shooting threes like him, too. i didn't expect basically any of this. he's fully inept on offense (what?), only partially inept on defense (what? in a better way, but not that good), and isn't complaining about his limited role (what, but in an even better way). at the vet min, i'm not going to fuss. i keep hoping he'll find his way to help us. i just think he's a 20mpg backup 4, but what we needed was a 16mpg starting c.
there may not have been. i'm not mad at wood, or even that mad at rob signing wood. it's just not the right fit.
If they’d freaking commit to some “learning pains” not being overmatched physically off the bench …. it would be smart so Ham won’t do it …. to start seeing what Castleton can give them. He just needs reps and experience. If the coaching staff would not limit him to the shortest of hooks and garbage time he has some talent and genuine size. Give him some minutes (10 minutes shouldn’t lose a game for us from errors or mistakes, and his actual physical capabilities “might” significantly outweigh the negative) …. and tell him to be aggressive both sides of the ball. Let’s see what he’s got. A real 7’ center with size at 250-260 and genuine skills.
I'm starting to give up on the idea, of going big and pounding on folks. I just don't believe, that Rob sees that idea, as the way to go. We draft guards and wings, then we sign guards and wings to the MLE. The big vet min signing has been a guard for 3 seasons in a row. I recognize a pattern here.
I can't decide if players aren't a good fit, or if the coach isn't that great at adjusting to his talent. Some guys can only coach one way, but I've never been that impressed with Ham's rotations and use of players.
i think it's ham in this case, more than rob. he wants the offensive floor space at the cost of other things. it seems a lot of coaches are really attracted to the idea of not playing centers. and then they tend to lose to teams that do play real centers. relatedly, a lot of the playoff failures of centers (e.g., gobert, dampier back in the day) are highlighted more than the playoff successes of teams that play traditional centers (the spurs whole dynasty, for example). certain matchups (basically, luka or steph) can drive zubac off the floor. but 8 opponents out of 10 have trouble matching his physicality on both ends for 28 minutes.
I agree with this, regarding Ham. However, doesn’t being a veteran who’s been in the League for nearly a decade now, mean that you should be able to figure things out and succeed in your role? Furthermore, Ham can’t turn a once 38% shooter from 3 into a 28% shooter all by himself. A majority of this falls on the actual player. I believe it’s a bit of both Coach and Player to blame for Wood’s offensive falloff.
The obvious issue is that we have 6 guys, that can play power forward. AD, Lebron, Rui, Wood,Hayes and Vanderbilt. Outside of Lebron and AD,...Austin, D'Angelo and Prince, are going to get up more shots than every one else. From a shooting perspective, there aren't enough shots, for everyone to look good in every game.
Ham is quit on him just like he did Bamba. This looks to have been a pointless signing but since it was for the minimum, no harm done. Still would have preferred a bigger defensive/rebounding body.
Christian Wood added 30 points and tied a career high with seven assists as the Mavericks finished off the Nowitzki celebration by winning vs Lakers . Bring back this magic today
I'm not sure why Wood is a concern right now. If Rui and Lebron are cooking, we don't need Wood to play at all. It seems that Ham isn't that interested, in seeing AD spend much time with another big on the floor right now. In spite of what AD said that he wants. Because If Vanderbilt, Pierce and Reddish are playing, there aren't many frontcourt minutes to be had except spot duty. So I'm not sure what minutes, folks keep thinking another big is going to play, say that we had Dwight, Drummond, etc. They ain't playing more than 5 min or something, thats not going to impact anything. We want to play small ball..shrug..we'll see how long this strategy lasts. I mean technically we'd be going small, with a lot of size since Cam,Jarred, Rui and Lebron are all 6'8 or better. Now..personally, I think we should play Wood and Hayes more, but at who's expense? IDK..If it's not for giving AD a blow, it doesn't look like it's going to be a regular thing. Ideally we'd start scaling back some of Anthony's minutes overall soon here, Lebron's too. We'll see.
If he hit his 3’s at a 35-40% clip he would be playing.Since he didn’t/hasn’t it makes sense to play the better defender who doesn’t make 3’s
Boston uses Horford as a 3pt spacing threat, we don't do the same with Wood. Al gets up shots in the flow of their offense, most of his looks come from the ball rotation out to him. Wood gets sporadic looks, he's a catch and shoot guy, like Horford, but he doesn't get the same quality of looks. We use Wood more to provide the spacing due to the threat of his 3, he doesn't really get a lot of passes back to him off of that action. That sucks for him statistically, but TBH, it does free up Lebron, Rui or AD, for their mid range action. I don't get the Hayes playing over Wood thing though, Christian seems like the better option, for these few minutes Ham is giving the other big. The P&R action we ran against Boston with Hayes, would have worked better with Wood IMO. Nobody respects Hayes as an outside threat.