I worry we simply don’t have enough non-sucky players to run this back.

We had an 8-man rotation in the playoffs last year, so I assume that’s the bare minimum number you need in the playoffs. If everyone is healthy, our 8th best player is, um, Zeke Nnaji? I don’t think we can win playoff games giving 12 minutes a night to Zeke Nnaji?

I just want a backup center who can hold the ball for more than 2 seconds without turning it over.

I don’t want to have to look at Zeke Nnaji ever again.

I don’t understand how NBA transaction rules work at all, but I looked through the stats and videos and have found three guys I would like to trade Zeke Nnaji for, and would like to know if any of these three are remotely possible:

A- to the Jazz for Kelly Olynyk;
B- to the Heat for Orlando Robinson;
C- to the Spurs for Sandro Mamukelashvili

?

Yep. Honestly, we should just treat these non-Murray games in November as just a nice opportunity for the rookies to develop their games. Braun has been taking huge advantage, Strawther looked a lot more comfortable last night–their development matters a whole lot more than whether we won a November 19th game in Cleveland.

I remain really down on Nnaji, though. I did like that he got some minutes with Jokic last night–my hope is that the Nuggets understand that he’s not a Jokic clone, and when he subs in for Jokic, they cant just run him as the fulcrum of the offense. His game is like a PJ Tucker thing: let him play defense and grab rebounds, but on offense just park him in the corner to space the court and shoot 3s if no one is on him. He is still so uncomfortable with the ball in his hands.

We were gonna lose no matter what–this was our worst defensive game of the season by far–but I honestly felt like a huge part of our loss was just bad luck, “variance.” There were like ten times the ball took a random bounce off a rim or was deflected into the air, and instead of going 5-5 it seems like the Cavs got all 10 of them. …to say nothing of random shooting luck (we miss a wide-open three, they hit a heavily contested one, etc).

But yeah. It’s November. Braun and Strawther looked good–that’s really all that matters. Where was PSwat?