Wmc 15/16: We are finally at the END! BYE BYRON!!!

Jazz shoot 42 free throws in a 40 minute game. THESE REFS FROM MIDLAND.

 

Summer league game. Not getting worked up over refs, offense or even the players play. This has almost no translation to the regular season. Most of the guys in Vegas won't have a role on a team and the ones that do very few will be rotational players.

A real test for this group of youngsters will be Pre-season.

 

All those free throws made for a hard game to watch. So many whistles there was never any real flow. The score didn't matter to me as much as watching the players show what they had. It had to be frustrating for the players that needed to showcase their talents to have the game pace dictated by foul calls. Though the game was good in that we started to see the Randle rust coming off. Hopefully it also helped some of the Russell doubters put their minds at ease. I still think in two or three seasons he will be as good as any guard in the league.

 

I think X's and O's means hugs and kisses to Byron.

 

Scott gets a mulligan on last season as far as I'm concerned. His real test starts this year. It's ridiculous to expect success in the West under the circumstances and conditions he had to operate in. I don't care if you put Phil, Pop or whoever in there. You weren't going anywhere in the West with what we had.

We had a few good wins against GSW, SAS, HOU, CHI & pre-injuries ATL and several close games against great teams (more impressive games than Minni or 76rs, comparing the other of the worst 3 teams last season). Anyways, there were a few sparks shown, we just by no means had the personnel & talent to mount anything consistent.

This is a restart and still one hell of a challenge with the youth on this team. I don't expect a great season but what would make me happy is to see is the team playing +.500 ball the last 2 months of the season (assuming a reasonably balanced schedule) and some of our youth (Russell, Randle, Clarkson & Upshaw) panning out. If that happens, we have a lot to look forward to.

 

Why did Spieth have to double bogey?!?!? So close to history!

Speaking Spieth, anybody on the lakers with under armour? Apparently they know how to win championships. They got Tom Brady, Steph Curry and Jordan Spieth. All have had a great year

 

Do you enjoy soccer @Weezy? All of the major European leagues are about a month away now, but preseason's already started. In fact, some good teams are touring the States right now; FC Barcelona just played against Galaxy at the Rose Bowl, and Manchester United were playing somewhere in the US too.
It's only preseason so there's a lot of experimenting done by the coaches and most of the best players only play maybe half a game, but still, I (as an avid soccer fan) enjoy it.
That, and River Plate's (the argentinian team I root for) are the only things I'm clinging to (sports-wise) right now haha. Even with our new young guys, summer league is hard to watch for me.

 

^ You can't ba an avid fan... since you call it "soccer"

 

Haha. I would've called it football, but didn't want anyone to mistake it for the American sport. Trust me, I'm a huge fan. I play FIFA every day, watch every River Plate and Real Madrid game, and most of good european and argentinian team's games (obviously all of the Champions league). Obviously I follow the national teams as well. Also, I dedicate waaay to much time to following transfer rumours, and if you need to know where any player is going, just ask me lol.

 

Soccer is actually a British term that was slang for "AsSOCiation Football". -Er is just a typical suffix added in British slang (Cop = Copper).

So SOC + ER = Soccer.

 

I'm definitely nervous about Byron. We acquired a real game changer in Hibbert, but if Byron doesn't get all of the perimeter players funneling their man to the middle and playing at 1 of the slower paces in the league, it's going to be a huge opportunity lost. Byron has a reputation for taking very good PG's and making them better, atleast until they get tired of him, so hopefully he's the right guy to develop Russell. If this Princeton junk we've seen in Summer League is any indication of what we'll run this season, I have a feeling we're going to be kicking ourselves for not getting Thibs as soon as he hit the market.

 

Interesting point about pace. I know Indiana deliberately played one of the slowest paces in the league to accommodate roy and his rim protection. That being said Hibbert dropped a bunch of weight specifically to play at a faster pace.

Also guys like D'Angelo and Clarkson and Randle thrive in the open court offense. Only Kobe and Hibbert it seems, have game that are more suited for a half-court/slower pace.

 

In my opinion, pace is just defined by the team who can better dictate the game with it, usually by the team with the talent and direction to do it. In the 80's, it was Showtime running up and down the floor or the physical play of Boston and Detroit. The 90's-2010 had Phil and Pop's methodical half court sets and defense.

Golden State was just so damn talented at keeping that fast paced offense, they ran with it. (Pun intended). People just like to put labels on things like "small ball league" because it has been successful the past few years and the lack of true big men coming into the league nowadays, but in a ways, it's halfway true because of that. Hell, even the new crop of big men in the league are becoming just as versatile. The Shaq, Hakeem, Kareem's have turned into the Bosh, Anthony Davis, Karl Anthony Towns' type guys.

Still, any team with the talent and direction to get there, even if it's back to running slower half court sets, will be the successful team. Guys like Hibbert can still be effective in his own right (see Mozgov in the Finals), but he's going to need help from the team and Byron to really support what Roy is doing out there, or it'll just be all for naught.