khans2k5 wrote:I said Wiggins/Bazz as a compromise. Sam doesn't like Wiggins at the 3 because he gets pushed around and he really doesn't like Lavine/Wiggins next to each other defensively. Bazz moves him to the 2 where he gets the matchup Sam wants while giving the starting unit a scoring punch they don't have. You simply don't need 5 defensive minded guys in the starting 5 to have a good defense. 4 should be more than enough and you still need to be able to score the ball to stay in games. It's too bad we can't do what every good team does defensively and direct traffic to help defenders. Instead we have to have 5 plus defenders who can take care of their guy and not play in a good team concept. If Malone and Clifford can make teams good defensively with Demarcus and Big Al as their starting C's, then I want to run their team defensive schemes because it's clear they've hacked into the Matrix and found a cheat code.
Yeah, Clifford is one of my favorite examples of a team that was coached up defensively (they went from 30th to 5th in one season. With Big Al as their only major roster change. Amazing). That being said, he did have some nice raw materials to work with in Kidd-Gilchrist and Gerald Henderson on the wings.
As for Mike Malone, he brought the Kings from #29 to #23 defensively, which is almost in the range of random variability, so it's hard for me to really assess him as a defensive coach.
Malone's the head coach of the Denver Nuggets now, so, I guess you'll have something else to compare (2014 Nuggets vs 2015 Nuggets) to see if he really does have a positive effect on defense. They have some pieces too.
I'd rather start Bjelica at the 3 than watch Prince start, to be honest. That's not an ideal scenario defensively, but offensively it would be a fine pairing and on the glass we'd be very good. It'd create some mismatches too.
Camden wrote:I'd rather start Bjelica at the 3 than watch Prince start, to be honest. That's not an ideal scenario defensively, but offensively it would be a fine pairing and on the glass we'd be very good. It'd create some mismatches too.
I would go fot that, too!
Unfortunately, when Prince had to bow out of last nights game with an upset stomach, Sam's backup plan was to start Rudez at SF for the 2nd half...
khans2k5 wrote:I said Wiggins/Bazz as a compromise. Sam doesn't like Wiggins at the 3 because he gets pushed around and he really doesn't like Lavine/Wiggins next to each other defensively. Bazz moves him to the 2 where he gets the matchup Sam wants while giving the starting unit a scoring punch they don't have. You simply don't need 5 defensive minded guys in the starting 5 to have a good defense. 4 should be more than enough and you still need to be able to score the ball to stay in games. It's too bad we can't do what every good team does defensively and direct traffic to help defenders. Instead we have to have 5 plus defenders who can take care of their guy and not play in a good team concept. If Malone and Clifford can make teams good defensively with Demarcus and Big Al as their starting C's, then I want to run their team defensive schemes because it's clear they've hacked into the Matrix and found a cheat code.
Yeah, Clifford is one of my favorite examples of a team that was coached up defensively (they went from 30th to 5th in one season. With Big Al as their only major roster change. Amazing). That being said, he did have some nice raw materials to work with in Kidd-Gilchrist and Gerald Henderson on the wings.
As for Mike Malone, he brought the Kings from #29 to #23 defensively, which is almost in the range of random variability, so it's hard for me to really assess him as a defensive coach.
They had a 98.3 defensive rating with Malone and Cousins and a 108+ without Cousins. That's the difference between a top 5 unit and a bottom 5 unit. The Kings had a 104.2 defensive rating total under Malone last year which would have been tied for 8th best in the league if they ended the season there. The jump was from 29 to 8, not 29 to 23. They dropped to 23 under Corbin.
Mmmm, may be we're both right, as I used Malone's only full season as a comparison point:
2012-13: Keith Smart Coach - Def Rating = 111.4, 29th in the league 2013-14: Mike Malone Coach - Def Rating = 108.8, 23rd in the league
2014-15: Mike Malone, Ty Corbin, George Karl Coaches - Def Rating = 109.2, 27th in the league
I guess you must have parsed out the 24 games Malone coached in 14-15. I'm not sure that's a big enough sample size for me to draw any firm conclusions on Malone as a defensive coach, but if they were in fact improved than certainly he had them on the right trajectory.
As Cam mentioned, let's see how he does in Denver.....
Yeah, Zach isn't getting a fair shake here, very disturbing how this situation is being handled by Sam. Wiggins should play the 3 this year, for christ's sakes, he was roy last year, why mess with that? If Zach can't handle the SG position this year, then figure out a solution next year, but give him the whole season to backup (1st half of year) and hopefully start the 2nd half.
I'm not a fan of making other player's lives more difficult for the sake of making Wiggins' and Towns' easier. Moving Zach back to backup PG really is not going to help him improve because that's just not the type of player he is. It is pretty clear he is a Jamal Crawford type and not a floor general and right now he really doesn't look comfortable being the primary ball handler probing the defense which is what PG's need to be able to do (Tyus is already a pretty good prober and PnR ball handler). Zach just needs less responsibilities at this point. His role should be very simple. When he gets the ball he either needs to shoot, drive to the basket or pass right away. Don't put him in PnR's and don't isolate him. The guy isn't even comfortable keeping his dribble until the play is initiated. He has to back down his defender out at the 3pt line to protect the ball. Ball handlers always need to be threatening to blow right by you and make a play if you play tight on them.
The way I see it, Wiggins is going to defend the opposing team's best wing every night. How many teams have a 2 and 3 who can create offense off the dribble in a high usage role? The starting lineup should probably change accordingly and play Wiggins at the 3 when we need the opposing team's 3 well defended and play him at the 2 when we play the Harden's and Thompson's of the world. I think right now they are trying to make his life easier on defense by keeping him on 2's so he can contribute more on offense when the fact is we have a bunch of offensive weapons who can't play defense and we need every defensive guy we have to step up and focus on that end and let the offensive weapons take care of the offense. Wiggins needs to be a two way player. We can't already be giving him the easier defensive assignments to allow him to be a bigger offensive contributor. He'd be more valuable to us as a defensive stopper on the wing than a go-to offensive player because we have a bunch of young guys who can be option 2, but nobody else who can be option 1. The advanced metric article I posted the other day has his number 1 comparable as Melo. I don't want him to become Melo. I'd rather have him be PG and let the rest of the team pick up the offensive slack. There are way more offensive specialists in the league than defensive ones. I don't like the path they have Wiggins on if they are already planning on giving him nights off defensively so he can be more of a contributor on offense.
I voted to start wiggins/prince, but I expect that to change within the first month.
It is always tougher to retrain and eliminate bad habits, so I am guessing this has something to do with Sam's thought process. One bad defender can sabotage a team defense, so considering how bad Bazz, Zach, and Kmart have looked defensively, Prince may be getting the start by default. I think Sam is really trying to improve the D to a point where he can put a shut down lineup on the floor when needed. Whether that actually happens, is anyone's guess.
I also go along with Tim's thought on Wiggins, and that this may continue to push him to be more aggressive offensively. Flip seemed to harp on that a lot last season, and so they may just be continuing the process.
Wiggins split time between the SF and SG spots evenly last season, so I don't subscribe to Q's comments on rebounding being a problem. When I take into account that he was usually guarding the best wing, I am actually encouraged in that area.
I have been really disappointed by Zach so far this preseason. He isn't hustling on D, and still seems to be playing the Ole defense that Sam is trying to change. Kmart hasn't been any better in this area, and while Bazz has been making the effort, he is still making too many mistakes, particularly on when to switch.
It's just preseason but Prince has shot the hell out of the ball. The guy has hit 60% of his shots and over 55% from 3. If he starts the year at SF I don't mind it so much because I assume it's a temporary deal and to me I've always assumed the guy can still play. If it's like 20 games into the season and Prince is still starting...well then we will see where we are at. I doubt that will happen though.
monsterpile wrote:It's just preseason but Prince has shot the hell out of the ball. The guy has hit 60% of his shots and over 55% from 3. If he starts the year at SF I don't mind it so much because I assume it's a temporary deal and to me I've always assumed the guy can still play. If it's like 20 games into the season and Prince is still starting...well then we will see where we are at. I doubt that will happen though.
Prince is averaging 3 shots a game and 1.8 shots from 3. Those percentages are tied to almost no volume of attempts. I don't see how they can be seriously used in an argument for him. If that were the case we should be starting Andre Miller because he is shooting 75% from the floor in his 2.7 shots per game.
