this place is gonna freak out when our draft pick is 6'4 again
Ok 5%. How do you explain Sloans’s 19 years of hofers Stockton-Malone not even getting 1 ring? How about Van Gundy having Ewing and Co? Or with Ming and T-Mac? All hofers, no rings, nada. Having Hofers are not enough boy. Coaches actually need to get them playing great at specific time. It’s not enough to have a Formula One Car or a winning racehorse. Somebody actually needs to ride it. I hate Phil Jackson, but MJ, The GOAT himself, wasn’t winning rings without him. And your point about GM, you think Pop had nothing to do with selecting Spurs players?
Bruh, I’m going to close this in a positive note. We’re both fans and obviously passionate about the Spurs. My view is 1. Coaches doesn’t just contribute 5% on winning championships. It’s at least 50/50 or even more. Porzingis is a bad combination with Luka, or is it? It takes a Coach to figure it out, make them compliment each other’s game, and start winning. 2. It’s my opinion that the 89-90 Pistons were playing small ball because of 3 guards and big man shooting outside style. Hey, you have your opinion, I got mine.
this place is gonna freak out when our draft pick is 6'4 again
All 3 picks
People still seem confused about the term "small ball". It's not about height (length/strength often matter more) so much as skillset. Unless you have a superstar or star small guard, nobody wants to be small anywhere. They want to be big, versatile and skilled. There's just a dearth of quality modern fours to make these lineups go.
It is funny/ironic though that in a league obsessed with doing everything they can to limit the power of bigs, they've wrestled back control the past few seasons and are the three best current players.
Nah, they did the inevitable and necessary to have a legit chance to win the le: Downsized to Davis as the lone traditional big from the Rockets series on, with the exception of stretches vs Jokic.
But playing Davis and James at their modern positions doesn't cons ute "small ball" anyway, just like it didn't when the Spurs played Aldridge and Gay at theirs.
I don't feel that way neither of them need to be elite, if one is above average the other can be below average but not a non-shooter, or both can be respectable but not good. The idea is that at least one has to have shooting gravity to pull a defender away from the bucket, I would argue that has always been wanted it's just that the midrange isn't respected today so it makes everyone babthree shooter.
1. Tmac and Yao were injury prone that's why they failed if we are being honest in here which goes back to players. Jordan was better than Ewing. The better question to ask is if Phil Jackson would have won with the Ewing Knicks against the Jordan and Pippen bulls. The answer is no in my eyes.
2. I'm just going to disagree with you. Coaching is not 50 percent as valuable as the players. If that was the case, you could put Pop on the worst team in the league and he would be able to guide them to the playoffs. You are basically saying he's just as important as a superstar by saying what you did, and we know he isn't. There is a reason why Jeff Van Gundy refuses to coach again unless he's given a team that has superstars because he knows he won't be able to succeed without them. It's the same reason why Phil Jackson was always selective when it came to the teams he coached after the bulls. , Tyron Lue couldn't do jack in Cleveland once Lebron left. Are you telling me Tyron Lue is 50 percent as valuable as Lebron?
3. I do laugh how you are stubborn not to admit the Pistons were big team. You keep ignoring the DEFENSIVE aspect of the game in which like I said a hundred times that the Pistons started a twin tower line up at PF-C. When I think of small ball it means you are undersized defensively. For example, I doubt the Pistons win if they are starting Keldon Johnson at PF instead of Mahorn. Going by your logic you could say the bulls le teams played small ball because they didn't drop the ball in the post when in reality, they had a big team with Horace Grant at PF and Cartwright at Center.
We can just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
I'm already expecting that to happen knowing how obsessed the Spurs are with assembling a team filled with midgets.
So why has no contender EVER won with small ball? They're all big... The Grizzlies had the same roster last year, but they played a SF at PF and we're a bad team... They embraced playing big this year and are significantly better... The Cavs had those same point guard for years, and Jarret Allen last year... They started winning when they combined him with Mobley... Another big... So despite all the top pics they had for years, they never won until playing big
They were small... He was their center but they played small at PF...
Uh...the Warriors won with small ball in 2015. Bogut was injured most of that series. They were running KD at the 5 and Draymond at the 4 in 17/18, which is not big. The LeBron Cavs in 2016 won with 6'10" Love at C and and 6'8" Thompson at PF, again not big. the Bucks won with a "big" lineup but as i pointed out earlier it works because Lopez is an elite 3 point shooter. Even the 2014 Spurs and 2013 Heat were not big teams...
You guys really need to separate teams utilizing their size to their advantage and having skilled bigs that can shoot. Big ball on its own doesnt win anything. there's a reason all of the top teams i mentioned earlier dont run big ball and the only teams that do (Cavs, Grizz) have two bigs that can shoot well from distance (Mobley, JJJ). It's not about playing "big."
None of those teams are serious contenders... I'm talking about winning... Not simply making the playoffs...the minute those teams run into a big team in the playoffs, they will lose... It always happens... No team wins small... The trash ass Lakers won in the bubble because they were bigger than everyone else... The Bucks won because they were bigger... Every team wins a ring because they are bigger and better... The reason LeBron was able to come back vs the Warriors is because the Warriors bigs went down and the Cavs played big...
This isn't true at all... The Lakers started AD at PF and Dwight/McGee at C
Lmao...okay, so none of the top 8 teams are contenders? The suns that are blowing away the league with Crowder at PF arent contenders? The Heat arent contenders? you're not even worth talking to man, tf are you even babbling about at this point
How did that work out for them against PHX last season? How is it working out for them this year?
They won because they had the #2 GOAT and Anthony Davis at his peak. has nothing to do with size plus that was a fake mickey mouse le anyway
>point out numerous teams that have won the le playing small in the last decade, point out multiple teams this year playing small at the top of their conferences
tHoSe DonT cOuNt
He wasnt their center... They had Bogut... A legit 7 footer
who only played a total of 74 minutes due to injury. Played 28 mins in game 1, 25 in Game 2, and 17 in Game 3 and didn't step on the court again after that. Warriors closing lineup was Curry/Klay/Barnes/Iggy/Green, none of them over 6'7. try again
If you're going to try and make a thread to prove a silly point, at least know wtf you're talking about beforehand
I agree, but maybe it's not so much that people are confused, but the term itself is fuzzy & poorly defined. On the other hand, I don't think anyone is arguing that Dallas was playing "small ball" with Dirk simply because he took a bunch of outside shots. The guy was 7', so regardless of his skillset, it's not small ball. There is agreement that the '07 Golden State team who upset Dallas in the playoffs was a small ball squad because they successfully used the 6'8" Stephen Jackson to guard Dirk, and it worked. The thing people forget though, is Golden State's cinderella run was over in the next round against a Utah team that played a traditionally sized line up. I think way too much is made of the modern day Warriors use of Draymond as an undersized defender and attributing their success to it. The reason they're great is they have two all time great shooters shooting at a high clip from three and hitting-- 40+% of the time. When the Rockets tried the same thing with Harden/Gordon/Paul-- a bunch of guys shooting in the 35-37% range-- it didn't yield the same results.
And it's true that length/strength matter as much as height. Some people call Lebron's Miami team "small ball" when they put Bosh & LeBron at C & PF, which I think is silly: Bosh at 6'11 + Lebron at 6'9" 260+lbs are anything but "small."
Last edited by R. DeMurre; 02-17-2022 at 11:16 AM.
Rewatch the MEM play in before KJ gets subbed out and tell me he can keep up with wings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AypJJx8LbGo
My first team was the Bullets and chronologically after Gus Johnson, my favorite player was Wes Unseld, 6'7" HOF center, with one ring, and three finals losses.
Bogut only played 23.6 MPG that year...Draymond played 31.5.
It got even lower in the playoffs. In the Finals, Bogut only played 18.4 MPG while Draymond played 37.0.
Bogut was a legit 7 footer...who spent most of his time watching from the bench.
Did Draymond play 31 minutes at center? The answer to the question is no. Warriors during the playoffs had Bogut primarily playing center and then the minutes split with Ezeli and Speights playing center.
Who cares who played at C anyway. The Spurs have a 7 footer at C now. The point is that teams with "undersized" PFs are fairly normal now. So again the issue isn't the Spurs size it's the Spurs talent at the position. Having KJ and McD as your two forwards would still be horrible on D if even if they were both 6'9
should probably nab one of those franchise big men you hear so little about
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