I get what you're trying to say, but the team was fine with Evans leading it up until we tried to incorporate Martin back into things. We started to slide after that good start and Martins arrival came after that but I think the slide had more to do with us being so young and Martin coming back. I think the schemes were decent last year.
[Game] Kings @ Wolves Game Thread, Wed 10/27 @ 5PM
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That's what it looked like back then, but our offensive woes didn't go away when Martin was traded. We were one of the best offensive teams in the league until Martin's return, and our offense just fell off a cliff when he came back. The problem was, I think, that up until Martin returned Tyreke was the best player on the team but it it was not yet officially "his team". With Martin's return, his (Martin's) value fell off very quickly as it was apparent that he and Tyreke don't work well together, and very soon it became Tyreke's team, which is imo a mistake in the first place to turn the team over to a 20 year old rookie, no matter how talented he is. But even more, Tyreke pretty much became the only player that mattered to Westphal. All the others became merely players put on the court and stand around while Tyreke does his thing. That's why a lot of players felt like they don't have defined roles. PW went crazy with his rotations and it seemed like there's no player on the team that he trusts besides Tyreke. I also think that while none of the players actually voiced resentment towards Tyreke or PW, their body language showed a certain disconnect from both of them, which was apaarent especially due to the stark contrast to the earlier months of the season when everyone was playing as a team and PW showed faith in all his players.
Oh c'mon now!
You win in this league by riding your stars. Simple as that. Lakers offence is built around Kobe and Gasol. Miami offence around the big 3. SA offence around Duncan, Parker and Ginobili! We are no different. Our offence is build around Tyreke and so it bloody should be. Now we are incooperating Cousins and possibly Landry! Everyone is IS a role player and if their role is to sit in the corner and wait for the kick out then so be it. This team will only go as far as their stars take it. This nice little, "share the love" offence does NOT work in the NBA when the crunch is on. You need your stars to take matters into their own hands and take over games. Thats EXACTLY what I want Westphal to do. While share the love offence is nice to watch, it wins you nothing in the NBA.
You win in this league by riding your stars. Simple as that. Lakers offence is built around Kobe and Gasol. Miami offence around the big 3. SA offence around Duncan, Parker and Ginobili! We are no different. Our offence is build around Tyreke and so it bloody should be. Now we are incooperating Cousins and possibly Landry! Everyone is IS a role player and if their role is to sit in the corner and wait for the kick out then so be it. This team will only go as far as their stars take it. This nice little, "share the love" offence does NOT work in the NBA when the crunch is on. You need your stars to take matters into their own hands and take over games. Thats EXACTLY what I want Westphal to do. While share the love offence is nice to watch, it wins you nothing in the NBA.
There is a huge difference between having your star lead the team and having a star (especially a 20 year old star) dribble the clock down while everyone else stands and watches him. I am not talking about making everyone on the team an equal offensive option. I am talking about moving the ball and making the offense less predictable, which is not happening on this team. Every star needs a team of players that he and the coach trust in order to win. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case. If PW doesn't trust his players, he should have GP on the phone trying to trade them for players he can trust, but he can't play them in an undefined system and expect them to develop and learn their roles when their roles are not defined. PW seems high on developing his stars. He doesn't seem all that inclined to develop the team that will help them win. It's easy to throw around the "superstars win championships" slogan, but if you look closely at which superstars have won championships and what kind of players and coaches they were surrounded with, you realize that the coaches had a very clear and defined system, and the role players had defined and crucial roles, way beyond standing around beyond the arc and waiting for the kickout. Stars that had weak coaches and scrubs as role players never won a thing. Take a look at Allen Iverson's career, or LeBron in Cleveland. Even MJ didn't win anything until Phil Jackson came along, helped him contain his ego and gave him a team to work with. Phil didn't take away from MJ's dominance, but he did teach him how to utilize the skills of his role players in a way that is essential to winning. PW hasn't done that so far with Tyreke. In fact, one thing that Tyreke seems to have no clue about is how to make his teammates better, and that is a huge part of the star's role and it's his coach's responsibility to teach him that.
That's not actually quite what happened. After the watershed moment when Hawes complained in the papers and got suspended for a game, Westphal got the message and abruptly the lineup experimentation almost completely stopped and we were pretty consistent the rest of the way. Reke, Beno and Landry I think started every game they were healthy after that. And it was supposed to be Hawes at C and JT as the first big off the bench until injury switched that up. Only SF remained in some flux, and I think Donte pretty much started most of the rest of the way too. The rotations got more consistent in that period, not less.
I'm too lazy to actually go and check right now, but while I agree that Landry was a consistent starter, I remember that Hawes, JT, and even Brockman started at the Center position. On the wings it was Omri, Donte, Beno, Garcia, and even Udoka took turns starting at the 2 and 3 (and even that guy we got from Washington, I can't recall his name, started once). Omri dropped from the starting rotation after a while because his game fell off a cliff after the all star break, but all the other guys still took turns starting. That doesn't seem like a very stable rotation at all. And it's not just that, whether you were a starter or a bench player, if your name wasn't Tyreke or Carl, you could get 35 minutes one night, and then 5 minutes the next night (even if you played well on the 35 minute night). That's pretty much asking your players, especially if they're this young, to be lost and confused.
That was the first half of the year - then it truly was chaos. No argument there.
The Hawes incident truly was the watershed thoguh. All of a sudden the rotations solidified, as did the starting linueps. And it was really quite abrupt,. Hard to interpret any other way than as a bit of a player revolt, or meeting with the coach or something, and him taking it to heart and tightening things up. Be easy enough to check the boxscores. The Hawes suspension came on Feb. 23. I just don't have the time to do a tally right now.
The Hawes incident truly was the watershed thoguh. All of a sudden the rotations solidified, as did the starting linueps. And it was really quite abrupt,. Hard to interpret any other way than as a bit of a player revolt, or meeting with the coach or something, and him taking it to heart and tightening things up. Be easy enough to check the boxscores. The Hawes suspension came on Feb. 23. I just don't have the time to do a tally right now.
I checked, and for the most part, you are correct. The starting lineup did settle for a while, although it was still Omri starting at SF, then Green for a couple of games, and then none other than Nocioni. Dominic McGuire did get a random start (and I think he got injured in that game and was out for the rest of the season). The center position also switched to Jason Thompson at some point. Regardless, the teams offense still took a huge fall and while before Martin's return we scored around 104 ppg, we ended the season with an average of 100 ppg, which means since January we averaged about 96 ppg. The tanking at the end of the year may have had something to do with it, but in general I remember the team struggling really hard on the offensive side, whereas usually you would think it would be the other way around. A young team full of new players should struggle at the beginning of the season and get better as they gain experience and develop chemistry. Something was going on there that caused the players to feel uncomfortable in the team's offensive system.
Well, seeing as you didn't watch the Wolves game I think you should hold your whole 'Westphal hasn't improved our offense' comments till you actually see what goes on on the court. If you ask me, it wasn't our offense that needed help the most last season, it was our defense. Also, you can't pin the blame of a stagnant offense entirely on Tyreke. If guys move, get open I'm sure 'Reke would have found them at least half the time. IMO the real difference between our offense pre-Martin and post-Martin trade was largely due to Omri not hitting his shots. You have Reke waiting for an opening, driving inside and kicking it out, even if it's late in the shot clock. Wing guy hits the 3 - it's an awesome set up, good ball movement. Guy misses - Tyreke pounded the ball too much and blablabla. You also have to realise that Tyreke isn't Steve Nash, nor is he Kobe (who's passing I feel is under rated) or LeBron. A young Kobe had the advantage of having Shaq around to play off, and with Shaq on the team I'm sure Kobe would be forced to be much less selfish. Tyreke has not had the chance to have a good big man to work with up till now, so give it time and I assure you things will improve. For now, I'm more concerned about our defence.
Liked that 2 minute stretch in the 4th where we just fed the ball to Cousins and let him work. He dominated down low. Shame about his early fouls restricting minutes. Hassan managed 2 fouls in 1 minute as well so good going there! Luther Head was a bit of surprise to me; Donte's shooting was just horrendous, but hey there's gonna be nights like that; lets hope its not a habit.
say what you like about Omri but he has real tenacity; you know your getting 100% with that guy and you can't fault that.
say what you like about Omri but he has real tenacity; you know your getting 100% with that guy and you can't fault that.
I am not blaming Tyreke on the stagnant offense. Tyreke is a rising star with extraordinary individual ability. What he still needs to learn is how to use his ability to make his teammates better and help them help him win. If PW thinks that by telling him to just go out there and do what he does best will contribute to his development in a way that will help the team win championships, I must say I disagree. It's the coach's job to give his star a system to shine within and teach him how to use that system for his own benefit and the benefit of the team. Just like Phil did with MJ and Kobe. Just like Popovich did with his star players. And just like Pat Riley did with Magic. Telling a 20 year old to go out and just do whatever he wants is not helping him. Even the most talented 20 year old in the world needs direction, and I don't see it being given to him. When bringing up the ball, I haven't seen him do anything but walk it up, never trying to pick up the pace and catch the other team off guard. I haven't seen him try to do different things in the offense than his usual stuff, and I haven't seen the team around him try to do anything different to better complement his game either. We've been chalking it up to this being a young team, but at some point you have to put some kind of responsibility on the coach and expect to see some kind of change, even if the slightest. I don't see it yet, and like I said before, it may be too early and we may start seeing that change in the coming months. I hope that happens, but right now I'm not seeing it happening at all.
I ended up watching the hawks last night instead of the Kings because of the broadband blackout. When Bibby was on the court he directed the offense he was calling out plays and telling guys were to move and even pointing out open passing lanes on the break weather he had the ball or not. He may not have huge assist numbers but if you watch their offense when he is on the floor he owns it. His backup is a good individual player and they still had offensive sets run and plays called out but anyone who watched that game understands why he is the point that starts and finishes most of the hawks games.
Like I said I didn't get to watch this game but from what I saw in preseason we need an offensive playbook and we need a vocal leader on the floor on or off the ball and maybe Beno is that guy or maybe it has to come from the bench but I would hope we see more variety in our offense this year.
Like I said I didn't get to watch this game but from what I saw in preseason we need an offensive playbook and we need a vocal leader on the floor on or off the ball and maybe Beno is that guy or maybe it has to come from the bench but I would hope we see more variety in our offense this year.
I haven't seen a coherent offense either. But I've seen two preseason games and one regular season game (without Tyreke). You've got to let it play out at least 10 games before you can make a judgement. I have a feeling that part of the reason for the apparent lack of design is that Cousins, who is going to be a major cog, is such an unfinished product. He a kinda sorta player right now with kinda sorta minutes so it's hard to have a defined offense with a player that currently is a blob of potential, but only does one thing consistently well (rebound). My hope is that Westphal, instead of reacting to what Cousins kinda sorta can do on offense, instead defines for Cousins exactly what he wants him to do and where he wants him to be game in game out, which I hope is in the post learning how to be a bigtime lowpost offensive presence. I really don't want Westphal to allow Cousins to be a jack of all trades at this point with high post sometimes, low post other times, setting up at the 3 point line, etc, depending on the team and the player that Cousins is matched up against. This would fall into the old Westphal pattern in which he's reacted to the other team (see lineup changes) rather than focusing first on his own team and have the other team react to them.
That's right, Jordan didn't win right away, and he probably would've kept on winning had he not received Phil Jackson as a coach who created a suitable environment for him to win. Again, I am not blaming the 20 year old sophomore. It's PW that I expect to step up and shape up in this one. We talk about guys coming into camp out of shape. To me it seems as if our coach is a little bit out of shape, because I know he can be a great coach, but he hasn't been showing it since January.
That's one of the things that will be interesting to see - how PW makes the Tyreke/DMC pairing work. With all his faults last year, the fact that Hawes liked to jack up threes actually helped Tyreke be that successful driving to the hoop, because Hawes would draw the big man out of the paint. Cousins should spend most of the time in the post. So far he's typically been receiving the ball about 15-18 feet from the basket and tried to dribble his way into the post, which imo is the absolute worst way to try to utilize his talents. Tyreke and DMC have to be aware of each other's intentions at all times. If Tyreke wants to drive, it actually might help for DMC to take an occasional three (if he makes them) to help draw the big man out. If Tyreke wants to drive with DMC in the post, then he has to be willing to throw it up for Cousins to alley-oop when the big man come to help on him - something which I haven't seen Tyreke do so far. Tyreke also needs to learn to feed DMC in the post. All of these things have to be worked out and everyone has to be clear about what they are doing. It's still early, but I do expect to see gradual improvement on that, and I want to see the guiding hand of the coach in this process. This is going to be, imo, the first big test for Westphal. It's all up to him at this point. He has talented young players that desperately need him to show them the way, and he needs to step up.
I agree on everything you say, except for the Cousins 3 pointers. I don't want that out of a 280 lb bruiser. After reviewing the tape, I've got to believe that Westphal is definitely going to make some tweaks to his offense. For example, he had Cousins at the top of the set a screen and then roll directly in the middle of the key; the guard gives him the ball on the move while he's doing this; the opposing team stops his progress; and now Cousins on the move with the ball has to decide where to pass the ball; a turnover results. That's a very difficult play for a 280 lb big guy who can't exactly stop on a dime. That's a play for a guard or a very good small forward. The ball also went to Darnell Jackson in the exact same manner with the same result. Maybe the design of the play is fine, and it's the guard's fault for giving those guys the ball in bad positions. I don't know. In any case, Westphal is going to find out some of this through trial and error over the next several games. That's the thing about competion: very quickly you will find out if your plays are workable or not.
Your big man doesn't need to shoot three pointers to help space the floor. Just as long as he's a threat beyond eight feet, the opposing big will have to respect him and stay at home. And if he doesn't, then DMC should be cutting to the rim for the dumpoff, and it's the same two points. Of all the things I'm concerned about this season, Reke and DMC working together offensively is not one of them. Those two will be juuuuuuust fine.
If Westphal is going to have Cousins get the ball on the wing about 15 or so feet out (like he has been doing), then I'd really like to see Cousins pass quickly to the guard near the top of the circle, then make a cut to the post. Then the guard can fire it right back at him with Cousins having great position in the key for a shot.
I don't mind letting Cousins just go at his man from 15 feet, whether its with the shot or the drive. I'd prefer that he do the bulk of his work in the post with his back to the basket, but there's no use in limiting him when he's clearly skilled enough to do his thing from midrange. That includes the give-and-go.