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  1. #76
    Veteran exstatic's Avatar
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    White needs to be the one running the sets going forward. I like Murray but he does not control the game and pace like White can and frequently calls his own number too much. Spurs would probably be better served trading him while his value is high

  2. #77
    Veteran R. DeMurre's Avatar
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    , just sit Patty, NOW, and play Vassel, and we’d improve markedly.
    It's exactly like last year, with Forbes getting too many minutes...

  3. #78
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    Literally all of the Spurs best lineups for the season include both Mills and Gay - with Net ratings of 29.3, 28.1, 27.9, 23.1 and 13.7. The best non Mills-Gay lineup has a Net rating of 7.1, which is the current starting lineup.

    They may not be great or consistent enough for the Spurs to be better, but they're certainly not the reason why the team lose games. And neither is the bench production as a whole.
    - Check recent +/- and you will notice that Gay, Mills and Lonnie get constant negatives.

    - Offensive rating against subs is not the same as playing against starters.

    - I'm not sure but scoring faster is not necessarily the same as scoring more.

    - Chris Paul has one of the worst offensive ratings in the league but we all know where the Suns stand as a team right now.

  4. #79
    Veteran BG_Spurs_Fan's Avatar
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    - Check recent +/- and you will notice that Gay, Mills and Lonnie get constant negatives.
    Some +s, some -s, as expected. Make a point for yourself if you have one.

    - Offensive rating against subs is not the same as playing against starters.
    Which is why they are bench players outplaying other bench players. Certainly not a point in 'the reason the team is losing' case.

    - I'm not sure but scoring faster is not necessarily the same as scoring more.
    Eh?

    - Chris Paul has one of the worst offensive ratings in the league but we all know where the Suns stand as a team right now.
    Not sure about your point and what the relevance is, but Chris Paul has an excellent offensive rating.

  5. #80
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    - Win shares / Win shares per 48 / Box plus minus / Value Over Replacement .... Demar leads the Spurs in all these categories. He is our best player.

    - Both Rudy and Mills are worse than Drew Eubanks in the same categories.

    - Rudy and Mills have worse Win Shares per 48 than All the key players, including Vassell.

    - Rudy and Mills are eating time from our young guns.

    - I've been saying that, Demar is not the problem. We need better bench players and another 23+ scorer.

  6. #81
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    - Win shares / Win shares per 48 / Box plus minus / Value Over Replacement .... Demar leads the Spurs in all these categories. He is our best player.

    - Both Rudy and Mills are worse than Drew Eubanks in the same categories.

    - Rudy and Mills have worse Win Shares per 48 than All the key players, including Vassell.

    - Rudy and Mills are eating time from our young guns.

    - I've been saying that, Demar is not the problem. We need better bench players and another 23+ scorer.
    Can't just compare advance stats to players with completely different roles in the offense. You can't even compare win shares across positions, centers always comes out on top.

  7. #82
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    Can't just compare advance stats to players with completely different roles in the offense. You can't even compare win shares across positions, centers always comes out on top.
    Demar is over our Center, so... it is very telling of something.

  8. #83
    Derrick White fanboy FkLA's Avatar
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    GS fans eventually came to hate him. One of the best player memes, ever, was a picture of a smiling Monta Ellis, captioned ‘scored 40 points again, and we lost. That’s our Monta!’
    Inefficient, limited playmaker, undersized, volume scorer.

    Sounds just like DeStar
    Last edited by FkLA; 04-26-2021 at 02:33 PM.

  9. #84
    Veteran Sugus's Avatar
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    Sorry for a late reply, D, been away for some days. I got my cast off! I'll get in touch with you shortly, life's a bit messy RN. Anyways.

    Bro,

    You can't mock the posters on this board and then proceed to lean on their opinion on a separate topic to prove a point. That's not how it works
    I definitely can. Well, not really, it's not what I did lol. I didn't say other posters seeing the offense flow better "proved" my point, just that the difference in offense is notable enough to the point that other people say it without me talking about it. The "proof" would lie in statistics, offensive efficiency with White vs DJ at PG (though the samples will be inevitably muddled up due to this weird-ass season), the rate at which other Spurs score off White passes Vs DJ passes, and so on. I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm not a "stats guy" so I don't really know how to look those things up, but I certainly wouldn't just take other posters' sayings to say it proved my point. I'd love to see some stats on that, as I told you before.

    Finally, like I've always said: the duo has improved every season. It's again a narrow point of view to say they don't score enough and seemingly use Lonzo's one hot shooting night as an example..... does. not. make. sense. given that DJ & White both individually score more than Lonzo, and Murray shoots a better overall FG% than Lonzo even if he's not better at 3 PT %. The DJ & White duo outscores the Lonzo & Bledsoe duo as well, and that's with the former's average age being younger. In fact, I think you'll find it surprising to learn that the DJ & White duo outscores a lot of other NBA duos in the league. That's with DeMar hogging up all the possessions, and the fact that this is really their first year as a duo.
    The duo has improved every season, which is natural considering both DW-DJ are young, up-and-coming players; yet continued improvement doesn't at all mean that the ceiling is good enough to contend with. They could improve every season for the next 5 years, and still be nowhere close to a championship-level starting backcourt. It's totally fine if you think they have that ceiling in them as a pairing..... I'm just not seeing it. And this season, weird as it has been, has hardly dispelled this notion for me. They just lack offensive production in general; spacing, willingness to shoot from outside (DJ), and most importantly, 3pt shooting ability.

    And that's why I mentioned Lonzo. Not because he scored whatever amount of points - but the way he was scoring them. Again, do you think out of any Spurs guards, they could perform that move that Lonzo casually pulled off (the dribble penetration -> sudden stop -> stepback -> 3pt shot)? I can honestly say I have not once seen DJ nor White perform that move, and I've watched about 90% of Spurs games this season. They don't have both the dribbling/footwork to pull off the move itself, nor the shooting accuracy to reliably get a 3pt shot off such an awkward (body-wise) set. And that's only the "basic" move of a modern NBA shooting guard; I've also not seen them shoot a single side-step 3, also a modern "staple", nor transition pull-up 3 (maybe White, once or twice?), and most important of all, they just don't stetch their defender out beyond the 3pt line.

    Seriously, focus on that for the next Spurs game. Have you been watching Luka this season? Of course it's an unfair comparison, I'm not going there - but you see him start his dribble, make his moves, his game, from a couple steps beyond the 3pt line. He's such a good shooter that he forces the defense to play out to him out there . If Dejounte is dribbling at the same spot, do you think the defender plays up to him the same way? Of course not: they'll wait for him right at the 3pt line, and even go under the screen Jakob will set, unless DJ's made a couple threes that particular game already. Dame gets played the same way Luka is by defenders, as is Tatum, as is Brown, as is Harden, as is [insert modern NBA shooting star guard]. And neither White nor DJ are played that way. And, bottom-line, however much you think they're improving as a tandem.... They're probably never going to be played that way by smart NBA defenses. And in this day and age, I have a real doubt whether you can win a championship with a backcourt that can be "dared to shoot". In any playoff series, let alone a WCSF-WCF run.

    I don't really care about %s here, or points scored, is my point. DJ's bread-and-butter ways of scoring are just as outdated as DeRozan's, smart teams will gladly give him that midrange pullup every day of the week. White is a smarter scorer, but he also isn't "enough", to me at least. I'm just saying, the way DJ is playing, there's absolutely the possibility to ship him off for many more assets than it took to get him, and roll the dice again to see whether we can get "that guy". White's injury history, age, and larger contract make him the less tradeable one IMO - though of course I'm realistic enough to know the Spurs FO will never do this. I just think it's an interesting discussion to be had, tbh.


    All I've written here can be summed up in this play from Luka, tbh: https://streamable.com/550jvb

  10. #85
    Veteran Dejounte's Avatar
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    The duo has improved every season, which is natural considering both DW-DJ are young, up-and-coming players; yet continued improvement doesn't at all mean that the ceiling is good enough to contend with. They could improve every season for the next 5 years, and still be nowhere close to a championship-level starting backcourt. It's totally fine if you think they have that ceiling in them as a pairing..... I'm just not seeing it. And this season, weird as it has been, has hardly dispelled this notion for me. They just lack offensive production in general; spacing, willingness to shoot from outside (DJ), and most importantly, 3pt shooting ability.
    I just don't understand why you use this as a point against DJ. For many games now, DJ has had no hesitation in his 3's. You're carrying a point that isn't valid anymore. If you needed to see him do it for a longer period, you could have said that. But I'll use your card here and say that other posters have noticed the change without me saying it (check the game threads), and even Sean Elliot has noted it in the broadcast. The whole argument just breaks down itself when this is your foundation, since this is your basis of why their ceiling is so low. Like, I agree with you if he's open he should shoot it (which like I said, he has been doing). But I don't agree with shooting 8 threes a game for the sake of shooting 8 threes because everybody does it. The game doesn't need to be a 3-point chuck fest.

    I think there's this obsession of what skills a point guard should have in order for a team to be successful. There's no blueprint for this. None. Yes, a ton of modern guards pull this move off. How many of them have gotten far because of said skill aside from the once-in-a-generation great Stephen Curry? The champs in this league have always won because they didn't follow the trend of their time. The Spurs have always trailblazed by being different from the rest. Lockdown D? Check. Beautiful game? Check. Draft International players? Check. Why should they follow the league trend in 3-point shooting guards when instead they can game plan against it (I know, they're not there yet)?

    It seems this whole "my point guard has to have a step back jumper" is more like a "I want strawberries on my cake" type preference. Hugely based on your personal preference, and not backed up by what wins championships in this league. In the playoffs, everything slows down. We've seen even Curry shut down for his barrage of 3's. I know. It's pleasing to the eye, trust me I love watching those backbreaking 3's. But I'm not going to fool myself into firmly believing that it's THE absolute ingredient to get you far when only one player has successfully done it (and even then, he had a super team).
    Last edited by Dejounte; 04-29-2021 at 07:31 PM.

  11. #86
    Veteran Sugus's Avatar
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    I just don't understand why you use this as a point against DJ. For many games now, DJ has had no hesitation in his 3's.
    Wow, heavy disagree with that post. Really interesting, hope you entertain this discussion with me, because I haven't seen it talked about elsewhere in this forum.

    If you read the rest of my post beyond what you quoted (of course you did, just saying), you'll see I'm not talking (only) about him "hesitating" on shooting 3's. If only that was the only flaw in his shooting game...... But no. I definitely see him being more willing to shoot catch-and-shoot 3's this season than the last; that's why I didn't disagree with you about the pairing improving, and I've long been a "truther" of DJ in that regard. But it's absolutely disingenous to think he's a good or complete 3pt shooter just because he'll shoot the occasional C&S... Again, a modern NBA guard's 3pt shooting arsenal goes absolutely beyond C&S, and especially so if you're gonna be a score-first PG. That's why I cited those other players; all of them can create their own shot and be a threat from the 3pt line by a mul ude of different shots, that none of our guards are able to pull off, leave alone rely on. Step-backs are just the first, there's also side-steps, high-screen pull-ups, transition pull-ups, and so on.

    Heavy disagree that it's a "strawberries on my cake" kind of thing, and also a "Curry" kind of thing. The misguided "zig vs zag" mentality the Spurs have approached in this regard, and that you foster with that post, has led the team to stagnant, outdated mediocre play, a team not good enough to make the playoffs even with a "midrange master" in DDR, and by all accounts, a lack of offensive firepower and dominance. It's something an oldhead would say.... Let's put it another way: how many stars in this league can you count for me, that don't rely heavily on the 3pt shot and its variance to be successful? Even C's like Jokic and Embiid shoot them. Far from a strawberry to me. "What wins championships in this league"? Last years' Lakers champs featured a 3pt shooting big (!), and another great 3PT shooter in LBJ (who also has a full-package of moves beyond the arc, and can bomb long range - something that would come closer to the "strawberry"). The Raptors I guess were the anomaly? And even then, Kawhi and Siakam both have gravity from beyond the arc due to being good shooters. Then you get the GSW rings, spearheaded by the GOAT shooter and Durant, also a 3pt killer beyond his midrange. The league is no longer what it was in the Beautiful Game era and previous.

    And it's no "obsession" over what qualities a starting NBA guard should have.... It's just the way the game is played now. The 3pt shot opens up the midrange, never the other way around. I ask again - what playoff defense is going over on Dejounte's screens? I think zero, tbh. That will greatly limit his impact and ability to go to his midrange - especially when, as you say, things slow down, and teams are hounding at him. We'll have to rely on White taking bad pull-up 3pt attempts just so we're not trading 2's for 3's every single possession. In that regard, I can't say I'm confident handing the keys of the offense to DJ after DeMar leaves; he'll just face the same wall DeRozan faces every playoff series, every packed paint, every team daring, begging him to shoot from outside. And he'll brick. Until he adds this to his game (which I'm not discounting could happen! he's maybe the hardest worker on the team, after all), it's simply how it'll go. I would like to know how you'd envision a POs series going down, because I don't see many other results than this as long as DJ is the PG.

    So that's a lot of words to explain why I think the offense runs better through DW, and also DJ's limitations. DW simply has more gravity, commands more attention when he has the ball in his hands beyond the arc, and that added space allows him much better finishes than the inefficient middies DJ is so willing to take (and playoff defenses will so gladly give him).
    Last edited by Sugus; 04-30-2021 at 07:25 PM.

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