Jump to content

Mitch Cumsteen

Full Members
  • Posts

    6313
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    3

Everything posted by Mitch Cumsteen

  1. I'll help you with both of these: 1. No way the Spurs are going to trade what is likely to be a pretty juicy first round pick in a very deep draft in 2025 to move up one spot in this draft for a prospect with as many question marks as Sheppard. I don't even believe he is even at the top of their board. They would likely take Risacher or Castle before Sheppard. 2. The Spurs own Charlotte's 2025 FRP, lottery protected.
  2. Not sure how his wife having breast cancer is relevant, although I'm pretty sure that she was cancer-free before he ever took the Detroit job. And for sure that's a bad roster, but they weren't "longest losing streak in NBA history" bad. He's a terrible, awful, incompetent coach who is both inept with X's and O's and a bad communicator / people person. Bad coach. Bad dude. Incredible contract signer.
  3. Monty Haul is a terrible coach and a fraud. He had one good stretch in Phoenix where Chris Paul essentially ran the team, but other than that he has been completely inept going back to the New Orleans days. Other than signing ridiculous contracts, the most impressive thing he's ever done in his career is deliver the eulogy at his wife's funeral.
  4. I'm going to go ahead and put zero stock in any of those PFF ratings. Did anyone watch Gavin Holmes last year and think this guy will be one of the top returning CB's in the SEC? How much stock do you put in what Cole did against the murderers row San Jose State faced? Vandy has two of the top 4 returning corners in the SEC? That seems... unlikely. There are definitely reasons for optimism for improved pass defense the least of which should be a better rush off the edge, but along with the DT, it's the biggest unknown going into the fall to me. There are quite a few new players to integrate and lingering scheme questions about the cohesiveness between the front and back end, and on top of that the DB coaches are perceived to be this staff's weakest link.
  5. That's a lot to take in. What the hell is going on here?
  6. Draft is in a week. Nobody really knows what the hell is going on. Below is a consensus draft that I found, and it looks as good as anything else out there. I saw something recently about the Hawks taking Clingan at 1. That would be a bit surprising and shake some things up, but is certainly not out of the question. I also saw that Atlanta hasn't been able to work out Sarr, which seems odd. The general consensus is that Risacher / Sarr go 1/2 in either order. I think Detroit is a wildcard at 5. They have new front office leadership and I think everything is on the table for them. Buzelis gets pegged to them a lot. In a group of prospects that all make me skeptical in some form or fashion, he especially sets off my spidey bust sense. Washington may be a wildcard, too. They are building from essentially nothing and have a relatively new front office as well. So they are a prime candidate to do some unpredictable or stupid shit also. I keep seeing Sheppard to Houston at 3. He makes sense there. I wonder what they do if Risacher or Sarr is available? @Fud what do you think? I would be good with the Spurs ending up with Castle and Williams. It does fuckall to fix their shooting woes, but I like both prospects and their versatility. If they burn 8 on Salaun, I'm going to break something in my house. I'm all for taking an upside swing, but not on this cat. I will be stunned if he is still in the league for his second contract. I could see Carter going higher than expected. He's a gamer. Same with Knecht. I could see Holland getting the Cam Whitmore free fall treatment. Somebody with patience will get Topic at a really good value. Probably OKC. Assholes. As bad as this draft is at the top, there will be some nice players at the back end of the first round. I kinda have my eye on Ware, Kolek, George, Tyler Smith and Carrington in particular.
  7. Criticism comes with the territory of being a great player and it gets amped up after a playoff loss. Is this really news to you? I'm not sure where you were, but people shit on Lebron for everything from passing up shots in the clutch to his outside shooting to him not being able to post up to him biting his fingernails, etc.. All that happened while he was generally considered to be the greatest player in the world by a fairly wide margin. Nobody criticized him for being big and slow though, because he was never big and slow. Like I said, all this comes with the territory.
  8. Welp. I’ve learned over the last couple of days that Luka is in peak physical condition, is one of the best defenders in the league, and doesn’t hunt fouls. Thanks for the education everyone. I think I’m a much more knowledgeable basketball fan now.
  9. No. That was an asinine comment. He's got nothing to do with the current state of the Pistons. He was an assistant GM in Detroit for all of 3 years (2014-2016) before moving to SA as an assistant GM. It was long before they drafted Cade Cunningham or anybody else on that roster. It was a fucking decade ago. He got promoted from assistant in SA to the big job after being with the Spurs for 3 years.
  10. You follow him and the Mavs much closer than I do, but just on the eye test.... his body looks like he's in maybe the bottom 10-15% of NBA players when it comes to conditioning. He's got a lot of miles on his legs already for a 25 year old. He plays a ton of minutes. His game puts a lot of stress on his body and especially on his lower body. Maybe his injuries this season were completely unrelated, but maybe not. Those knees don't really need to be carrying any extra weight. With regard to the refs, it's not just ignoring shit when things don't go his way. Too much of his offense is predicated on foul baiting. Harden fell into the same trap. They are so masterful at getting guys out of position and off balance, that they are at times more actively looking to draw fouls than make a basketball play. It's smart and crafty when it works. It can take you out of your game when it doesn't. It's also less effective in the playoffs when the refs let more physicality go.
  11. Are we really doing the Trae Young discussion again? Really? Really? Why? Just... why? I can't even bring myself to post for the 100th time what an epic disaster it would be. If they were to trade for him, you might as well write off the entire Wemby era, because it would cement this iteration of the Spurs front office as among the most incompetent in the league. Now, there's a larger discussion to be had about the best way to build this thing out. You have on one hand, those that want to push their chips into the table to win right fucking now. You have those that want to let the young guys grow into their roles. I think the right move is to shoot for something in the middle: add some vets for leadership, defense and shooting. Move some minimal assets (if you need to) in order to get them. Keep as many picks as possible and keep pushing them down the road. Maintain cap flexibility while this team learns how to win. Anybody thinking that Wemby is going to ask out if they don't make a splash now is horribly misreading the landscape and doesn't understand how rookie contracts work. And fortunately, he's not an idiot nor is he impatient. I would be stunned if he's not one of the best five players in the league by the end of next season (health permitting). They are going to start winning more regardless, just because he will be that good. Even putting replacement level players around him, they are probably close to a 500 team, even in this ridiculously deep conference. Everybody is overthinking this shit. The draft is in a week.. They have two picks in the top 8. Can't we talk about that instead of this Trae Young bullshit?
  12. I think you are bringing all of this on yourself. You just have to tell them that you are lost and need directions to the stadium and they couldn't be nicer.
  13. In the three games in Boston, Kyrie averaged 14.3 ppg on 34% FG and shot 18% from 3. He shot 4 total free throws. Say what you will about the Dallas role players not showing up, the Mavs had no hope in this series with their second star playing like that. Boston is a tough matchup on the perimeter, but that was a rough showing from one-half of what was for a few glorious days, the best backcourt in NBA history.
  14. What exactly is the Wemby window? He’s 20. So, what? A 15 year window? A failure by management would be to be short sighted and exhaust their future assets and cap flexibility for a roster that gives them a two year run instead of building a sustainable decade plus contender.
  15. I’ve never liked the Celtics but that’s a very likable team. No douchebags or jackasses, they play the right way and they seem to genuinely seem to play for each other. It’s difficult to dislike guys like Horford, White, Holiday and even Brown and Tatum. They get everybody back next year too. They are going to run into some cap stuff year after next, but even so, Tatum and Brown are still very young. They are going to be in the mix for a good while.
  16. Just imagine how bad Boston would have blown out the mavs in this series if Luka wasn’t top 7 in defensive rating among guards.
  17. First off, defensive statistics are mostly bullshit, even the advanced stats. They just are. But beyond that, steals are not a good defensive metric AT ALL. You can get high steal numbers because you are taking unnecessary risks. You can get high steal numbers NOT guarding your man and playing the passing lanes. You can get high steal numbers while being a net negative to your team defense. I can't believe I'm even having to explain this. It's embarrassing. If you're looking for a reason that the defensive numbers look better with him on than off, you probably don't have to look much further than his insane offensive efficiency. It's a helluva lot easier playing defense when the offense is taking the ball out of bounds after a made basket and you can set up in the half court vs. getting a live ball rebound.
  18. He turned down 2 years $48 million from the warriors last year. I don’t know if he’s going to get that kind of money elsewhere. I mean he did shoot 39% from three this season. But that 0 for 10 stink bomb in the play in vs Sac and that disaster against the lakers in the playoffs last year are still on everyone’s mind. I think he’s in for a reality check when he tests the market this summer.
  19. Solid effort from Boston tonight. Like it’s Tuesday night game in January against the Wiz.
  20. Exactly. He played the most minutes of his career this season and shot it exceptionally well from 3 on higher volume. And I did qualify it with "appreciably". He's clearly a better player now than as a rookie, but you would expect a player as young as he was coming into the league to have more of an upward trajectory. It just shows what a savant and prodigy he is. It's like the guy had zero learning curve coming into the NBA at 19 years old. That just doesn't happen.
  21. The Kobe/Jordan comparisons aren't fair. He's still so young. By the same token, he's been a professional since he was 16 and I don't know that he's gotten appreciably better over the last couple of seasons. I don't think he's going to take the next step until he cuts his ref bullshit out, gets in great shape, and starts giving more effort on defense. I don't think any of those criticisms are unfair and the idea that he can still easily improve on those things should be scary for the rest of the league. He's that great offensively. Kevin Durant played for Brooklyn two years ago. In the bigger picture, I don't know how much stock to put into this year's playoffs vis a vis the hierarchy in west. The west is extremely deep with good teams, but nobody is great. Just about anybody could beat anybody else, depending on health and matchups. Minnesota was a bad matchup for Denver. Dallas was a bad matchup for Minnesota. Boston is certainly a bad matchup for Dallas. Who knows what happens if a game or two goes the other way during the regular season and the seedings get shuffled. Are we having a different conversation? Where do the Mavs rank in the west next year? Are they one of the best 3-4 teams, or did they just catch lightning in a bottle? They were certainly a different team post trade deadline. Lively was an amazing pick. They don't have much cap space or draft capital, but they aren't completely hamstrung like Phoenix or the Clips.
  22. Some of the Luka criticism is definitely hot take du jour and magnified by the finals spotlight, but there is a definitely a good portion of validity to it. The foul baiting and excessive whining while not getting back on defense is abhorrent. There is a clear lack of effort on defense in many cases. I don't see how that any of that is debatable. Some of it may be defensible. Much of it is not. And just because he's in better shape, doesn't mean he's in good shape. Round is a shape, too, as the saying goes.
×
×
  • Create New...