You've heard of the Mendosa Line in baseball... here is my new analytically sound measurement of NBA depth... I call it the Minivan Line for our great friend Georges. I like Georges, he's a great dude... when he's hitting his threes he's a useful guy. He is a defensive liability and doesn't do a whole lot else. He is an NBA player, but for a top 10 team that has aspirations to make it to the second round or further he can't be a rotation fixture. To me he's the current version of Jared Dudley... a minute filler some nights when you have injuries and a great bench locker room guy. Most good playoff teams go 8-10 deep with solid rotation players above the minivan line. We currently have 7 but there are some fit issues and some guys that don't offer a lot of positional flexibility. Lakers are 10 deep... Denver is like 10-11 deep... Clips are like 9-10 deep... Houston is 8-9 deep but have a few guys that have a lot of positional flexibility and are really unique. So this is our issue and why I don't see us as a true contender... we don't have the superstar talent of some of these teams, don't have the best player in the series, and have issues on the backend of the rotation that they don't have. Before you get all... "Hey the difference between us making the conference finals and losing in the first round isn't upgrading Georges or Tony" I mean it might not be... you have to have your best players perform... but margins in individual games get thin... some playoff series go 7 games... Over an 82 game season... sure an upgrade may only give you a 2-3 game difference and may not even change seeding... but in the smaller sample it makes a huge difference. Philly may have thought upgrading James Ennis or Mike Scott might not make a meaningful difference last year, but they lost on a game winning shot in game 7 to the eventual champions. So figure it the hell out DL and JZ... get us two more guys above the minivan line wing or big and we can make it work. These things absolutely matter.
If you have a bathtub that’s filled completely to the rim, you could pour a cup of water into it and it overflows onto the floor. You now have a problem. But, of course, the water that is now on the floor wasn’t actually the water from the cup. But you have this problem on your hand because of the cup you poured into the tub. That and the fact that you kept that thing filled to the top anyway and didn’t give yourself any room for error.
I think what you mean to say is if you have a MINIVAN full of popcorn and you put one more bag of popcorn in it... Then Gobert grows some Trevor Booker toughness and puts a tampon in your gas tank.
I really dont get why Niang has become this huge scapegoat for people. The dude shot 47% from 3 in January. People just need to accept him for what he is and stop freaking out when he misses a few shots.
