Wednesday, May 10, 2006
well..
not really sure what to say. As scoop mentioned, this probably will be a great learning experience for the King, but still..it sux. The Pistons are just way out of our league (at least this season). We just need to take one game which hopefully we can accomplish during the 2 game homestand.
But on a side note, I am curious what people are thinking in terms of off season moves. I think its unanimous that we all would like to see Damon "Game 6" Jones in another uniform. And we might not have a choice with Drew. But what else. Mike Brown..safe..right? Possible trades? What about a new PG..
I imagine Anderson will be starting next year with Hughes, Z, Bron, and a new PG. Hoepfully we can pick up a vet (paulev7 and I discussed Kidd) and have him for a few years. Then we can draft a PG when we actually get a draft pick and have him learn. Who knows..
Either way..just trying to divert attention from the series vs the state up north.
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Well... I would agree the Pistons are a great team and much more balanced than any other team in the Association, they are not unbeatable and I think we can win 2 games this series. Game 3 is a must win and I think our team knows that. The crazy thing about this series is we have played well, but not well enough to win. We need to play a full 4 qtrs. Its all about learning and making adjustments both on the court and in the huddle. Our team/coach are doing that and I think we'll see a good gameplan on Saturday night at The Q.
As for off-season moves... Coach Brown is good for our team and I think he has the potential to take us to the next level. Does that mean he is a championship coach (i.e. Jackson, Riley, Pop)... not yet at least. Drew is gone. We're not keeping him, nor can we afford to match the money other teams will throw at him. For that matter, we need an enforcer and Andy is not it. If he starts for us next year I will not be satisfied (at least not until he proves he can catch the ball, control his body and impact our team the way he does off the bench). As for Damon/Snow... I want to keep one of the two because they each bring something to the team and both are different. The constant is their burdening contract, whcih getting rid of either would help. If we do find a taker for Damon Jones, then I want Jason Terry. The Mavs are going to stay with Devin Harris and if Harris plays like he did last night that is good news for us. I think we can make something happen for him. Then we keep Snow and our 1, 2, 3, and 5 starting spots are solid. We need to address our 'bigs' this offseason, but there is not much out there.
The other option I can see is resigning flip and starting him with hughes and LBJ and making one of those guys learn the point in the offseason, then you have snow and damon coming off the bench for flip/hughes. I think this really might be the best option.
Bottom line, if we're going to learn something from detroit, it's that learning to play as a single unit is vital to getting deep in the playoffs. I think we have some young guys who have a lot of potentional and it would be a shame to overhaul the entire team this offseason. Keep who you can unless something big comes to the table. Otherwise, take a cue from Dolan and Savage and let's get go get some projects and prospects.
We can't just overhaul our starting lineup next year... you don't win championships that way. Despite Z's lack of confidence this postseason, I really like our 4 man rotation down low. I think that if you give Drew another year under Brown, we might start to see him spacing out on defense a little less. I will argue tooth and nails with you guys that Anderson is not ready for starters minutes or responsibility. While we all bitch about Drew's mental lapses, Anderson makes some pretty glaring mistakes that a starter can't make... passing the ball inbounds in a two point game when we're about to call a timeout and making stupid fouls early in the quarter in the backcourt are two that come to mind recently. Not to mention that Anderson, while an energy spark, likes to leave his man on defense (more than Drew in my opinion) and just can't figure out switching off screens on the baseline.
I say resign Drew and give Andy another year bringing energy off the bench. In two years, I'm not sure Z's legs will carry him anymore and a James/Gooden/Varejao starting frontcourt could be pretty dangerous in a few years.
Now, point guard is tricky because nobody is going to take damon jones. I think we're stuck with the guy, but I think he'd be a good backup to hughes as the 2-guard. ESnow isn't going anywhere either, so I think you let him run the offense for another year and draft or trade for a young pg who can learn how to run an offense from snow, who undeniably has experience taking his teams deep in the playoffs.
continued....
Realism:
1) Drew cannot be resigned. He is good, but he is going to want a 4-5 year deal with good $$. We can't give him that. See ya, man.
2) Let's shop Damon or Snow, but both will be tough to trade. Contracts + limited ability (Damon on O, Snow on D) means a team will have to swallow hard to take those deals.
3) Flip ain't coming back. The guy wants to start, and he can't start in C-land. Enough said.
4) Andy can start. Why not? I would rather start with the D-Man, and bring the O guy off the bench. His offense will get better, and he is already playing at the end of the games.
5) Who can we afford? No one that good. It's up to the front office to be creative.
Last year the midlevel exception was 5.5 million. We could re-sign drew by giving him his qualifying offer for next year, which 5 million and change and use the MLE to pay him anything over what he's offerred by anyone else.
We could use the rest of the MLE to resign flip and start flip and hughes in the backcourt. With flip, larry and lebron starting together, i don't think we'll have any deficiency in ballhandlers in the starting lineup.
Do you really think giving Drew Gooden a large contract is what this team needs? If you do, then you are crazy. What this team needs is to trade a PG, lose Gooden, and obtain a real PG. Leave the MLE out of this- if you use it, you end up with guys like Snow and Gooden.
If you think Anderson Varejao can hang with even the average eastern conference PF, you must be crazy. Energy off the bench does not equal the bruiser power forward that this team needs. I think we're already soft inside with Z, Gooden, Yell and Andy, so the answer in the offseason is to watch the only guy out of those four who knows how to put a hard foul on his man go?? I'd love to see Andy turn out to be the next Dennis Rodman. He already has the same reckless abandon and pure desire to rebound. But Andy is soft, pue and simple. Maybe it's the way he learned basketball, maybe it's just the way brazilians play basketball. I don't know what it is, but I don't think he strikes fear in his opponents like rodman did.
Now, I'm not saying Drew Gooden strikes fear in his opponents either, but at least he knows how to finish around the hoop, at least he can shoot a free throw. I will say it again... we can't just overhaul this team every offseason. We have to try to let some of these guys grow into the schemes. Otherwise, we start from scratch again next year and spend the first half of the season letting new guys adjust to playing with LJB. I'm just saying we should strive for stability and not desparately seek out the player of the moment. This team got 50 wins without larry hughes for most of the season. Why make drastic changes? Why not see what these guys can do with Hughes for a whole season (minus 15-20 games I'm sure). We're not trying to put together a washed-up all-star roster like Miami does and the Lakers did. We're trying to build around LeBron. If you keep tearing down the foundation every season, the tower never grows.
RIP justin hughes
I don't think Andy is soft. Plus, I imagine he will bulk up some. And I am not seeking a complete reoster overhaul. We just need to change 1-2 parts, none of which are "core" pieces.
That previous link I posted basically says Greg Oden will be at OSU a few years.
RIP JUstin Hughes... well put. I hope Larry can focus and this drives him for Saturday's game. I hope it drives our team. We'll see. I think Flip should start to give Larry less pressure and an asset off the bench, which we need in order to win. We can win these next two games, but we MUST play a full 48+ min.
As for off-season moves... this team needs more time to gell and work together. We saw a great run down the stretch with Larry. We were hitting a groove and it continued into the "Witness" series (round 1). I do not think we make any crazy moves this offseason. If you can move Snow or Damon then cool, but unlikly. If we can sign Flip... great. Our biggest issue is lack of inside presence. I would love to have Drew start and Andy off the bench. Both could use another year of maturity and growth with LBJ. He makes them better and you'll see their stats drop if we lose either (this year or in the future). Our bench needs to get better also. Sasha will replace Flip (if Flip does not return), Luke is done with this team and is just taking roster space. I like him and all, but he does not fit our team scheme right now... I hope I'm wrong. Henderson is gone. Marshall is fine. I think one creative option our front office could work is something with Z. Maybe we can work a trade to move Z, who if he is not hitting his 15 ft. J is useless to us. I love Z and would like nothing more than for him to be here when we win a championship, but he must get more physical. Getting a T. Chandler type player may be what this team needs... and athletic big. We don't need another scorer... we need an enforcer/defensive presense in the middle.
first off like a few people mentioned.. R.I.P Justin Hughes. Looking around the net it seems people were very aware of his situation and glad to see people paying respect to Larry, who even chose to go to a smaller school to be next to his bro. I am sorry Larry and I hope you can make it for the game on Saturday. We need your intensity and passion.
Regarding our team, Anderson is soft now yes and will have a very hard time playing with all the PF's in the league, but he has the heart and honestly he is really our only option as Gooden will be gone. He will want too much and we just cant swing it. So Andy will have to step up unless we pull off a miracle trade. If Z just needs to get a little stronger underneath that would be huge. I wonder if trading Z would even be a good idea. Who knows.
I can see 1 or 2 changes, but def would be surprised to see anything big go down. I am hoping we can finally see Larry and Bron play a whole season together. We really need to build that chemistry as it will be truly essential down the road.
just found this site regarding the draft for next season.
http://www.nbadraft.net/
good luck cavs on sat..
Why does no one like Andy? The guy is big, strong, physical (did you see him battle with Zo earlier in the year), athletic, and full of energy. When he adds 20 pounds of muscle this summer, watch out.
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