lipoli390 wrote:Jason Tatum finished with 21 highly efficient points, 8 rebounds and 2 blocks tonight against the Hawks. It's looked like a two-man competition for ROY between Tatum and Simmons. Did anyone here believe the Celtics would be 9-2 after Hayward went down in the opener? Hats off the Danny Ainge for his drafting and other player personnel decisions, including the Irving trade and for his decision to hire Brad Stevens.
I'm so jealous of that organization. They have 19/20 year old kids making major contributions on a team in 1st place in the East. Horford is such a steadying vet presence, on both ends.
Yeah and they are starting 2 kids Kyrie and are the best ranked defense by a healthy margin. Meanwhile the Bucks a team with length and or athletic ability are only ahead of the Wolves in defensive rating.
How much of Boston's success this season with all those young guys stems from their head coach? I think Boston clearly over-achieved last season and they have take the meaning of over-achieve to new heights so far this season. I think a lot of the team's success is attirutributable to their head coach. But obviously, a big part of their success is smart draft decisions and asset management by the team's front office.
Here's a question. I'm sure all of us would gladly trade Wiggins for the Greek Freak right now. (To think that Flip could have drafted the Freak instead of Shabazz). :( But would you trade Wiggins for Tatum?
No question Stevens has a lot to do with the quick development of Boston's youngsters. A few of us here preferred Kevin Ollie to Thibodeau when Mitchell was fired. Who knows...maybe he would have had the same kind of success Stevens has had in Boston.
Gotta say... do we have any specifics for why we'd think Ollie would make a great coach... or be comparable to a guy more and more pundits and fans put 2nd on the current list of coaches (behind Popovich)?
After a stellar beginning of his career (with another man's players)... Ollie's teams have gotten worse, from great to decent to mediocre.
He COULD be good. But he could be the next Kurt Rambis too. Assuming he's just as likely to be the very best is like assuming Wiggins was a surefire bet to be among the very best. The overwhelming probability is that he'd be somewhere in the middle.
Q12543 wrote:So wait, Boston is #1 in the NBA in defense starting a rookie and 2nd year wing, neither of which played more than one year of pro ball. That is nuts! Aaaaaand Kyrie Irving - never known for his defense - is their starting point guard. Crazy.
I need to dig into those numbers. It's almost embarrassing if you are a coach like Thibs with his current mix of vets and elite athletes. I know we have looked better the last few games, but I just have a hard time understanding how we can still be this bad when you look at our roster on paper. And Boston with Irving and two greenhorns are #1.....
Their whole team buys into Stevens. Not everyone on our team does. It's pretty obvious KAT is just in his own world when it comes to what he thinks he should be doing out on the court. Wiggins also needed Butler to get him to start playing hard more often. Meanwhile Stevens puts his guys in the best position to succeed and they fully buy in. That's what good teams do. GS, SA, even Houston under D'Antoni. Guys like Butler and Gibson get it. Our young guys still don't and that's the difference. I'd put Stevens at #2 right now behind Pop as far as coaches go. His teams always overachieve and play hard.
So where do you rank Thibs? Because you look at our team on paper and the mix of athletes and vets....it's stunning to me that we would start out so poorly defensively. At what point do we start wondering if this is just as much a Thibs problem as a player personnel problem?
For example, does Thibs really have zero influence on how hard we go after offensive boards versus getting back on defense? And who does he have on his staff that works specifically with KAT on proper positioning? Is that person truly an expert and getting through to KAT?
"Our young guys" is starting to ring hollow after we traded half of them away for Butler and Wig and KAT are in their 4th and 3rd NBA seasons.
By the way, I think Butler has been a little less than advertised defensively too. I would give him a B or B- for his defense. He and Taj are certainly solid, but you can't be the worst in the league in opponent eFG% if those two were actually playing at an elite level.
Q12543 wrote:So wait, Boston is #1 in the NBA in defense starting a rookie and 2nd year wing, neither of which played more than one year of pro ball. That is nuts! Aaaaaand Kyrie Irving - never known for his defense - is their starting point guard. Crazy.
I need to dig into those numbers. It's almost embarrassing if you are a coach like Thibs with his current mix of vets and elite athletes. I know we have looked better the last few games, but I just have a hard time understanding how we can still be this bad when you look at our roster on paper. And Boston with Irving and two greenhorns are #1.....
Their whole team buys into Stevens. Not everyone on our team does. It's pretty obvious KAT is just in his own world when it comes to what he thinks he should be doing out on the court. Wiggins also needed Butler to get him to start playing hard more often. Meanwhile Stevens puts his guys in the best position to succeed and they fully buy in. That's what good teams do. GS, SA, even Houston under D'Antoni. Guys like Butler and Gibson get it. Our young guys still don't and that's the difference. I'd put Stevens at #2 right now behind Pop as far as coaches go. His teams always overachieve and play hard.
So where do you rank Thibs? Because you look at our team on paper and the mix of athletes and vets....it's stunning to me that we would start out so poorly defensively. At what point do we start wondering if this is just as much a Thibs problem as a player personnel problem?
For example, does Thibs really have zero influence on how hard we go after offensive boards versus getting back on defense? And who does he have on his staff that works specifically with KAT on proper positioning? Is that person truly an expert and getting through to KAT?
"Our young guys" is starting to ring hollow after we traded half of them away for Butler and Wig and KAT are in their 4th and 3rd NBA seasons.
By the way, I think Butler has been a little less than advertised defensively too. I would give him a B or B- for his defense. He and Taj are certainly solid, but you can't be the worst in the league in opponent eFG% if those two were actually playing at an elite level.
I think Thibs is a middle of the road coach. I never saw anything special with him in Chicago. I think he greatly benefitted from having a guy like Noah set an emotional tone for his teams and then Butler comes in and plays the same way at an All-Star level. It takes a certain kind of player to succeed under Thibs and I don't think Towns and Wiggins are those guys (even if Towns thinks and talks like he's one of those guys).
I also could care less about our defensive ratings right now. The Indiana/Detroit games are gonna take probably 2 months to finally offset those atrocities. Butler and Taj haven't been elite defenders, but everyone needs to chip in with defense. It's really a team effort on that end and right now Towns and Wiggins don't support their teammates on that end. If they play basic solid team defense we would be a middle of the road defense which would be good enough given our offensive prowess. There's a reason we are 7-1 with Jimmy and 0-2 in atrocious games without him. He's an all-star glue guy on both sides of the ball even if he isn't shutting guys down yet.
The Thunder are falling apart, now they lost to the Kings tonight. Pretty unfortunate for them to have their spirts crushed so early in the season twice by the juggernaut Wolves.
BloopOracle wrote:The Thunder are falling apart, now they lost to the Kings tonight. Pretty unfortunate for them to have their spirts crushed so early in the season twice by the juggernaut Wolves.
It's been a decent night for the Wolves in terms of other WC losing. Dillon Brooks with a stat filling game and some nice plays late in the game with his college coach Dana Altman watching.
Q12543 wrote:So wait, Boston is #1 in the NBA in defense starting a rookie and 2nd year wing, neither of which played more than one year of pro ball. That is nuts! Aaaaaand Kyrie Irving - never known for his defense - is their starting point guard. Crazy.
I need to dig into those numbers. It's almost embarrassing if you are a coach like Thibs with his current mix of vets and elite athletes. I know we have looked better the last few games, but I just have a hard time understanding how we can still be this bad when you look at our roster on paper. And Boston with Irving and two greenhorns are #1.....
Their whole team buys into Stevens. Not everyone on our team does. It's pretty obvious KAT is just in his own world when it comes to what he thinks he should be doing out on the court. Wiggins also needed Butler to get him to start playing hard more often. Meanwhile Stevens puts his guys in the best position to succeed and they fully buy in. That's what good teams do. GS, SA, even Houston under D'Antoni. Guys like Butler and Gibson get it. Our young guys still don't and that's the difference. I'd put Stevens at #2 right now behind Pop as far as coaches go. His teams always overachieve and play hard.
So where do you rank Thibs? Because you look at our team on paper and the mix of athletes and vets....it's stunning to me that we would start out so poorly defensively. At what point do we start wondering if this is just as much a Thibs problem as a player personnel problem?
For example, does Thibs really have zero influence on how hard we go after offensive boards versus getting back on defense? And who does he have on his staff that works specifically with KAT on proper positioning? Is that person truly an expert and getting through to KAT?
"Our young guys" is starting to ring hollow after we traded half of them away for Butler and Wig and KAT are in their 4th and 3rd NBA seasons.
By the way, I think Butler has been a little less than advertised defensively too. I would give him a B or B- for his defense. He and Taj are certainly solid, but you can't be the worst in the league in opponent eFG% if those two were actually playing at an elite level.
I think Thibs is a middle of the road coach. I never saw anything special with him in Chicago. I think he greatly benefitted from having a guy like Noah set an emotional tone for his teams and then Butler comes in and plays the same way at an All-Star level. It takes a certain kind of player to succeed under Thibs and I don't think Towns and Wiggins are those guys (even if Towns thinks and talks like he's one of those guys).
I also could care less about our defensive ratings right now. The Indiana/Detroit games are gonna take probably 2 months to finally offset those atrocities. Butler and Taj haven't been elite defenders, but everyone needs to chip in with defense. It's really a team effort on that end and right now Towns and Wiggins don't support their teammates on that end. If they play basic solid team defense we would be a middle of the road defense which would be good enough given our offensive prowess. There's a reason we are 7-1 with Jimmy and 0-2 in atrocious games without him. He's an all-star glue guy on both sides of the ball even if he isn't shutting guys down yet.
Excellent post, Kahns. I agree with your take on Thibs as a middle of the road coach and also agree with your assessment of Butler, Taj, Wiggins and Towns defensively. Butler and Taj have been solid, but Butler in particular has been disappointing to me defensively. Not bad, just disappointing. However, he's been enough of a glue guy on both sides of the ball to lift the team's overall level of play. Towns and Wiggins really need to step it up defensively.
Thibs may be a middle of the road coach but he's looking like a stellar executive. Maybe we should groom a wiz kid behind the bench and let Thibs just run the team up top.
Q12543 wrote:So wait, Boston is #1 in the NBA in defense starting a rookie and 2nd year wing, neither of which played more than one year of pro ball. That is nuts! Aaaaaand Kyrie Irving - never known for his defense - is their starting point guard. Crazy.
I need to dig into those numbers. It's almost embarrassing if you are a coach like Thibs with his current mix of vets and elite athletes. I know we have looked better the last few games, but I just have a hard time understanding how we can still be this bad when you look at our roster on paper. And Boston with Irving and two greenhorns are #1.....
In games that Butler has played Wolves have defensive rating 106.8 (calculated from basketball-reference stats) that would put them just ahead of Golden State, which has defensive rating 107 and Golden state had 2nd best defensive rating last year.
I think there is not yet much point to look those numbers since teams have played so few games. Boston has played just three teams with winning record and out of their opponents only Cleveland has currently top10 offense. Lets check those numbers again after 20 games and if Boston still has the best defensive rating, it might mean their defensive success is legit.
Q12543 wrote:So wait, Boston is #1 in the NBA in defense starting a rookie and 2nd year wing, neither of which played more than one year of pro ball. That is nuts! Aaaaaand Kyrie Irving - never known for his defense - is their starting point guard. Crazy.
I need to dig into those numbers. It's almost embarrassing if you are a coach like Thibs with his current mix of vets and elite athletes. I know we have looked better the last few games, but I just have a hard time understanding how we can still be this bad when you look at our roster on paper. And Boston with Irving and two greenhorns are #1.....
In games that Butler has played Wolves have defensive rating 106.8 (calculated from basketball-reference stats) that would put them just ahead of Golden State, which has defensive rating 107 and Golden state had 2nd best defensive rating last year.
I think there is not yet much point to look those numbers since teams have played so few games. Boston has played just three teams with winning record and out of their opponents only Cleveland has currently top10 offense. Lets check those numbers again after 20 games and if Boston still has the best defensive rating, it might mean their defensive success is legit.
Agree it's early Mikkeman, but we shouldn't fall apart like a house of cards when Butler sits. And he has not been perfect himself defensively, as I mentioned previously.
I also agree Boston probably won't end the season at #1, but on paper I would have a hard time seeing them even in the top half of the league.
Mixed bag last night again. Denver and New Orleans both beat their Eastern Conference opponent, which sucks, especially the Pelicans winning at Indiana. The Sixers beating Utah is big though and San Antonio (who I assume will be a top 4 seed) beating the Clippers is good. The Clippers had an easy start to their schedule. They are now starting to come back down to earth. I'm not sure what to think of OKC losing. You have to believe they get their act together at some point, no?
All in all though, it's a tough road to a playoff spot. The top 8 teams now all have winning records, with two teams below them at .500 records.
