I love me some Caruso and he was a great fit. He is not half the player Westbrook is, period. Russ can run an offense like Caruso never could and never will. Russ can score against a defense that is geared to stop him. Russ has limitations, sure, I get that. He turns the ball over too much and while being a decent defender, he is not as good on D as Caruso is. We are only beginning to see what Westbrook can do with Lebron and Davis by his side. I suspect he is going to be great on this team but he is new to the system and has never been a guy who figures things out super quickly. He needs a few games. We are already better with him than we were without him but our team needs time to gel. Heck, when the other injured players come back, they are going to need time to gel with everyone, then we have to figure out the rotations. My hopes for Westbrook are that he figures out that we don't always need to him to be wreck it ralph and learns to play within a good flow of our offense. Turn it on and off as needed. I think he can do that while limiting his turnovers. I am hoping that our defense does better once Ariza comes back and that Ellington can hit some 3's along with Carmelo. Bazemore, Bradly and Ariza as defensive stoppers and Carmelo and Ellington, maybe even Monk as offensive juggernauts. All to fill in around Lebron, Davis and Westbrook. Still think it will take 20 games or so and still think we will be tough to beat in the playoffs.
AND ..... Reaves helps to soften the blow of losing AC quite a bit actually. Better on offensive skills and a lot of the same intangibles with smarts and toughness plus gives some of what AC gave us on defense. Better than most of our guards at that actually when comparing to AC.
Come playoffs, if we are missing Lebron or AD, it won't matter that Westbrook is better than Caruso in that instance.
True with anyone but it allows both Lebron and Davis to work in rest mode during the regular season. See that krappy defense we played in the first half, giving up 70 points!?? Lebron did not challenge many times when he could have. He figures that they got to be able to get through these games without going 110% Westbrook gives him that ease of mind, knowing someone can pick up the slack for him. Keep he and Davis ready for the playoffs.
is it though? i'd say that hasn't happened so far. i mean, replace westbrook with literally anyone, and we can have a 5-3 record with our schedule and lebron (especially) and AD are having to do heavy lifting just for that. again, it's a long season, but one has to really stretch to say things are looking like people envisioned them in that regard 10% of the way in.
I agree that Lebron and AD are “resting” on the court for more time than I would like. Sure Lebron can take over anytime we’d like but he wouldn’t have to take over if he played with more energy during the beginning of the game. Things are not looking anything like I envisioned but I didn’t expect for so many players to be injured either. Since this is the Caruso thread, I still think it was a mistake to let him go. Sure we got Reaves and I really like him but we could have had both. Still a dumb decision IMO.
AD and Lebron rest during games. Lebron taught that to AD. You can see it blatantly the past 2 years. It doesn't matter the minutes they are playing and it showed in the game against Houston Then you also need to factor the 20 to 30 games combined they may missing during the season, where Russ will play an enormous role. I think our FO got scared with our both stars injured last year, we barely made the playoffs
This Bulls team is really good. Just ran the Nets (albeit on a back to back) off the court in the 4th.
Two of the best guard defenders we drafted, possibly ever. Can only hope for AR to get there as well.
Caruso used to make game saving plays, I think people who list stats or say he didn’t win us games forget that. It’d be late in a close game and he’d get a huge steal or he’d play one of those possessions like in the video on the last page where he locked down Harden. That’s not going to show up in the stat sheet, but it’s a critical effort possession at a crucial time type play. He used to do that often for us, it would be a critical time in a game where it could go either way and he’d come in and spark the entire defense alive, turn the momentum in our favor, essentially seal a win for us without maybe even recoding a stat other than a block or steal. There’s no stat for just staying in from of your man and making him take a hard shot, or for hockey assists because you’re a smart player, or setting that perfect screen someone else is too lazy to set to free a guy for a good shot, or cutting at just the right time to get open. That’s what we miss with Caruso, poise in big moments, solid as hell defense that might not result in a steal or block but might as well have. That’s one reason we are losing games late with someone his opposite with the ball in their hands. An Alex Caruso is the difference between choking away games up big and that never really becoming a threat to happen because we didn’t screw around and get all the way to that point, he would sometimes come in and help stop that bleeding. But again, you won’t see that on a stat sheet, it’s something you see from watching games over and over and paying attention.
can't keep track of the (false) narratives. is it that he sucks without lebron still? or that it was his fault we lost to phx? both just fantastic arguments.
AC is one of the few guys on the Lakers who fit like a glove right next to Lebron. Both of them were phenomenal and if I remember had the highest +/- of any duo in the NBA for nearly 2 years. What the hell man. I'm happy for him. He's doing great things in Chi-town
