We beat the Nuggets and then beat the 76ers by one and everyone gets a little overzealous with their takes. Slow down everyone!
First off it’s great to see Garland and Allen playing healthy. I’m glad everyone is reminded of how effective and clutch Allen is. His game doesn’t stuff the stat box, but he gets key rebounds, gets key dunks, and fights on every possession. He’s really valuable.
To the point of this post though, yesterday’s game would have been a blow out with Donovan Mitchell. The best thing about Donovan’s game is he can just go get a damn bucket when everything slows down and defenses get really physical. Darius Garland, who is a treasure of a player and everyone adores to watch him because he’s so damn cool, struggles with this. He kind of always has. He gets beat up, he can’t get the ball back with any space. Last night we got bailed out by him shooting a really nice, ugly, Hail Mary 3 and the giant cajones of Craig Porter Jr. Without those two plays we lose. With Donovan Mitchell in that game, we have someone who’s going to create space for a clutch 3 or get a clutch foul call and keep our scoring up. Please stop looking for reasons to be against this guy who we’ve given MVP chants for the last year. He’s a walking bucket, he’s committed on defense, and he supports the team too. Donovan Mitchell will be critical in playoff basketball for this reason too - playoff basketball is half court scoring, defense and the ability to go get a damn bucket when you need it. Donovan Mitchell last year had the 37th highest effective FG%. Doesn’t sound amazing right? The only guards with volume better than him were Steph, Halliburton and Kyrie. Same goes for TS% - guards in his range are Steph, Halli, Kyrie, SGA and Lillard. It’s not as pretty to have a guy who just goes and gets efficient buckets but it’s so valuable. By the way, who got the game winning bucket in game 1?
These are great guys. Great personalities, great players. Let’s celebrate that without tearing anyone down. And criticize too in a healthy way - Evan Mobley can’t be going 2/8 on post plays for example. He’s immediately stepped up that part of his game this season and his efficiency is going way up! Awesome!
I was at game 1 this year. DM’s favorite moment last year in the whole season in an interview was Isaac Okoro’s game winning shot. The guy scored 71 and that’s his favorite moment. He’s with us (at least for now) and he’s part of this team. He’s an important key player who arguably should have been 1st team all nba last year.
We have already had so many fun moments this year. It is extremely impressive we’re 8-6 with injuries alllll the time. Let’s be patient about that, let our guys come back healthy and supported. It’s looking like 1-10 on our roster are really solid. We love Max Strus, Levert has been balling, Okoro has had great energy and we’re so excited about Craig Porter Jr! George Niang has started shooting better!
Let’s keep the energy high, keep the support high and LET EM KNOW. We can easily be the best fans in the NBA. Let’s get this dub against the Heat tonight!
Man, if you dont see how the team plays differently (and better) without him, then I cant help you.
Doesnt mean we need to get rid of him, just means that he needs to find a way to fit better with the rest of the team.
I think most people understand we’re better with Mitchell in the side but that there are also ways he can improve on both ends to take the team to the next level
Go Cavs, I agreeeeee!
I agree, go Cavs
We’re 8-6 with a tough record and a ton of injuries. Team is also playing differently and more creative on offense. All the bad takes are looking embarrassing rn. With Mitchell last night the sixers wouldn’t have been able to stop us from scoring in the 4th the way they did. Its time to #LetEmKnow
Good teams are supposed to best other good teams, even when their superstar scorer is out, their defensive maestro is sore, their sixth man is down, whatever. Winning these games without Don and/or Okoro/Levert doesn’t mean we’re better off without them, it means we finally have some fucking depth, some team cohesiveness to draw from. And a real goddamned diamond in the rough…everybody knows who I’m talking about. CPJ is going to help us to the playoffs this year, and there are a lot of teams that are going to be very pissed off that they didn’t take a flier on this guy. He’s not a superstar (yet) but he does everything very well. I can’t wait to see the development of this team this year, through all its struggles. Iron sharpens Iron. These are all good things.
Your misssing the point.
We are winning without Donavan and he’s a max salary player.
We were losing with him and arguably levert.
Trade both those bums away and surround our team with even more depth.
Let’s add an elite wing two way player to our roster to complete our team. We don’t need mitchel, we have garland.
Top of my list of players who we can look for:
- Paolo Banchero
- OG Anunoby
- Scottie Barnes
- Andrew Wiggins
- Brandon Ingram
- DeMar DeRozan
- Paul George
- Kawhi Leonard
- Kevin Durant
- Lebron James
-Lauri Markenhiem (This is the hilarious part, we would be better with him vs mitchel)
two player that have low stock value (but are very underated as the above players that I’d consider trading mitchel for are):
Kyrie Irving & Ben Simmons.
I’d take everyone above over mitchel due to them all being able to slot way better with our roster than mitchel. (throw in levert as a bonus) and swing for the fences. It’s not a jab against mitchel, he just overlaps way too much with Garland and isn’t a good fit for our team.
