Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

this was my point. maybe they recycle and keep close, but the juggernaut they have now ends next year.

 

I'm a strong believer that the supermax contract is a negative for teams. Most teams are going to build up to the first apron which is roughly 125-130% of the cap. So when building a team out:

Supermax - 35%
Max - 30%

That's two players taking up half of your team salary and let's assume that the vet minimum is 2% and you have 5 of those, you're left with 50% of the cap to build out your 3-9 rotation of 7 players. That's really tough.

Most 3-5 rotation players in the NBA make 10-15% of the cap each and roughly 40% of the cap cumulatively. So if you have a supermax guy, you're hoping you can build our your bench with vet minimums at your 7 & 8 positions and a TPMLE as your 6th man.


Denver & the Bucks almost sunk themselves trying to build like this - even though they both have a generational player - because their 2nd guy isn't really a number 2 night in night out. It's also why both teams were so top heavy.

 

Well if OKC gets AJ with that Clips pick- goodbye Williams lol

 

Lakers win in New Orleans 118-104. They took 15-point leads and let them get back to 4 or 2, then pushed it back to 15. At one point Lakers were up 22 or 24, then of course relaxed and let the Pels back in. Start of the 4th: up 18. 3 mins later: 10 point game and JJ calls a TO to get the starters back in. Not a good look, esp against a decimated Pels team.

Refs let both teams play a hacking, physical game. The only Lakers to shoot FTs were Luka and AR, who went 20 of 26; 5 Pels shot FTs.

AR led team in mins: 31 (7 more than the Don), was 9 for 16: 31/4/7.

Willie Green's game plan seemed to be: double Luka. If it's AR only on the floor: double him. Make other guys beat us. Rui was 6 for 10; Ayton's offense seems pretty good: 11 for 12, but he still looks small to me on D.

Lakers had 13 steals and 5 blocks.

Marcus was almost too open from 3, because of doubling of Luka: 1 for 10 from deep. Get yer zen on, Smart.

Why did Willie Green start Kevan Looney at center, only to give him 11 mins?

NO missing Zion (of course), D'jounte, Poole.

Kinda of an ugly game, with spurts of who-gives-a-crap defense by both teams.

Tomorrow night on a BTB in MIL. Gonna be rough.

I'm already sick of the NBA Cup BS and those lousy looking courts.

 

It's not that simple for the teams, expecting to compete for Championships though. Take Denver and Milwaukee for example. If Porter Jr had been performing, at the level expected, by his contract. and Murray wasn't having injury issues, they would most likely have another Championship.

If Dame had been performing at the level expected by his contract, and not gotten injured, the Bucks might have won another Championship.

Injuries and performance, are the bigger factors at play, in the decision-making on spending the money IMO. If you are competing for Championships, spending the money, is just part of doing business.

Denver won a chip playing 6 guys, OKC won one playing a lot of guys. We won a chip playing a lot of guys, Golden State won a few with short rotations. There is more than one way to do this.

Personally I favor the stars, we tend to get caught up, overstating the impact of the role players sometimes. This doesn't mean that these players aren't important, but they are never more important than your stars. It's your stars performing like stars, that allows your role players to make an impact.

No team is winning chips, without their best players, playing at their best. Some Championship teams, may have had a larger degree of separation, between thier top guy and their other top 4. Some teams had a smaller degree of separation. Yet they all had to perform in their roles, to the the level expected of them.

This is a question that we're going to be facing, in this current campaign. Lebron is a max player, so is Luka, we are expecting Austin to be in 30's range next season.

What happens in the playoffs, is going to dictate what happens in the offseason. If we win a chip (or just make the Finals ) EVERYONE is getting paid. If we don't, there will be consequences. That's how it should work IMO.

I remain bullish on this squad, if those 3 guys, deliver as expected, we can win a Championship. Looking towards the future, I want to add another max player, to replace Lebron too. Our owner has deep pockets, Id rather be greedy than needy, and he's already more or less, said the same thing.

 

This was a game we are supposed to win and we did

9-4 is looking good right now

Had some balanced scoring to take the pressure off Luka

DA 20 pts 16 reb 2 ast 2 stl 1 blk

AR 31 pts

Have to like that we out rebounded them and DA led the way

 

You can’t have 3 max guys anymore, that’s 90% of the cap which leaves you with 40% to build 11 players from.

With the punitive nature of the repeater tax, Denver was going to have to let MPJ go one way or another. It gets to the point where if you want to field a team like Bostons, you pay 200m in payroll and 300m in taxes. Sorry Slick, no one is spending half a billion a season on a game - not until inflation adjusts.

As for winning a championship, yeah you can win it multiple ways. The general rule of thumb is the most talent wins with the caveat of health. Being deep may not get you the most cumulative amount of talent against 3 star teams, but it makes you less top heavy and more resistant to injuries. So it tends to go that teams with a solid 8 man rotation win the ring more often than not. Any less or more than that is an aberration.

 

Only two issues I had was that throughout the first half, Rui received barely any passes and he’s by far our highest percentage shooter.
It was a layup line for NOLA in the first half. Our guys seemed to be totally fine with giving them little resistance in the paint.

 

Yes, with all the trading off of going ISO and P&R all game, and I think more of an issue with Luka than AR when either is the one is running the offense on a possession ..... is what you're saying. Rui by simple math needs to shoot MOAR. But if anyone else is out there and hits early, or in that game often enough from deep (cough .... like Dalton lately) ..... feed him/or the hot hand Moar to see if they can be kept going. Other teammates on this team can get hot and it's a quick way to pick up some points to ride those streaks.

 

LOL just started cruising through the last comments still up on Game Time and saw this. I agree!

@karacha "Ayton shooting 90%. He should really aim for 100."



.... and this I mentioned a couple days ago.

@sirronstuff "way too little ball movement. Oh crap, another Lebron running the offense."

Loved THIS

@OX1947 "When are the lakers going to clothesline Alvarado?"

I agree

@KuzmoBall17 "Maybe LeBron is not that bad"

 

The Maxi effect: we go up by 31 during his first game back.
Luka was huge in the first half.
Our defense fell asleep in the third.
Austin was huuuuge in the fourth to stem the tide of the Bucks comeback with his three bombs in a row.
Adou makes his debut! Wish he could have gotten a little more burn. Nice dunk though!
Doc is an awful coach: that AJ kid had three threes in a row during the third so Rivers decided to cool him off on the bench and didn’t put him back in until it was basically over with only 5:00 to play.

 

You know who's a** i love kicking



Great team win. Back to back, long flight. We brought the energy that the Bucks didn't until the 3rd. We had the legs, the necessary effort.

They tried to make a run of it in the 3rd, Luka said no.

Tried again in the 4th, Austin said no.

DA played really well against a big front court, even while battling foul trouble.

 

Ayton's defense on Giannis was a big deal.

 

The vibes on this team are amazing. At the end of the game, Luka & Vando run to get the game ball for Adou who scored his first points. For whatever reason, the ref blocks it and our guys don't let up. It says alot about the team when Luka, Reaves, Ayton, Kleber, Jake and Vando are fighting to secure the game ball for your rookie. Shout out to Giannis for finally taking it off the refs.

 

Ref is such a doofus killjoy not to give the ball

 

What the heck was that about? I’ve never seen anything like it after a game. Why was the ref being such a little b!tch??
Was he planning on taking it home?

 

Very surprising game, I thought. We win the 1st by 12, the 2nd Q by 19: we're up 31 at the half on the road, both teams on a BTB, and we don't have Rui or Marcus?

A let-up in the 3rd, but we won the 4th. Lakers go to 10-4 in MIL.

AR and Doncic hit 10 3s between them: 41 and 25 for a combined 66. AR shot a hair over 50%; Luka just a notch below, but Luka made 18 FTs of 20.

Ayton had another really good game: 20/10.

Adou scores! Game Ball, despite the a-hole ref.

Back home, finally. No let down for Utah, guys.

 

Bucks win the 3rd and it doesn't matter since we were up 65-34 at the half

Way to take it to them guys!

Great to see the character after last games low effort

Again we out rebounded a team

Having DA in the middle is really making a difference

Adou getting his first points is so cool and nice to hear that the team was trying to secure the ball for him

Lakers are 10-4

Like Bill Parcells used to say, "you are what your record says you are"