2022-23 Team Developments: News / Trades / Free Agents / Rumors

to me, "small" is about can you be exploited on d. now, russ is exploited on d because he's a ball-watcher/stat-chaser, but he's not targeted due to size. he's 6'3" with long arms and would take being iso'd as an insult and use all of his guile and what's remaining of his athleticism and strength (which is definitely still there) to make you pay.

it's all about whether you can get the right mentality from russ on d. as others have said, get him near the ball as often as possible, as it will keep him engaged--i hope ham puts him on opposing ballhandlers for just this reason.

but when people say seth curry is too small, they don't really mean his physical stature. he's of similar size to russ (though smaller). but he plays small. he can be backed down and shot over. i'd invite teams to try to back russ (or bevs) down and shoot over him. unless your name is kawhi leonard, i feel like i've inverted your offense to my advantage.

 

The reports of the demise of Russ's athleticism are really over exaggerated above, sorry. He still is blowing by guys off the dribble and getting up plenty high to jam or put in lay ups. Problem was for a good portion of the season he wasn't making near what he should have at the rim once he got there. Is he Russ of 3-5 years ago, NO. But he's still quite athletic.

 

True though on the other end people are blowing by him. He makes a superficial move, waves an arm at them, and they just sidestep him. And the sad thing is, watching it, you know he could do something about it. I think that alone is what turned so many fans on him. You're gonna play a net deficit offensive game then you better do other things. I hope Pat Bev rubs off on him or gets under his skin about D. Imagining Russ putting 100%+ effort into D playing alongside PatBev is not a bad look if there is also a wing out there that can shoot 3s (maybe Reaves fills that role)

 

Definitely. He has to play D if he ever wants to be paid anything again. The whole league knows he’s athletic enough still to “should be able” to play it. And if he doesn’t perform now with this public challenge out there from this strong rookie coach he never will. I’m kind of excited to see what kind of player he’s going to be in what kind of a role that’s designed to team maximize him.

 

His last agent sacrificed his own job to make the message to him so let's hope the man's efforts were worth it. It has to be Russ himself that has the epiphany and comes around.

As far as "able to" Russ is so far off the charts as an athlete that even at 33/34 years of age he should be an effective defender able to guard PGs up to medium wings. If he would do that and we had a good 3&D to complete the backcourt or Lebron then with Pat Bev we would have a nasty defensive squad. It's a shame Russ can't see that. Or we will see what he brings anyway. I'm for giving him another chance with a newly defined set of circumstances and a clean slate.

 

he didn't lose leaping ability, he was just suddenly jumping too far away from the basket on his layup attempts

easily correctible

 

No new information from my end, unfortunately.

LAL might make some smaller moves, but the roster is pretty much complete at this point. The plan is to try to mask Westbrook's shortcomings with a diverse set of guards, and maybe even up his value a little bit at the same time. This may open up some midseason opportunities, particularly if Indiana has a change of heart. Trying to stay healthy and not falling far out of the playoff hunt are the two key goals. With some trade deadline magic, the FO is hoping we can still make another deep playoff run!

 

Must have missed that one too

 

Yeah..if Westbrook had played defense at a high level all season. We would have won about 2 more games.

 

disagree. laziness is infectious. if lebron and westbrook had committed to defending, we could have won several more games, and we would have been more fun to watch in the others.

 

Disagree. Roster construction sucked and we were old.

The team couldn't defend at a high level for 82 games. Heck, at this stage, I don't even think LBJ can defend at a high level for 30 mins a night. He's paid handsomely to do it; I just don't think he can ar this stage of his career.

 

Westbrook was lackluster, man.

That's putting it nicely. Now?. He'll have to compete for his minutes. Doesn't mean I think he won't start, but at least he'll be pushed.

Maybe that will light a fire under his rear end.

 

he can care about it instead of pointing at guys as they get putbacks. as you indicate, if he really can't be bothered to do things like box out or close out, maybe he's not worth 50 million.

 

That's what I like about the team this year. If you have Pat, Reaves, Jones/Bryant, Lonnie/Troy, JTA all playing with effort, some fighting for their place in the rotation, it will get too clear if the superstars don't do it. Internet will not forgive that.
More even if one of the stars, let's say AD, is playing at a high level both ends on the floor. How will Russ or LeBron ego cope with the media saying they're done as superstars? That's our best shot to compete this year, poke the ego of our superstars and hope one of them raises the level so the others follow through

 

The injuries just killed everything IMO. The roster was old, I have no idea why we signed Dwight and Jordan, if we didn't really plan on playing them. The AD at the 5 experiment was a total disaster. There were a lot of things that went left last season, but Anthony going down, just destroyed any hope of some kind of bounceback at all. AD hurt his foot against Minnesota on December 17th and only played in 13 more games, we went 13-46 to finish the season. That can't be attributed to Russ and his defense or Lebron's either. We just had some rotten luck on the injury front, we didn't have a chance.

 

You get to a point in dialogue with certain individuals where there hard headedness takes over the point of the discussion. Which then ruins the whole point of the original discussion.

You will be one of the few who actually watched all 82 games, seen all the plays that made or ruined the game.

However, the discussion veers to how someone can interpret a player right in front of you on the TV, making the same stupid blunder over and over again, yet still blame it on something else that wasn't even involved in the situation.

This delivery is the classic "I'm right first before logic". Even if the evidence presented, is overwhelmingly in the favor of the opposite of what you think happened.

At what point will common sense rear it's head to finally opening up an idiots brain so they understand that their way of thinking is stupid? Very few figure this out.

If you are noticing a slow drawl in the writing of this post, you have good observation skills. Because so many out there are so mentally blocked to believe their own s***, they just can't seem to escape that useless trap in their gray matter.

We live in a world of excuses at every turn. Time to turn some of that off. Especially in a business you can actually view from beginning to end and have visual evidence of the issues.

 

Two good points. We know Bev, Nunn, Reaves, JTA, Brown, Jones and Bryant are going to try hard. That’s already 7 pieces that should be in the rotation. Then we need to get buy in from Russ, Schroeder, Lebron and AD. And hopefully as you alluded to in your second point, hopefully these players follow through with their buy in from seeing the younger guys.

 

Nobody in the League is afraid of backing Russ down anymore. The dude doesn’t give that much effort one v one.

 

LOL..OX is waxing all philosophical this morning. On the flipside, Your car has a smashed in windshield, a leaky transmission, and is sitting on four flat tires. You can't drive around like that. Once you get those things fixed, you still aren't going anywhere because your engine is locked up. At some point you will get annoyed with your mechanic continuously telling you about the windshield, transmission and tires, while skipping over that engine problem.

 

No.















or kinda maybe not sure kthxbi