Christian Wood Discussion

Bingo: this is one problem for the Lakers and AD as he's a good post defender (he's destroyed Embiid before and he outplayed Jokic during the bubble year) but then they don' have rim protection after him. Rui and Lebron as rim protectors didn't work well. Denver the defense looked the best with Lebron on Jokic with AD behind him as an example

 

maybe it is that easy.....

PF on offense, guard the best big on D

 

not to beat a dead horse here, but i feel like people are often ignoring the 4-out offense ham insists on playing. AD's a 5 in that offense, and he can't play any other position offensively.

my one big annoyance with the ham hire is that this is the second straight coach who hasn't tried to optimize AD offensively. any time he catches outside the top of the circle extended, the defense gets an undeserved break. similar to having lebron handle the ball out top. you're letting the other team have something they want defensively in both cases.

i guess in fairness to ham, he solved the problem by just having AD play center the whole time (still doesn't really optimize his face-up game against bigs, though). but if AD has been telling people behind the scenes that he doesn't want to be a full-time center, then they should have been making coaching and personnel decisions differently.

wood and hayes aren't guys that let this happen smoothly.

 

Which probably means it’s been exaggerated or it never happened just like the “star doesn’t want to play with CWood” nonsense.AD just signed an extension.Do you believe he signs without being completely comfortable in his role?

 

yes. it's a lot of money, and he knows he can just ask out like everyone else if he's unhappy.

 

True but the new CBA is bringing an end to that.Which he and his agent are well aware of

 

is it? i haven't seen the proposed language. i've tried to think of ways to stop the lillard stuff, but i can't think of something that players would be happy with.

 

With the penalties on the cap and money having to match significantly more teams would seem to have to give up more for a max player.What would be the point in getting a max player when you can no longer support them.Unless you are willing as an organization to pay the penalties

 

this is my point--the clippers, warriors, and nets will certainly pay anything (and increasingly, as teams are bought as vanity larks by billionaires, that list will grow), and nothing in the new cba really constrains what lillard is doing right now.

there are indeed a few new provisions that make building a super tax roster harder, but none of it is enough to make you not trade kyle lowry/nearly maxed out herro/middling prospect for established all nba player.

i wonder if a simple rollback on the max upon trade (like a reverse trade kicker) could work. again, players might HATE such an idea--and i understand why--but short of such things, why not just sign the biggest deal you can and then demand out? ok, i'll show up and play...s***tily (e.g., harden in houston).

all of it boils down to proving that the player initiated the trade discussions. and while we can all see that OBVIOUSLY lillard (durant, etc.) did this, it's much harder to prove that definitively, especially with tens of millions on the line.

so far, the provisions built to hinder this stuff (e.g., the supermax itself) have actually had paradoxical impact on the process.

it will take some creativity to solve this stuff. maybe if you trade for a superstar in his prime (again, have to define this, which is a mess), the receiving team gets some sort of prima nocte type draft consideration for the length of that guy's contract? i'm spitballin'.

oh wait, this is the wood thread.

i hope this guy makes me look dumb. nothing would make me happier. go get 'em, wood.

 

Absolutely possible your scenario plays out.I just wonder how much money even billionaires are willing to throw away.Funny stuff at the end of your post

 

Vincent is a maybe in that department too, if he picks up where he left off on the playoffs.

Bron is going to shoot them, it's just how it is. It's part of his body conservation calculation. If the foot is 100%, he'll be better than last year. Last year was a struggle, but having no lift from the foot killed any chance he had of turning that corner last year.

AD. Yeah, it's just not gonna work. If he's serious about playing PF at any point in his career again, he needs to go train with Dirk and Sam Perkins to figure out how to hit a 3 pointer. I'm skeptical though.

Big shooting improvement from last year. And the big key is that Wood and DLO are the only defensive liabilities on your list. The rest are good or good enough defensively to stay on the floor.

 

Lebron will lead the team in 3pt attempts a game.. Well, either him or Dlo. No one else on our roster takes enough. Just gotta hope last year was an outlier and Lebron hits them at a 35-36 percent clip like the previous years.

 

I don't think people have really digested just how good his catch and shoot game is. The only other bigs who had a higher 3% percentage off pick and pops other than Wood were guys like Markannen according to Cranjiss

AD is going to have monster games this year IMO when he can face up opposing bigs and actually not have to worry too much about doubles. DLO, Lebron, REaves, AD, and Wood - not really sure how you are supposed to guard that pretty straightforward lineup when Ham starts pulling out double screen actions.

 

You are not really beating a dead horse because that is a huge issue that is still lingering. LeBron as good as he is doesn't fit well with AD. I want AD at the four scoring 30 a game and having freedom on defense to help others instead of pounding with bigs. We have the solution but not many want to hear it.

 

…… thanks to the video correspondent that put all the work into that it required …. incredible!

 

Damn, Ham teetering on stalker status.

Wood saying the right things, it'd be nice if this is the place it clicks for him.