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Game Thread | 2021-2022 Season | Game #16 | Cavs @ Nets | Nov. 17, 2021

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How does Cedi only get 19 minutes?

Even Windler at 12 us far too little.

Wade and Okoro both played 39 minutes. Why??? I don't get it.
Exactly. Why not start Garland/Cedi/Windler/Love/Davis now?

Let Wade and Okoro come off the bench. I think Rubio and Garland are doomed to play a bunch together, because they are our only two competent guards, and because Rubio is wasted, playing with a bunch of guys who can’t shoot.
 
What exactly is fake effort? Please enlighten me. Either you give effort or not.

Sure, Kevin and Cedi both do this.

A common one is to not rotate to a shooter, and then pretend that they simply didn't know the guy was there or thought someone else was going to pick him up. They'll throw their hands up in the air wondering what happened. Kevin does that move all the time. Multiple times a night you'll see him toss his hands up after a defensive breakdown as if he wasn't at fault.

But in reality, they knew they were supposed to be there. They just didn't wanna give the effort required to get there.
 
Last thing and I'm out...

You don't have to schematically concede games to get Okoro featured. You just need to make sure that rotationally and through play calling that he's the secondary ball handler/creator whenever he's on the floor.

What does that look like?

With this current mash unit, never let him play a single minute with both Rubio and Garland at the same time. Anytime you're playing those two guys, Okoro is off and Windler or Cedi is on.

Every single Okoro minute, he's got to be the #2 perimeter creator and you've got to call his number so that the team is looking for him off down screens and cutting hard after making that initial pass on high PNRs as if you're feeding a center or big man who can't create his own offense.

Do that for the next few games at least.

Love and Wade BOTH are perfect and willing high post passers for cutting guards. Make him seek out 6 free throw attempts per game as the secondary initiator and tell those two post passers to look for him first, second and third until he comes out of his shell again
 
And you think, based on what we’ve seen so far when he has had the ball in his hands, it would have resulted in anything other than “hey, go do what ever” and the team getting its shit kicked in?

Okoro needs a hard reset. He’s not going to get that by forcing the ball into his hands. All that’s going to do is hurt the team as a whole.

At any point tonight the Nets could have kicked our shit in had they wanted to.

Right now, Okoro is playing his way out of our entire rotation and we either do something about it now to try and stop it or the odds he's just a bust skyrocket. This is a very, very crucial time for him.

And note, he still might bust. They can put him in all the right positions and he still might fail. Ok.

But what they're doing now isn't helping him in the slightest.

And like I said, once the team is healthy, these opportunities are toast. because then it realy is too late to ask him to be assertive to the teams detriment.
 
I’m glad we have a coach who prioritizes winning and doesn’t listen to doubters.

We had all sorts of people predicting 1-10 or 2-9 starts because they looked at the schedule and assumed we wouldn’t improve. Well we did. That upset people because we‘re playing good players too many minutes and they‘re too fragile to do that. Now we’re fighting every game even with players out because JBB is building a no excuses, next man up team culture. But no, let’s trash that because it’s more important to “develop” Okoro as a secondary ball handler than competing.

What crap.

Professional players want to win, and they want to compete. They aren’t interested in turning an NBA team into Romper Room.

Fuq the highlight of the year being NBA Lottery night. I want to make the playoffs, meaning every game counts. I hope we do everything possible to beat GSW tomorrow. For those terrified of injuries you can always find curling or cornhole on TV. Just make sure you find the correct channel for cornhole.
 
Was babysitting my 2 year old and 4 month old nephews and did not watch a second of the game or follow the gamecast.

Should I read the full 35 page thread or is there solid recap post already in the last few pages?
 
And y'all just wanna debate me instead of rchfld because you know he knows more about the game than I.

But he's sitting here making all the same points, more eloquently.

Go at him if you think I'm wrong. :chuckle: :chuckle: :chuckle:
 
Was babysitting my 2 year old and 4 month old nephews and did not watch a second of the game or follow the gamecast.

Should I read the full 35 page thread or is there solid recap post already in the last few pages?

The Nets used the 2nd half to experiment with LMA to see if, when called upon, they could run some offense through him.

Cavs made it somewhat competitive and scrapped hard but the Nets never felt in danger of losing that game.
 
Exactly. Why not start Garland/Cedi/Windler/Love/Davis now?

Let Wade and Okoro come off the bench. I think Rubio and Garland are doomed to play a bunch together, because they are our only two competent guards, and because Rubio is wasted, playing with a bunch of guys who can’t shoot.
That lineup couldn’t stop a group of first graders crossing the street.
 
I’m glad we have a coach who prioritizes winning and doesn’t listen to doubters.

We had all sorts of people predicting 1-10 or 2-9 starts because they looked at the schedule and assumed we wouldn’t improve. Well we did. That upset people because we‘re playing good players too many minutes and they‘re too fragile to do that. Now we’re fighting every game even with players out because JBB is building a no excuses, next man up team culture. But no, let’s trash that because it’s more important to “develop” Okoro as a secondary ball handler than competing.

What crap.

Professional players want to win, and they want to compete. They aren’t interested in turning an NBA team into Romper Room.

Fuq the highlight of the year being NBA Lottery night. I want to make the playoffs, meaning every game counts. I hope we do everything possible to beat GSW tomorrow. For those terrified of injuries you can always find curling or cornhole on TV. Just make sure you find the correct channel for cornhole.

Come on man, it's not this serious. We're just all here discussing ball.

It's in the Cavs best interest that Okoro develops into a useful NBA rotation player.

We disagree on how best to go about that and that's ok.
 
At any point tonight the Nets could have kicked our shit in had they wanted to.

Right now, Okoro is playing his way out of our entire rotation and we either do something about it now to try and stop it or the odds he's just a bust skyrocket. This is a very, very crucial time for him.

And note, he still might bust. They can put him in all the right positions and he still might fail. Ok.

But what they're doing now isn't helping him in the slightest.

And like I said, once the team is healthy, these opportunities are toast. because then it realy is too late to ask him to be assertive to the teams detriment.

And I don’t think that’s the only way to develop him, by giving him as many opportunities as possible when the situations arise and telling him or putting him in position to go guns blazing.

We have seen a lot of prospects develop by being placed in a winning environment where they are asked to play a smaller role, get good at that, then continue to develop more and more to their games over time. Butler on those good Thibs Bulls teams and Kawhi on the Spurs comes straight to mind. Those 2 were asked to defend and hit open 3s on veteran filled rosters winning lots of games as young players.

It wasn’t until they got good in that role that they were able to expand their games further, because without those first 2 skills you aren’t going to go much further in the current NBA.

This just comes down to a disagreement on how you go about developing a guy. I don’t agree with just tossing him out there and feeding him opportunity after opportunity while the team is short handed as the only way to develop him.

In my mind he is a guy who lacks offensive skill all across the board at the moment, so he needs to first get good at a role within his system that he can then expand upon.

All I see force feeding him doing to him at the current moment is shattering his confidence and setting him back as he develops bad habits.
 
And I don’t think that’s the only way to develop him, by giving him as many opportunities as possible when the situations arise and telling him or putting him in position to go guns blazing.

We have seen a lot of prospects develop by being placed in a winning environment where they are asked to play a smaller role, get good at that, then continue to develop more and more to their games over time. Butler on those good Thibs Bulls teams and Kawhi on the Spurs comes straight to mind. Those 2 were asked to defend and hit open 3s on veteran filled rosters winning lots of games as young players.

It wasn’t until they got good in that role that they were able to expand their games further, because without those first 2 skills you aren’t going to go much further in the current NBA.

This just comes down to a disagreement on how you go about developing a guy. I don’t agree with just tossing him out there and feeding him opportunity after opportunity while the team is short handed as the only way to develop him.

In my mind he is a guy who lacks offensive skill all across the board at the moment, so he needs to first get good at a role within his system that he can then expand upon.

All I see force feeding him doing to him at the current moment is shattering his confidence and setting him back as he develops bad habits.

Not every player takes the same path.

Right now, the most I've seen out of Okoro was when he was the secondary creator and forced to be assertive in that role. That's when he's been at this very best.

And unless he finds that and expands on that, it's gonna be REALLY hard for him to be a positive contributor. Because unlike Butler and Kawhi, he doesn't have all-world defense capabilities that those two largely possessed almost immediately. And that's mostly physical limitations. A 6'4 guard just isn't gonna be able to impact the game defensively enough to make up for that lack of offense. Not the way Kawhi and Butler could.

We'll see.

Right now I worry about two things:

1) That Okoro is gonna be left in the dust when this team is healthy and really trying to win. Already I'm struggling to see a role for him going forward. He should be behind Sexton. He should be behind Cedi. So you're looking at some spot minutes here and there in small ball lineups.

Or, the inverse:

2) That, because of his love for the kid, JBB insists on continuing to force Okoro into the lineup to the detriment of a team that is now capable of winning a lot of ball games. When, instead, he could use this time right now to help turn him into a player capable of contributing to winning basketball, which he currently is not.

If I were running the team, I'd either force JBB to develop the kid or look to move him.

Once the team is healthy, if I still believe in him, I'd send him to Canton.
 
And I don’t think that’s the only way to develop him, by giving him as many opportunities as possible when the situations arise and telling him or putting him in position to go guns blazing.

We have seen a lot of prospects develop by being placed in a winning environment where they are asked to play a smaller role, get good at that, then continue to develop more and more to their games over time. Butler on those good Thibs Bulls teams and Kawhi on the Spurs comes straight to mind. Those 2 were asked to defend and hit open 3s on veteran filled rosters winning lots of games as young players.

It wasn’t until they got good in that role that they were able to expand their games further, because without those first 2 skills you aren’t going to go much further in the current NBA.

This just comes down to a disagreement on how you go about developing a guy. I don’t agree with just tossing him out there and feeding him opportunity after opportunity while the team is short handed as the only way to develop him.

In my mind he is a guy who lacks offensive skill all across the board at the moment, so he needs to first get good at a role within his system that he can then expand upon.

All I see force feeding him doing to him at the current moment is shattering his confidence and setting him back as he develops bad habits.
Bingo. Raw players consistently get all the opportunities in the world on very bad teams and more often than not never develop. Meanwhile most of the guys who are most frequently mentioned as examples of great development like Kawhi, PG, Brown, Butler Siakam, etc, did so by starting off in small roles for teams with good cultures and gradually growing.

Making Okoro a main ballhandler on this team is just dumb and will only rack up losses for the team while killing any confidence Okoro has in turning into a productive NBA player. Why not let him earn his opportunities and start off trying to do simple things well, like hit an open three, make the smart pass, and be physical and annoying on defense?
 
Last thing and I'm out...

You don't have to schematically concede games to get Okoro featured. You just need to make sure that rotationally and through play calling that he's the secondary ball handler/creator whenever he's on the floor.

What does that look like?

With this current mash unit, never let him play a single minute with both Rubio and Garland at the same time. Anytime you're playing those two guys, Okoro is off and Windler or Cedi is on.

Every single Okoro minute, he's got to be the #2 perimeter creator and you've got to call his number so that the team is looking for him off down screens and cutting hard after making that initial pass on high PNRs as if you're feeding a center or big man who can't create his own offense.

Do that for the next few games at least.

Love and Wade BOTH are perfect and willing high post passers for cutting guards. Make him seek out 6 free throw attempts per game as the secondary initiator and tell those two post passers to look for him first, second and third until he comes out of his shell again
Okoro come out of his shell? He had 19 shots total the last two games. Windler had ONE shot. Tonight he was outscored by Tacko despite playing 12 minutes to Tacko’s two.

But ok - let’s bench Okoro and start Windler. Give the ginger Bambi 30 mpg and have him guard the likes of Harden for a few games. He‘s allegedly got all the tools of Klay Thompson so let’s see if he’s for real or an Armor All mechanic.

Like it or not Rubio and Garland will be playing a lot of minutes together, which necessarily means reducing Okoro’s minutes and adding to Windler or Cedi. That will weaken the defense which has been our strongest asset this season.

I just don’t get the love for Windler, and evidently JBB doesn’t either.

Okoro is a lower percentage shooter than any of our other guards or wings, so I’d rather he not take as many shots, but outside of Rubio and Garland others aren’t shooting. Okoro took more shots than anyone other than Rubio or Garland.

Three reasons Okoro is far superior to Windler:

- Far better defender
- More willing to shoot
- The larger the thighs the bigger the prize
 
Bingo. Raw players consistently get all the opportunities in the world on very bad teams and more often than not never develop. Meanwhile most of the guys who are most frequently mentioned as examples of great development like Kawhi, PG, Brown, Butler Siakam, etc, did so by starting off in small roles for teams with good cultures and gradually growing.

Making Okoro a main ballhandler on this team is just dumb and will only rack up losses for the team while killing any confidence Okoro has in turning into a productive NBA player. Why not let him earn his opportunities and start off trying to do simple things well, like hit an open three, make the smart pass, and be physical and annoying on defense?

The team is about to rack up losses the next few weeks regardless.


Again, what's easy for one player isn't for another.

Just go watch some of his better games late last season. Being a spot up shooter wasn't where he was showing signs of life. So what might "easy" for one guy isn't for another.



But back to what I said to Bimbo, the issue with just asking him to be a defender and spot up shooter, when he's not currently a capable spot up shooter, is that unlike Siakim and Brown, and Kawhi, he simply doesn't have the physical tools to be impactful on defense to make up for it the way those guys did. He's just not a big enough dude.
 

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