Jarred Vanderbilt Discussion: The Vandalorian

no you wouldn't

nothing impresses you - not for long hahahahahahaha

 

That hurts.

 

the truth is like that sometimes haha

 

Like what?

 

the truth hurts sometimes

#hurtful

 

Only if you're white.

 

I don't know what to say about that one lol

 

I get that Vando's offense is nonexistent. But I also think when he's in (remember that?) they put him on their top scorer and every team just runs switches to get Vando off the scorer. In a sense, this renders Vando's mins moot, but I also like how he plays just defense, all around.

Guess JJ disagrees. Man, I miss watching Vando play defense. If he could just hit that open corner 3 at a better percentage...

 

This is the current weakness of JJ as a coach . If a player can't make a 3 , he's not playing .

 

Vando can’t make a layup…

 

Adou can though

 

Why does he have to shoot the three at all?
There’s a real spot on him for this team considering how AWFUL our defense currently is. It’s up to JJ to surround him with the right guys.

 

This is like saying "Why does Dalton have to defend at all? There is a real spot for him considering how bad our shooting currently is. It's up to JJ to surround him with the right guys." Which is of course nonsensical.

You don't craft lineups around role players. If you need to build a perfect lineup around a role player to make him playable, that means that role player is not good. This team is winning games right now because we have a pretty awesome offense (even if the advanced stats don't says so quite yet) to make up for a bad defense. Playing Vando and thereby dragging down the offense to incrementally help the defense doesn't help anything.

Wheeler also just explained why his supposed great defense doesn't actually help us that much. It's very easy for the other team to just screen him off of the guy we want him to guard. And because we basically have to play Vando at the 5 to make him playable offensively, when he gets screened off of the ballhandler there's now no rim protection to help out when that ballhandler inevitably beats one of our many not so great defenders.

 

It's more complex than that.

Offensively Vando can't shoot the 3. Ok, no problem, can he be a good roll man in a pick and roll, no? Ok, no problem, can he put the ball on the floor and attack the rim - no? Well then you have a problem because he can't be effective offensively. He can't shoot, can't drive and can't finish. Do you then want to use him as a decision maker in the middle of the floor with dribble hand offs or as a short roll? Why would you, when you have Lebron, Luka, Reaves, Ayton, Smart, Rui & Gabe on the team?

So can he make all this up on the defensive end? Not really... he is a phenomenal defender, but we employ a switch defence so after a screen or two, he is switched on to someone else. And he isn't a weak side blocker. So his only real value is his hustle plays and deflections which amount to 2-3 a game. It's really not worth it when he bogs up your offence so much.

That's the conundrum, and when we say, it's up to the coaching staff to make it work, maybe they've just come to the conclusion that it's just not worth the squeeze.

 

Yeah, I’m sorry, but it is JJ’s job to use ALL of the available players on the team to the best of their abilities. I’m not asking JJ to scheme an offense around Vando- I’m just asking him to improve the defense by putting the right players together to make our defense better.
I’ve seen him greatly affect how our entire defense plays on defense while he’s on the floor. I don’t care if you think this line of thinking is “nonsensical” when in fact, I’ve seen it work in reality.
This team currently has no chance of beating OKC or Denver in a series because outscoring your opponent while playing middle of the pack defense has never worked.
We can go all season long and even finish in the top four by scoring a lot. I’m not interested in that. I am interested in becoming a better defensive team before the playoffs start so we actually have a chance of winning.

 

Lakers second half defense is in the top 5. First half has been bad second to bad lineups and Rui putting up really bad defensive numbers even before Lebron came back.

What this pattern shows is the problem for Vando is the Lakers have positive defenders in Jake, Gabe, and Smart who have actual offensive skills. You're also stuck as a coach as you can't even play him at center because Hayes has been excellent in his role

JJ has other players to figure out and he has done it in terms of finishing games with strong defensive units. The converse of his past defensive performances is how many times can Vando get minutes and his coach has to take him out? Both JJ and Ham couldn't get Vando to work and JJ latest move didn't happen in a vacuum. Vando was a negative 30 plus in the two games prior to his benching, where bad teams who were way behind cut big leads down.

 

What? You have a feeling that can be hurt? Who'da thunk?

 

Yes. I hide my insecurities by being aggressive. I’m a fraud behind the computer. I’m ashamed.