lipoli390 wrote:Q12543 wrote:FNG wrote:Q12543 wrote:This is exactly what I was worried about in terms of injuries and depth. This team barely got to 3-2 with a 100% healthy roster. A couple guys get nicked up for this one and suddenly we're losing at home by double digits to one of the worst teams in basketball. This might be one of the least gritty, least resilient franchises in the history of professional sports.
Q, that has been my concern too. Unlike previous years, we were very healthy the first five games while our opponents were not. I think most of us knew that was not sustainable with the injury history of many of our players. Not having Beverley and DLo last night was a big challenge, but we should know that each of them is going to miss a considerable amount of games. So after Rosas's misguided trade of Rubio for Prince (he clearly wasn't considering injury history), we are left with the largely untested JMac as our only option at PG. And while I agree that it was not helpful to lose DLo last night (once again, I have to say his defense looked fairly good), isn't it kind of amusing that we were counting on a guy shooting 36% (29% on threes) this season to bring us to victory?
We are not unusual here in being quite knee jerk in our reactions, and I don't think we are anywhere near as good as most here thought we were when we were 3-1 after the Bucks win, but also not nearly as bad as the gloom and doom in this thread reflects. We're somewhere in the middle. We are what we thought we were...a somewhat tougher and improved defensive team that doesn't move the ball well, and with the exception of KAT, doesn't shoot the ball very well. We aren't going to shoot as poorly as we have in the first 6 games, but it's also unrealistic to think the worst defense in the league last year has been instantly transformed into a top 10 defense. Both factors will progress or regress to our mean. I've been saying 35 wins, and if we stay reasonably healthy, we can do that...and that would show some improvement over last year. And improvement is what we have to be satisfied with, because this roster doesn't look like a playoff roster to me as it stands now.
Largely agree. I had us slated for 34 wins - right around the Vegas number - because I factored in injuries and what I felt was a lack of depth. The reality is we fall in love with "our guys". Little Mac, Prince, Okogie, etc. all have endearing qualities, but they simply aren't that good. Once we have to start leaning on these guys beyond a very narrowly defined role, we're in big trouble.
If this isn't a playoff roster with KAT, Edwards and DLO as its core, then there are no tweaks on the edges that will make this a playoff team. In other words, not making the playoffs this season tells me the core has to change. And I think that means moving both KAT and DLO. Trading KAT would bring a huge return in assets. Moving DLO would bring...well, never mind. Maybe we have to just ride out the last year two years of his contract after this season.
Trading KAT is still a difficult conclusion for me to reach, but I'm about to watch the replay of last night's game, and I may change my mind. You're right, Lip, that he would bring back a huge return. He's still young and averaging 24/10/4 with a TS% of almost 64% while making half of his threes....that's a line that you just don't see from many players. And other GMs who don't watch him every night aren't going to be as concerned about his body language and mercurial personality as we are. If the fan base isn't satisfied with the 35 wins we're destined to get this season (and as said before, that is improvement) we may see a fan base willing to move on from KAT, DLO and Beasley and rebuild around a core of Ant, tough defensive players like JO/Jaden/PatBev, and young talent brought back in trades. While a rebuild is difficult to stomach, I've thought for a long time that a team that has DLO absorbing almost 1/4 of its cap is destined for a ceiling of mediocrity, and we have to start considering that the same conclusion applies to KAT.
