Game Debrief: What Went Right And What Went Wrong?

To be fair, Adou has been injured pretty well the whole season. He had a knee injury to start the season and then picked up MCL sprain in his knee. Not sure he could of got anymore time as he wasn't healthy.

 

At his size do you think he will be able to actually handle POA to stay in front of the good ones? 2s, 3s and 4s shouldn’t be a problem if he’s the real deal. Switched onto them … sure a bit but I mean him getting the assignment?

 

Don't know yet - Lebron was the POA defender for the Heat against Rose so the big on little switch works but it's admittedly rare.
Theiro reminds of Reddish the way he plays defense but Theiro is build in Aaron Gordon mold - you have to play him to see what you got.

 

At Kentucky he could defend 1-3 well. He is 6'8 with a 7'3 wingspan and built like an ox. I think he could be huge on the defensive end, but I'm not sure if he can be a long term POA defender. I think he'll be that 2-4 defensive guy.

I actually think Bronny has some real nice defense at 1-3. Guy's a really great athlete, fast and strong as hell. There's a world where both guys develop into great 3&D guys in a Bronny, Reaves, Luka, Adou lineup. I doubt it'll happen because we aren't a patient organisation, but both young guys have the tools.

 

I see the same in Bronny but get killed even saying it by two here. Keep working on his handles, clean up the mental mistakes, start hitting a good % of the variety of shots he can get off and look the hell out. I think by the time he starts his prime physically in 3-4 more years he’s going to be a beast at 6’3”.

 

It is what it is, most of the fanbase dislike his dad and feel like he is a nepo baby. As a result, they're waiting on his downfall. I for one admire his tenacity to have cardiac arrest and come back to play professional sports, he has beat all of his haters with that alone.

I'm not sure how he can develop on the offensive side, but defensively I think he'll be an above average defender at the minimum. As a tertiary playmaker and someone who can hit 3's at a good clip, he'd be valuable as a bench piece. If he can be a 40% 3pt shooter and a good defender, he can start on some teams and be a playoff rotation player. We'll see I guess.

 

yeah, easy to forget how young/inexperienced these guys are. peyton watson was unplayable in denver at the same stage bronny and knecht are at right now. you have to have patience to develop players, and we've just shown so little of it.

 

Agreed. I’m not the biggest LeBron fan, but Bronny is his own man and I’m rooting for him to carve out his path to a long career.

 

Yeah, I know about his injury history.
I’m just talking about all the times he has been available and been ghosted.
I agree with many here that our organization doesn’t have the patience to develop players, for the most part. They better change their stance quickly since it’s nearly impossible these days to buy and trade your way into a deep team.

 

Peyton Watson appeared in 23 games his rookie year at 8 minutes a game. In his rookie year Jordan Walsh appeared in 9 games at 9 minutes per game, and pretty much all of that was garbage time because that 2024 C Bags team was running teams out of the building. Thiero is at about 5 minutes a game in the games he’s played.

Thiero is a 2nd round pick who missed all summer, all of training camp, the early part of the season, and then another chunk of the season. It is completely normal for him not to be playing. I think this idea that we have no patience for developing players is starting to be way overstated. JHS just sucked, that’s not a development issue. Dalton frankly just sucks, that’s not a development issue. Guys like Walsh and Watson immediately flashed some good defense to warrant a few minutes of playing time, and then the rest of their game developed. Dalton has shown nothing since a few weeks of hot shooting at the beginning of last season.

Thiero has shown some of that defensive potential so he’ll get some minutes…next year. Which is completely normal, like it was for Watson and Walsh, on a team that’s actually pretty good. We all tried to pencil in Christie as the every-day backup 2 his second year, turned out he wasn’t ready for that in 2023-2024. He didn’t really turn into a reliable rotation guy until halfway through last season, his third year. There was no lack of patience by the team there, quite the opposite actually. It’s not as simple as “this team is unathletic and needs some defense, play Thiero every night”. He is not an NBA player right now. The way he becomes one is sitting and learning in practices, walkthroughs, film sessions, etc. until his brain catches up to the NBA game enough that he can actually put his skills to use on the court.

 

we'll see. you're benefitting from hindsight in some cases and proclaiming things settled that are not.

jordan walsh sucked last year and without a good summer and camp, he was going to be cut. i believe it was basically communicated to him.

a good chunk of the fanbase here had written christie off before his third year, too.

 

Gave up on Caruso, who literally became the best POA defender in the NBA.
Gave up on Huff who is a serviceable backup big.
Gave up on Pippen Jr, who is now a serviceable backup PG.
Yes, JHS didn’t pan out and I agree, that’s in him.
Gave up on Goodwin who is an excellent defender off the bench.
Christie is a good player who needed to be in the trade for Luka so that’s understandable.
Dalton has underperformed, and probably needs to be out of the bright lights(I have stated this before).
Again, when Thiero has been available, he hasn’t received enough burn on a team that needs exactly his skill set. Yes, he has missed time. I am talking about the time in which he has been available. Both can be true at the same time.
JJ has held on to very questionable combinations of players, so he’s not beyond reproach. It took injury to realize that Hachi worked better off of the bench. He constantly gave CardioGabe minutes when they were undeserved.

 

We just aren't an organisation that believes in patience. I think alot of this stems from our fanbase, they're super supportive, but they have extremely high expectations. That's why we never developed guys like Huff or Scotty Pippen Jr. On the other hand, when someone is decent, we've given them a fair go from the start; think Clarkson, Nance, Kuzma, Caruso, Reaves - heck even Knecht has been given opportunities.

Max Christie is really the only guy we brought along slowly and who turned into something decent. I think Zubac could have been another of these if we hadn't of traded him so early. But I don't see us giving tonnes of chances to players like Mo Wagner, Svi, Bufkin etc. We just aren't patient like that - either you can play from the jump or you're out.

 

I was watching some of Flagg's greatest plays videos and I wondered if we would even give him a chance??? He was having some problems in the first month and I don't know if our team would have ever given him enough rope to figure things out.

 

lol, if flagg was on the lakers, espn would have had like, seven separate long form pieces on him being a bust by November 4th.

"Look everyone--except Rob Pelinka--knew that VJ Edgecombe was the REAL star of this draft..."

 

This 100%

 

What in the H..E..L..L are you talking about?

 

There’s one of em!

 

Wow, I just read a stat.

Luka, LeBron, and Reaves have only played together for TEN games this season. In those ten games, they were 7-3. Those three losses: Suns, Spurs, Rockets.

The loss against the Suns, Brooks and Gillespie dropped 61 points and LeBron had one of his worst games.

In total, they have only played 152 minutes together as a trio this season.

Considering this, I think the record is quite respectable. 100%, they would have a significantly better record if all three were healthy and actually played together for the bulk of the season.

Always seems to be a rotating cast of two stars and one goes down to an injury. First it was Reaves+Luka with LeBron out, then Reaves gets injured so it's LeBron+Luka, and now Reaves came back and Luka was injured.