It’s actually psycho

When you’re pushed into depression and suddenly you feel better you usually at least remember the bad times. You know… as a lesson, as a reminder of what to avoid etc.

Not with this sub. In this sub you can play bad for 4 years and start the season at the bottom of the league but all it takes is one win by 2pts after being down for 47 minutes and everyone forgets…

Hard to have any meaningful discussions when everyone writes their posts based on whatever happened in last 20 mintues…

We were also down our second best player lol - PlumGod RiP 😣

Zu made great progress every season since we got him but there has always been this problem with him that he’s there just to take some time off and wait to be benched for crunch time

It’s hard to wrap your head around him because he is a legit 12ppg/11ast player but then whenever we play teams that actually put pressure on us he’s useless - or at least he’s put in positions where he’s useless

Luka cooks him, Jokic cooks him, he can’t really fight with Bam, Embiid, Porzingis you name it

We have starting center who on paper looks like one of the best centers in the league but once you actually put him against the big names he becomes so small it’s better for Ty Lue to play PJ Tucker or Nico Batum in the past

Idk man… I like Zubac a lot and I’m not sure there’s a market for us to get someone better but there’s just something off with his fit on this team

Imagine this team with a center who’s actually a serious lob threat and an offensive rebound machine because of his athleticism…
Meanwhile Zu is just a very solid 5th option to start the game (not as solid as a closer tho)

I’m going to stand up and clap

We might’ve lost but once they get more reps that separation into two “teams” where one is built on top of RW/PG the other on top of Harden/Kawhi and you just mix whatever else is working - that’s going to be great

With 4 superstarts you cannot have even a minute of a game where all of them are sitting. Need to play the minutes better and I think Ty Lue is starting to realise that.

Now just fix whatever is not working with the starting unit (which probably means Harden or RW will get benched to start…)

Ehh…

I think there isn’t a single person on this sub that likes the way it’s looking right now. But you are putting it on Harden simply because he’s that one kid no one wanted in a group project and now everyone blames him simply because it’s easy instead of looking at real issues.

James Harden is NOT THE problem. He has his issues but that’s expected when a guy averaging 11ast per games switches teams. It’s obvious that to get 11 assists you need to pass a lot and when the rest of the team doesn’t know your patters it can get ugly.

What you fail to point out is how the rest of the team looked in that span…

Against Knicks: Zubac and Westbrook combined for 9 turnovers
Against Nets: Harden had a lot of turnovers but he also had 5ast and was 4/9 for the game. Meanwhile PG was 7 for 20!!! 2/10 for three!!
Against Mavs: Harden had two turnovers. Same number that Westbrook had. But only one of the guys was whooping -26 +/- for the game - guess which one

This team requires good series of practice before they get on the same page. But looking at this team now the problem is not Harden - the problem is that rest of the team thinks they can win WITHOUT Harden.

You’re looking for fixes? Make Harden 1st or 2nd option on the floor at all times (except lineups where Kawhi and PG are both on the floor). We cannot allow a situation to happen where we play a lineup of Harden/RW/Norm/TMann/Tucker and Harden is watching RW and Norm try to ISO their way into the basket. This is Kawhi’s and PG’s team. But expecting these two to carry the entire load has lead us to disappointment time and time again.

You want to win? Harden has to be put in a position where he can get 21ppg 11ast. Not a position of Nicolas Batum where he’s just a cone on the floor looking at less productive players then him take all the action.

lmao yeah it’s definitely going to be worse than being a first-round exit team for last/next 3 years

It all evens out.

Sure - on paper we’ve become a bit less balanced when it comes to our depth but we won’t need those 2/3 threes from Batum anymore because James Harden makes like 5 of them per game - but what Harden gives us that Batum doesn’t on offense is ability to get 10+assists every game (his averages for last year prove that)

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Look at it this way

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What does RoCo and Batum give us?You said around 4 combined blocks and maybe 2/3 combined threes a game. And that’s basically it - good defense that directly saves us around 8 pts (no one is blocking threes) and around 10 combined points on offense (on a good day)

What we get back is a guy who averages 20ppg and 11ast. You see how it all balances out?

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But there’s a completely different angle that you missed which is…, Mr. Terance “untouchable” Mann.

The team we’ve seen to start the season is not what Ty Lue envisioned.His idea for this team was TMann starting, RoCo from the bench - which makes Nico in this scenario a benchwarmer.

With this trade we’ve basically replaced RoCo with James Harden and Nico (who wouldn’t really see the floor) with PJ Tucker (who also probably won’t see much playing time).We’ve pushed TMann back to the bench. And our starting 5 got a 20ppg/11ast player calling the shots.

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Even when I’m typing it all up I cannot believe we got James Harden without losing any of TMann, Norm or Bones.

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We got significantly better and there’s no other way to look at it.

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We went from a lineup of:RW/PG/Kawhi/TMann/ZuBones/Norm/RoCo/Nico/PlumGod

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To a lineup of:RW/Harden/PG/Kawhi/ZuBones/Norm/TMann/Tucker/PlumGod

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You see? This is a W and there’s no other way to look at it!

excuse me - that was THE game