re: Pop’s Spurs @ Uncle Al’s Pels

This is the downside of hope - and in needing in it.

It keeps you from reality.

Okafor might become a solid 3rd big for a winning team, but anything better than that is blind optimism and putting forward his stats in this stretch is beyond pointless

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Okafor might become a solid 3rd big for a winning team, but anything better than that is blind optimism and putting forward his stats in this stretch is beyond pointless

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He’s not even playing heavy starter minutes with Davis/Niko/Randle out and only Diallo as the other big. I think it’s a pretty safe bet to assume the best you could hope for is T-2nd/3rd big on a good team. I say T-2nd because I could see him being fine in a role as a 20-25 minute starter.

Okafor should be praised for working to get back to this point. for proving he does belong in the league. those numbers you bring up and the ones in the piece are promising. i'm happy for the guy.

one thing to keep in mind- over the last 4 games, Okafor has played 128 minutes. Pels are a net -15 (115 DRating) when he's on and a + 27 (84 DRating) when he's off. small sample size galore. i hope that changes and we should keep watching, but it is consistent with everything he's done in his career thus far.



the real problem isn't Okafor. it's the way Oleh used the stats there. no one who knows anything would say Okafor is the best rim defender on the Pels. but he does. no one would ever think to mention Gobert and Okafor in the same breath as rim defenders. but he does.

there is nothing wrong with pointing to those numbers and saying, maybe he is improving. let's keep watching.

to just drop those numbers in there in that way is terrible, lazy writing. it makes the reader less informed.

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To Okafor's credit though he learned the scheme and figured out where he needed to be, but that doesn't happen overnight. There are plenty of things to be upset at Gentry for. Making Okafor prove he was ready I don't think is one those mistakes.

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My main gripe and what I’d assume is other people’s as well is that Diallo would have similar games and make similar mistakes like you just pointed out and got playing time anyways.

I may be applying other similar situations and just assuming the same blind faith was given to other fringe players who’d been here longer. Darius Miller/Hill/Johnson are all equally poor, all for different reasons. Miller should get first crack at those minutes at the 3 due to his perimeter shooting that is so desperately needed on this team, but when that shot isn’t falling, he provides next to nothing. Doesn’t rebound. Doesn’t play defense. Yet he’s gotten more playing time than Hill and Johnson combined. Those guys are at least better but still bad defenders that can make the occasional “spark” play by hustling, put bodies on box outs, and will rebound the basketball. There’s no reason Gentry shouldn’t be using those guys by committee when Miller is having an off night and we’re having to play 4 on 5 basketball.

I also have no confidence that Gentry would have gone to Okafor midseason if he hadn’t of blown up in the Milwaukee game after our frontcourt got hurt...again. We could have been looking at another 10 games before he got another crack at playing time again.

It’s similar to the Niko/Randle starting situation when there’s all sorts of analytics out there that make it pretty obvious who should be starting. You mentioned they were showcasing Randle by letting him stat pad, but that doesn’t carry much water when Randle was almost the exact same player or better coming off the bench earlier in the season. Simply giving him more run than the 22-24 minutes would have likely resulted in the same stat padding you’re referring to.

I could go on and on about rotations with Gentry, but the other major problem I have with him this season is our late game execution and play calling. I remember that stretch of games where AD was playing dominant inside the paint and people were bitching at him for jacking 3s. One game in particular he was just being fed on the left block successfully for 44 minutes, but he ends up taking a right arc 3. Why is he sitting out there? Why are we not consistently feeding him the ball on that left block late where he’s most comfortable? ADs been fine or better passing out of those double teams as well. Instead we get treated to hero ball almost every single game where guys take turns playing iso ball.

Also, what the hell happened to the AD pick and roll this year? One of the main reasons we were competitive in OKC is because we were running pick and rolls with Holiday/Okafor or Diallo and OKC had no answer for the roll man.

I refuse to get pissed at Davis for taking 3s when it’s the coaching staffs responsibility to put these guys in the best possible situation to succeed. You can be mildly annoyed with Davis for not demanding the ball or telling the staff to set him up in the post, but he should not have to do that.

I’m just over it man. I feel like the fans understandably don’t even realize how poor our head coach is because we haven’t seen even an average head coach around here for over a decade. There’s nothing to compare to. Byron Scott, Monty Williams, Alvin Gentry. The previous two aren’t head coaches anymore and likely will never be again. Id be downright shocked if another franchise gave Gentry a shot at their HC position after this stint. So we have 3 head coaches that probably aren’t even top 30 in the country, assuredly not if you count college coaches as well. It’s just downright depressing.

This franchise does not hold its coaches accountable like it would the players. That drives me insane. Like I’ve said before, even the Twolves fired Thibs for much less, and he’s actually proven to be a successful coach over the years, albeit with flaws as well.

There’s absolutely no reason we shouldn’t give Finch a 30 game tryout at this point. At bare minimum, you KNOW at best even if I’m wrong in my criticism that Gentry is an average coach who won’t elevate the team. Let’s actually shoot for finding someone that would actually have a shot at elevating the IQ and results of this team for once instead of settling on mediocre.

I don't think giving Finch 30 games is fair to evaluate him off of. First off, a coach sets up his systems in training camp. You fire Gentry now and bring in Finch, not only does he get no camp but I think there are something like 7 practices left between now and the end of the season. If he does poorly, it would say nothing about how he would do as coach if he gave him the proper tools and time.

And if the record is good, it can be chalked up to poor sample size, players with a fire under their butt do to a firing that would no longer be there in the future, the team finally being healthy, other teams tanking or injured on your schedule, etc

Point is: It wouldn't matter whether he won or lost - because it would give you no future indicators.

You go into the offseason and start from scratch at every main position. Clean slate - interview people after you decide on what kind of culture you want to cultivate and hire the people that fit that culture

And what if its the opposite? What if the players have given up, injuries mount up, and he doesn't get to implement his systems because he has no practices. Then, do you not consider him or consider him less?

Look, I don't care if they fire Gentry and I wouldn't care if they inserted him as coach. But I would not factor the results into whether I hire him in the slightest. Because I can't pick and choose and if he wins, put that in the plus column, but if he loses say that it didn't matter

There are like 12 fans. And Gentry was sold to the fans and Del Negro almost was (he was the 2nd choice)

Bottom line is that they will hire whoever they want because there won't be some huge backlash, because there are no fans here.

When you have a player as transcendent and multi faceted as Davis on a team with no depth and true distributor, he shouldn’t be 15th in the league in USG % among the actual stars. Joel Embiid is 2nd behind Harden...on a team with a true lead point in Ben Simmons. There’s no reason Davis shouldn’t be at 35-37% behind Harden.

ETA: I also didn’t say he didn’t operate down low. He’s done that a lot more this year from my perspective without really digging. I just said Gentry shouldn’t be using him on the perimeter late.

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2) when does too much lead to a drop in efficiency for Davis? is it worth it to feed him more if it means more TOs? to me, what Harden is doing is the anomaly, not the standard.

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I have no idea what the answer to this question is, but I do know one thing...with all the injuries to this season, I find it pretty stupid we don’t know the answer to that question.