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I have to say, it's very easly to like and root for these guys - win or lose this year
 
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I sure do! He's always up for a Sergio or a Shawn Kemp argument!
 
this article was about OKC and Ibaka, but I read it thinking about Lillard/LMA and Lillard/Leonard:
They'll have to get that extra punch someplace else, and squeezing a more diverse pick-and-roll game from Ibaka could be one such place. About 18 percent of Oklahoma City's possessions last season ended with a pick-and-roll ball handler finishing the play via a shot, drawn foul, or turnover, per the stat-tracking service Synergy Sports. That's a big number relative to the league average. But only 4.5 percent of their possessions — a tiny number — ended with the roll man in a pick-and-roll finishing the play. Combined, that was the biggest ball-handler/roll-man split in the league.

Ibaka made himself more available as a pick-and-roll target last season, but he's still in the early stages of developing into a consistent weapon in this way. He prefers to pop out for jumpers up top or along the baseline, and while he's a very good mid-range shooter, these are suboptimal looks that don't place a ton of stress on defenses. And Ibaka can be weirdly hesitant to take them, letting openings slip away.

The end goal should be to mix in more hard dives to the rim, Tyson Chandler–style. Big guys who make themselves a pick-and-roll threat that way force defenses to collapse hard, opening up passing lanes that wouldn't exist otherwise. (They also catch their share of lob dunks, of which Ibaka should have more.)

This should also come with experience. Timing a cut to the rim so as to create a workable passing lane is an art, especially when the guy with the ball (i.e., Westbrook or Durant) is a young score-first player still learning the nuances of passing on the move at this level. Westbrook and Durant have made great strides as passers, with room for much more. And in a bit of good news, Ibaka never really developed a great pick-and-roll chemistry with Harden, in part because Collison was the perfect partner for Harden.
Click to expand...

I'm stoked that Lillard already is so good at the vision part of the P&R, and it's a matter of getting LMA and Leonard into the habit of going hard to the rim on the roll (something LMA hasn't been doing much for 6 years). And when they do, we have Nic/Wes/Babbitt on the wings ready to shoot or to do their own drive to the rim.
 
"One team, one dream."

Does anyone else remember this from the early 2000's?
 
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