Well we didn't ... plus I don't see how winning a game against Denver would change anything for the mid or long term future of our team . It's clear we are not winning games so there is point of playing Lou over DA in the clutch . Lous is who he is at this point of his career ... a scorer off the bench
Sorry but I can not get on board with that line of thinking. We should play to win every single night; not to cherish our assets.
Right now we're not attracting any free agents of any kind. Re: Clarkson- @Weezy I was wrong. He and Randle are tied right now for our two best players. Randle I'd say is about a month away from being the guy other teams have to prepare for. Clarkson is going to be a perfect foil for that over the years. He does such a great job of keeping the defense on their toes and finding the openings. The only thing they need to do is catch up defensively. They show some work, but not a lot of awareness.
We never had a chance to win that game not with our defense and if Lou wasn't drawing fouls we weren't getting any good shots down the stretch of the game.
I havent watched the first three games and seen only the second half today morning. I can't express hor impressed I am with Jordan. He is like the prototype, perfect 3rd option, with the potential to be the 2nd/1st option occasionally. It's impresive how under control, calm and effectively he's playing at this age. We've had milllions of discussions about playing "the right way", usually in relation to Kobe. This term seems to be tailor made for Clarkson, at least on the offensive end. His defense could also develop and some of his problems on that end probably result from the idiotic decisions of our so called head coach.
That's not true man, we were within 3 points with 5 minutes remaining. We have to give our best shot every single night. With your line of thinking we might as well waive the white flag before the games even start.
Would you stop putting words in my mouth? Seriously I never said that. I never said wave the white flag, but we couldn't get any shots. We got lucky the Nuggets were dumb enough to foul Lou otherwise we would've been blown out again. You can't rely on that every night. Russell was playing well before being yanked again and we sorely missed his play making ability out there and he could've gotten Clarkson, Kobe, or Randle an easy shot like he did earlier in the game.
I'm confused. Why did you quote me and what are you trying to argue? I said "Well we had a legitimate chance to win and Lou was keeping us in the game with his FT's." Is that not true? You think D'Angelo would have given us a better chance of winning?
You said I was saying to wave the white flag and that is NOT what I said. Not at all. Yeah I don't think D'Angelo would've given us a better chance to win because he was making PLAYS out there. The kid had 6 assists in just 20 minutes of play. The offense was a mess the last few minutes. We got bailed out by some terrible, terrible fouls. I just don't get why you pull the kid when he was playing as well as he was.
Cool, let's keep it civil guys. I can see both sides of this point - it's important to develop the young guys and that means having them there at the end of the game to try to win and get used to playing down the stretch. But right now I'm leaning more towards Tada's side that Lou was hot, and more than anything I think we need to get a couple wins under our belt more than anything to get our guys feeling more confident. It'll be a balancing act this season and so far Byron's not doing a great job of it particularly towards Russell.
Well I understand your side of the argument (that Russell was having a good game) but Lou went to the line 19 times! That is smoking hot. No one can blame Byron for sticking with Lou last night. Clarkson, arguably our best player, was also hot. And Kobe is Kobe (you just can't bench him in the 4th) So there was nobody to sub out at the time.
Understood, apologies to @Lakers2015 if I went overboard with my comments. And I really have high hopes for Russell. I know he can turn it around eventually. It's just that I prefer the tough love approach with rookies.
Well, there was one guy not named Lou or Clarkson that we could have taken out of the game, but I'm not sure people are even close to ready to have that discussion.
It's fine man I understand. Russell does need to be more aggressive. I will openly acknowledge I got tired of him just shooting jumpers on those high screen and rolls instead of attacking and getting to the rim and perhaps drawing a foul. Definitely needs to be more aggressive in that facet, but we have seen signs of the player he can be. All these kids as awhole get me excited. Clarkson is a monster offensively right now. Nobody has been able to stay in front of him and nobody is going to if he keeps knocking down that three. Randle doesn't even have a jump shot and has been dominant inside the last two games. He can be damn near unstoppable if/when he develops one.
