He’s definitely in a slump but his numbers all looked bad last year as well. He’s been basically a bottom 3 shooter in the league since he was drafted, for eaxmple.
Yeah, Josh does work well with Chet (Chet is +7.5 with Josh on for example). I want to see a bit less of Shai+Josh, a bit more of Shai+Joe, and a bit more of Josh+Chet, and Josh+Kenny+Wiggins bench type stuff, basically.
I mean, yeah, you could say that’s the draw, or you could also say that Joe came onto the team as basically a free acquisition from Philly, earned his minutes little by little, actually looks like a legitimately good NBA player, and maybe is worth testing with a bigger role on the team.
Just seems kind of insane to me to be giving the best shooter in the NBA only 20.5 minutes per game, IDK.
Most likely some of Joe’s individual defensive metrics which look quite decent are inflated because he’s clocking some minutes against worse players; but still, he’s playing ~70% of his minutes with Shai; so he’s not really coming in to cook the bench; he’s almost just playing a starter role with a bit lower minutes because Mark is scared to bench Giddey or reduce his role, tbh.
Much easier to hit a bunch of threes on bones hyland than it is on Paul George for example.
Maybe, but most of Joe’s shots are “open” to “wide open” anyway per NBA.com shooting stats; also see the above point that he’s playing most of his minutes with Shai; presumably other teams are running at least several starters against Shai so they don’t get absolutely cooked.
And the other thing to consider is that he really helps unlock Shai’s game – Shai is +21 with Joe on vs off. The reason is pretty obvious; because he creates an additional offensive threat that defenders have to care about. They can either collapse on Shai and leave Joe to drain an open shot which he hits 56%; or guard Joe and Shai cooks his defender 1v1. I wish there was an easy way to look at double team stats with players on/off; because I have a hunch Shai gets doubled a lot more when Giddey is on vs off.
Like we are trying to run a five out offense where every player can make a play; but we have one guy who you don’t really need to guard at all starting (and kind of a second in Dort, if we’re being honest). That doesn’t make sense to me.
Yeah; maybe keep Giddey starting but decrease his minutes by even ~3 or 4; and give 7-8 more minutes to Joe (Bertans’ minutes, for example lol); I’d be okay with that compromise.
Just read the TL;DR then my guy
That’s awesome!
It just makes no sense not to play the best 3P shooter in the league and an advanced stats darling (#1 solo net rating in the league btw, tied with Derrick White) more than 20.5MPG
Worse if you swap them, because Victor is just not a good shooter right now. You can point to the lack of playmaking on his team but he’s still shooting 30% from three on attempts with defenders 4+ feet away (slight improvement to 33% when just looking at “wide open” 6+ft)
He may or may not be slightly better on defense; but a lot of our offensive gravity comes from + Shai plus shooters and Victor would take away from that while also taking the ball away from Shai (Victor’s usage rate is nearly that of Shai’s). I don’t think the potential upsides outweigh the downsides.
Now, if you give us Chet AND Shai… >:)
I really want to see Joe start
Chris Paul I guess, just because he was a consummate professional during his time in OKC; really embraced the veteran/mentor role especially with Shai. I’m kind of indifferent toward him now that he’s gone, but I gained some respect for him in certain ways and don’t dislike him like I did before the trade
This should be a great game but all the stops have made it so slow
OKC #1, HOU #2 – The future is now, old man!
flip a coin heads is west conference tails is east; then roll a 20 sided die, 1-15 are the teams in alphabetitcal order (handily displayed in that order at the top of this very sub), re roll 16-20
Here I’ll simulate one for you quickly on google. got Heads for West. Rolled a 20, re rolled to an 8. Congrats, you’re a Timberwolves fan, very solid. And they have some attractive players, Rudy is def a stud.
edit: if you wanna go expert mode, make the nat 20 result is you holding out for the expansion team of that conference
Certainly would not panic trade for Lavine, the only thing that makes sense about that is that he’s available. Caruso could be cool if we aren’t giving up much for him, seems like thunder guy for sure. There are definitely big name guys I’d be happy to trade for (Lauri?) but who knows if they are available.
free throw merchant
Cason didn’t do much on the box score but he had two super clutch pretty closely contested rebounds mid fourth quarter. And Kenny had two extremely clutch threes. Without all that I feel like they turn the momentum and we lose this game.
Zack Lavine feels kinda random. He doesn’t address our biggest issue (rebounding). He’s historically a plus 3P shooter but he’s having a not-great year from deep and with all his injuries it’s reasonable to predict that to continue. And he’s a high usage ‘heliocentric’ type player; not quite to the extent of Shai but he’s also smaller and not very good on defense.
Idk; the only real thing the trade has going for it for me is that he’s available. Would seem like a panic move. I’m fine traded Giddey if needed but this ain’t it for me (now if Lauri becomes available, let’s talk)
Assuming Chet continues to get the same number of shots as he’s averaging all season (I expect/hope this increases), and making the rough assumption he plays every game; in order to remain in the 50/40/90 group he’d need to shoot:
He’s pretty much locked in to hit FG% unless he changed his shot diet drastically. The other two are a lot closer. I think 3P% is pretty reasonable to expect. He shot 39.0% in college, and he didn’t have a guy like Shai creating space — he is getting a LOT of those wide-open center threes that he feasts on.
FT% is a lot shakier; he basically has to sustain almost exactly his current FT% which is far outperforming his college stats. Still, his shot looks smooth and he’s had a year with Chip, so maybe this is real.
I’m going to say, it’s like probably 60/40 YES. I believe. Let’s go.
(Obviously a lot of assumptions here; if he added more 3P shots it would potentially make FG/3P slightly harder but FT ever so slightly easier — he might average a fraction of an attempt less per game, meaning the shots he’s taken so far have a bigger impact toward the total — or vice versa; teams might start going at him harder resulting in more FTs making that harder etc.)
In addition to a FRP and a bunch of SRPs we got Kenny out of this trade, who looks like he can be a core piece of our contending roster for several more years, while Steven Adams is looking a bit washed due to his injuries (don’t get me wrong love the guy, was a huge reason I started following OKC)
So seems very good for us
trade some and then look to draft some 3-4yr college “NBA ready” guys who can contribute right away for cheap (e.g. Christian Braun, Herb Jones, Ochai Agbaji; Keegan Murray, Jalen Williams himself, etc)
right lol, its always excuses with josh (bc there is no actual data to back anything up) and the latest one is the booing; even tho he was ass before that