the odd man out next year.

 

his on ball defense is not that bad. what i hate is how he can never find his guy on defense till they are hoisting up a three in the corner.

 

"6 year veteran."

LOL.

 

Exactly. There's no way Kleiza even shoots 7 three pointers this game if Batum was on him, much less make 5 of them.

 

He's more of a detriment than an asset these days. His scoring is down from last season and his defense is even worse.

He brings 10ppg to the table but probably gives up 15 easy point to the opposing team with his bonehead D.

 

Sadly, we are wasting our time w/ him. He is a fantastic athlete but fantastic athletes don't win unless they have some kind of bball IQ and travis doesn't. He is pretty good one on one on both ends but as a team player...he may as well be a seventh grader. He is only effective certain nights against certain teams...and never against the best teams. They exploit the heck out of him.

 

Consider Batum is 19 and already better than Travis at defense, I'm going to give it to Batum. At this point, I don't know why we're playing Travis except to showcase him. Also, if Martell can come back strong and do the things Martell do, then Travis might as well be trade bait.

 

The Kleiza scenario did piss me off and I am a huge Travis fan. But he did play good D against Martin. So when Webster comes back ,it is back to PF. I like the mismatch he creates there. We still need a back up banger for those rare teams that have multiple physical PF's. But eventually I think that Oden can give LMA a rest at the PF spot against those FEW teams that go real big. Cause we know Joel can go 40 minutes at center!

 

we have to play outlaw till webster gets back.

 

Or we finally cut our losses and make a trade with him. Dude has peaked at 10ppg.

 

Roy looked just as bad when he took over on Kleiza, so I guess we gotta trade him too?

 

Considering Roy could actually get a hand up on Kleiza and make him miss - probably not.

 

Travis is the ultimate catch-22.

He tantalizes you with a 4th quarter performance like the game against Phoenix last week. He makes some tough jumpers, and sometimes in the clutch.

But he does some BONEHEAD things. Such as . . . losing track of Kleiza 15 times in two nights. Even the last posession tonight - what's he doing taking it in for a dunk? It wasn't going to matter but the "right way to play" is to hold the ball and run the clock out. He just doesn't know anything about the right way to play.

Still, there are games our offense stalls and somebody (other than Brandon) needs to step up and Outlaw does do that sometimes.

 

I'd be interested in Outlaw taking a wonderlic test and seeing the results, that's all I'm going to say.

 

Bad example on the last play. They were trying to foul. Open lane to the hoop.....dunk it. Yes he could have waited in the corner for them, but why. Those fuckers had been slapping at us all night. "Throw it down young fella throw it down!"

 

Chalupas man, not that I care but it doesn't hurt anyone to get the fans free food.

 

Well, it was just an example. Maybe you're right - if Brandon would have taken that to the well and tried to pack it, I might have felt differently.

It seems like I'm always going "Travis, no, no, . . . oh, what a shot".

Or, "Travis, you moron".

Not a lot in between.

 

Roy hit the tech FT to get the 100th point.

 

Travis isn't worth the headache for his meager 10ppg production. I think Martell can step in and produce the same points off the bench if he gets healthy. If any teams call inquiring about his availability, KP better listen.

 

Holding the ball has led to us losing games lately. He made the correct play and we won.