God I wish we had traded them... what is the point of giving these guys minutes if they're not going to be here after this season?
I don't get why Crawful shoots 21 shots. It's totally pointless. This is the time to develop a killer instinct in Nic and Wessy, and hope to have them develop some cohesiveness with LA. Jamal chucking 21 shots under pressure does nothing for our future. And Nolan looks GOOD! Play him more minutes.
Nic needs to be more agressive if he wants to get more shots. He was totally timid. You have to earn your shots, not wait for them to fall into your lap. They both have good games and you shit on them. Who said they won't be here next season, all bets are now off that Nate is gone.
Why play Nolan Smith as most agree he's not talented enough to be a major player and certainly not a good player today? As bad as you feel they might be, Ray & Jamal are two of the PTB's best backcourt options. They were lotto picks not reaches from the 2nd round. You want the vets to feel they're trying to win the game not just planting some seeds making the rest of the season an exercise. If they go with your suggestion (playing less then their best), the team risks the strong possibility of slipping into a complete malaise making it that much harder to turn this around down the line STOMP
Crawford kept us in the game in the 4th. I had my fair share of hate on both these players but they hardly played like shit tonight.
Regardless of his game not being all that great, I liked his shots and selection. The team is actually playing well and the youngsters like Babbitt and smith got burn. What more do you want? Also Batum played more like shit than either one of those two. Like I said, I've done my fair share of hate on both of em, but they weren't why we lost. Hell Crawford wasn't even in the game for most the first, which ironically was when they pulled away.
I like the improvement from Nolan. Certainly needs to be a better playmaker, but his offensive skills are evident. I agree that you don't just want to bench Crawford and Felton. I would gradually cut their minutes so Nolan and Fylnn can get more each game.
Hell I could almost set a clock to what's about to start happening. Felton and Crawford are both going to need new contracts, the best way to do that is putting up a lot of stats and playing as little defense as possible ... to conserve energy for all the shots they plan on taking. They are officially playing for next year and what you saw tonight against OKC is going to be happening a lot. Just don't be fooled into thinking that what they are doing is playing winning basketball; this is about contracts.
No doubt. That's why Caleb needs to do it gradually or they will rebel. Unless he wants to suspend them once they start to bench.
Felton has been our best player for the last couple of weeks. His shooting coach came to town a month ago and he stopped taking many careless shots. Where was similar advice from our coaching staff. Why did it take an outside coach. Crawford is a 4th quarter player. The rest of the game, he's warming up and missing high-risk shots. Sometimes it pays off at the end and sometimes it doesn't. If these guys are here under a new coach (probably not), you just might change your opinions.
Flynn should be getting serious minutes as soon as he can. I want to see what he can do to assess if he's someone we should be keeping after this season.
PER rank of his PG teammates 2010-11...Timberwolves...Ridnour > Telfair > Flynn 2011-12...Rockets...Lowry > Dragic > Flynn He will explode like Lin did.
To be fair to Felton, he was trying real hard on defense against Westbrook tonight. Even fighting through screens. Imagine that.
The guy was a high lottery pick. I think he's worth a look. Of course he wasn't getting minutes behind Lowry and Dragic, and in Minny they were runnin the triangle, which doesn't really work for a pick-and-roll point guard. It's more suited to Steve Kerr or Derek Fisher type guards.