The Offseason Cha-cha-changes Thread

[Handlogten's Heros]

Who's we? Go back and look, even when we were out 10 back I was saying our time to compete was now, we needed to trade our pick for tangible players, and that when Rudy returned we would be much better and be in playoff contention. It doesn't matter what people thought. The reality is that the "doom and gloom" was a result of people not recognizing how much of an effect Rudy would have. The whole "built around Rudy" idea is silly because the way we handled defense before and after summer of 2019 is drastically different. The failures of what you're seeing of "being built around Rudy" is a willful scheme Quin has implemented post-summer 2019 where he emphasized extreme funneling to Rudy, rather than letting guys play aggressive on the perimeter because of Rudy. If we had a competent coach and FO, we could get back to that pre-2019 strategy without sacrificing much. But the biggest problem is that most people think the defensive strategy has been continuous and that it's just been "exposed," when it's actually changed.

The flip from good perimeter defenders… and another interior presence wasn’t working on offense so they switched out too many parts… and the scheme had to change a little bit we went to never committing anything that remotely looks like a foul… and guys liked it cuz it’s easy… then we quickly went to softer than charmin. It makes sense…
It’s no fun to play like Marcus Smart did yesterday… I just don’t know how we didn’t adjust from the Denver series until now. It wasn’t hard to see.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

But we have the system.

There was an update and something went wrong and the wheel has been spinning a while… time to ctrl alt delete.

 

[infection]

The flip from good perimeter defenders… and another interior presence wasn’t working on offense so they switched out too many parts… and the scheme had to change a little bit we went to never committing anything that remotely looks like a foul… and guys liked it cuz it’s easy… then we quickly went to softer than charmin. It makes sense…
It’s no fun to play like Marcus Smart did yesterday… I just don’t know how we didn’t adjust from the Denver series until now. It wasn’t hard to see.

There was a longer post that I was going to respond to a couple comments from another thread, but a big part of it was our defensive teams weren't just "yeah give them easy shots to guide them to Rudy." Rudy was there as the backstop, allowing them to play tighter on the perimeter. Then Rudy was also able to go out to challenge shots because we actually had someone cover the rim and box out (Favors). To say that Rudy has been "exposed" in the playoffs is ridiculous, because this stuff would never be able to happen in 2018 when we had guys like Jae and Thabo putting effort to contest shots on the perimeter, or even before the Donovan teams having people play defense before Quin enacted some really, really bad habits, of which those habits have "been exposed" three post-seasons in a row.

 

[LoPo]

Who's we? Go back and look, even when we were out 10 back I was saying our time to compete was now, we needed to trade our pick for tangible players, and that when Rudy returned we would be much better and be in playoff contention. It doesn't matter what people thought. The reality is that the "doom and gloom" was a result of people not recognizing how much of an effect Rudy would have. The whole "built around Rudy" idea is silly because the way we handled defense before and after summer of 2019 is drastically different. The failures of what you're seeing of "being built around Rudy" is a willful scheme Quin has implemented post-summer 2019 where he emphasized extreme funneling to Rudy, rather than letting guys play aggressive on the perimeter because of Rudy. If we had a competent coach and FO, we could get back to that pre-2019 strategy without sacrificing much. But the biggest problem is that most people think the defensive strategy has been continuous and that it's just been "exposed," when it's actually changed.

I was talking about pre-Don and post-Don. If I'm misreading you on the timing, that's my fault.

What we do is built around Rudy, but I do like what we did pre-2019 better. The coaching has gotten worse and worse.

The defensive change has led to the exposing exacerbated by the fact that we don't have a single great perimeter defender to help shut down the primary guy on the other team.

 

[LoPo]

There was a longer post that I was going to respond to a couple comments from another thread, but a big part of it was our defensive teams weren't just "yeah give them easy shots to guide them to Rudy." Rudy was there as the backstop, allowing them to play tighter on the perimeter. Then Rudy was also able to go out to challenge shots because we actually had someone cover the rim and box out (Favors). To say that Rudy has been "exposed" in the playoffs is ridiculous, because this stuff would never be able to happen in 2018 when we had guys like Jae and Thabo putting effort to contest shots on the perimeter, or even before the Donovan teams having people play defense before Quin enacted some really, really bad habits, of which those habits have "been exposed" three post-seasons in a row.

Hard to believe that we went from Jae, Joe, Rubio and Thabo to nobody as good. Shocking really.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Trade Bitchell

 

[infection]

I was talking about pre-Don and post-Don. If I'm misreading you on the timing, that's my fault.

What we do is built around Rudy, but I do like what we did pre-2019 better. The coaching has gotten worse and worse.

The defensive change has led to the exposing exacerbated by the fact that we don't have a single great perimeter defender to help shut down the primary guy on the other team.

You keep saying the system is exposed with Rudy. You keep saying that Rudy's effect appears good because we build the whole system around him. Then you appeal to it falling apart by referencing the past few years when we've gone away from showing the strength of what you can do with Rudy. You referencing him being played off the floor or whatever are issues of Quin's scheming that's changed over the past few years as he used Rudy as a crutch and not as a tool.

 

[LoPo]

You keep saying the system is exposed with Rudy. You keep saying that Rudy's effect appears good because we build the whole system around him. Then you appeal to it falling apart by referencing the past few years when we've gone away from showing the strength of what you can do with Rudy. You referencing him being played off the floor or whatever are issues of Quin's scheming that's changed over the past few years as he used Rudy as a crutch and not as a tool.

I think I've been pretty consistent. I believe that Rudy is a very good player. Whatever this system has been the last few years, which is built around Rudy, does not work in the playoffs. I'm not directly blaming Rudy.

I have said that Rudy and Don could work together provided the right surrounding personnel. We failed them in providing that. It's not Rudy's fault or Don's fault. Like I said earlier, we have gone from Jae, Rubio, Thabo and a younger Joe to not having anyone who can guard at that level.

I'm all for trading Rudy now because I realize that we have zero shot to add the necessary perimeter defenders. Had we drafted Bane or Herb Jones, we could be fine. We didn't. Adding an Oni or even a House is a weak bandaid. Rudy has a lot of value right now. Trade him, and see what we can get. Depending on what we get, trade more and maybe even trade Don if he wants gone.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

You keep saying the system is exposed with Rudy. You keep saying that Rudy's effect appears good because we build the whole system around him. Then you appeal to it falling apart by referencing the past few years when we've gone away from showing the strength of what you can do with Rudy. You referencing him being played off the floor or whatever are issues of Quin's scheming that's changed over the past few years as he used Rudy as a crutch and not as a tool.

Lopo is too dumb to really makes sense of what he says, but the system is built around Rudy's ability to defend. Like, "Rudy is soo good let's run this thing where we put dudes who can't really play D cuz Rudy is so good".

So the system isn't built to make Gobert look good, it's built on the idea that Gobert can make others look better than they are. Gobert is not exposed. The bad defenders are exposed. I don't think Utah ever accounted for how bad Mitchell would get on defense. Hell we have been bringing in PGs for the sole purpose to keep Mitchell's workload from being too high so he could still do things like defense (but Bitchell is trash).

Lopo tries to flip the narrative to protect his dear Bitchell. But the narrative is known now. There are too many extremely smart NBA media members to have talked about what the real issue is, and it's Bitchell first and foremost.

 

[LoPo]

You keep saying the system is exposed with Rudy. You keep saying that Rudy's effect appears good because we build the whole system around him. Then you appeal to it falling apart by referencing the past few years when we've gone away from showing the strength of what you can do with Rudy. You referencing him being played off the floor or whatever are issues of Quin's scheming that's changed over the past few years as he used Rudy as a crutch and not as a tool.

One more thing - Rudy is an elite regular season player. The pace of regular season play, how it's coached, how it's addressed schematically, he dominates games. This Quin Rudy system pays off more than it doesn't.

When the playoffs come, the impact isn't the same. We can blame everybody for that. Teammates, coaching, and even Rudy. He gets run around in circles, keeps focusing on protecting the paint, but we give up a barrage of 3 pointers. The numbers just tell a compelling story - the Clippers and Dallas torched us from deep. The easy thing to do (which most around here are doing), is blaming Don and perimeter defending when it's really an issue for the system we're using. It's everybody's fault.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

One more thing - Rudy is an elite regular season player. The pace of regular season play, how it's coached, how it's addressed schematically, he dominates games. This Quin Rudy system pays off more than it doesn't.

When the playoffs come, the impact isn't the same. We can blame everybody for that. Teammates, coaching, and even Rudy. He gets run around in circles, keeps focusing on protecting the paint, but we give up a barrage of 3 pointers. The numbers just tell a compelling story - the Clippers and Dallas torched us from deep. The easy thing to do (which most around here are doing), is blaming Don and perimeter defending when it's really an issue for the system we're using. It's everybody's fault.

Gobert got zero fault for the matador Donovan not staying in front. Good lord.

 

[homeytennis]

Shade being thrown: "“This isn’t Gobert and Whiteside,” Kidd added. “These guys can put the ball in the basket. So, our bigs are going to be tested.”"