re: Zach Lowe splashes a little cold water on Pels

I agree with that about Bledsoe’s role and Van Gundy, which is why I suspect, barring notable internal growth, both our overall spacing, three point makes, and efficiency is likely to go down. For one you just won’t have the same volume, so for us to be overall better in makes you would need a pretty drastic improvement in efficiency to make up for the reduction in pace. And we also aren’t going to be sacrificing defensive rebounding to get guys like Ingram, Lonzo, and Zion out in transition early. And Bledsoe already doesn’t shoot it much which has been one of my points here. Bledsoe actually shot fewer threes last season than he had in five years. If you are expecting him to reduce that further you are essentially relegating him to near non-shooter status, so how is that a net improvement on our spacing? Now I personally think he is capable of some designed dribble handoffs off screens for a three, but if you are sure the goal is him to basically not do stuff like that at all, or not take shots when the defense sags off, I don’t know how you could conclude spacing improves or where you see us improving overall from three? Since I think defenses will gladly let Adams take 15 footers all day and let Bledsoe shoot at will from the arc, and dare us to beat them that way.

Now maybe SVG produces a very controlled offense where you are efficient on a good bit less shooting, but that doesn’t make you a better spaced or three point shooting team. San Antonio was 4th in efficiency last season, but I would not call them a better spacing and better three point shooting team then we were would you?

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Moore made no difference to the team last year. He played in 56 games last year and took 437 shots. Zion played in 24 games, and took 360.
Why are you assuming it's someone like NAW taking Moore's shots? why can't BI and Zion take more shots?

Zion will obviously be taking a lot more shots this year, assuming he stays healthy.
Jrue took the most shots on the team last year, and Bledsoe will not be taking nearly as many FGA per game that Jrue was. More shots for BI and Zion.

There's generally about 91 shots attempted in an average nba game for us. League average is 89.
BI gets near 20
Zion gets near 20
No one else is taking more than 11 at best. Lonzo, Redick, Bledsoe will be near 11. Hart will be around 8 or 9, Adams maybe 7 or 8, then you'll have a slurry of guys taking minimal shots. In an average NBA game, you're not going to have much more than 7 or 8 guys take shots. That 8th guy might take 2 shots in the game.

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First off, Moore averaged over one three a game for us, Jrue averaged 2 a game for us.

I’m also not sure how in an argument about spacing and our overall three point prowess as a team, how arguing that Moore’s shots will go to Zion and Ingram, the former who basically doesn’t shoot threes but on a rare occasion, bolsters that argument?

We were what we were last season because Gentry prioritized the three and would sacrifice pretty much anything in pursuit of having that spacing(and as you say, Zion not being there to gobble up shots). Now you and others are telling me how guys that played a role in that will have their shots shifted in part to people that don’t have that as a core competency, and somehow you conclude our spacing and three point shooting will be better? Again, doesn’t really compute

I’ve been referring mostly to jump shots, threes and general spacing. I very much agree that overall efficiency could improve, and hopefully should.

For one reason just the fact we likely will be taking less threes and more shots inside due to Zion’s health.

I mean I don’t disagree about the flaws in his overall game, but the ball don’t lie.

Moore averaged over one made three a game for us on better efficiency than the guys that will be replacing him in the lineup.

Then as some have rightly pointed out we expect Zion to be healthy, so shots that were once relegated to lineup fillers in a Gentry system prioritizing spacing are now going to him and less jump shot efficient bench replacements in a SVG system prioritizing defense and ball control. Combine that with trading Jrue for Bledsoe.

Seems pretty obvious to me our spacing and our overall three point shooting is going to take a step back barring internal growth from players.

Its almost like Eric Bledsoe can't pass to another player that had a higher efficiency than Jrue

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Its almost like Eric Bledsoe can't pass to another player that had a higher efficiency than Jrue

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He’ll be passing to the same people Jrue was minus Moore or Kira.

...Jrue is also the better passer FYI

The way some of you all are talking we should have been giving up the house for Bledsoe.

And if he’s passing up all his shots then we get to my point about him shrinking the floor and becoming a non shooter...which I don’t think you are actually suggesting

You are arguing our scoring will get worse because we lost our 4th best 3pt shooter. Hart could even take a step up and shoot at the same clip Jrue shot last year. So what's your point? Bledsoe can do everything else Jrue does and having better players taking 3's helps us not hurts us.

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Moore averaged over one made three a game for us on better efficiency than the guys that will be replacing him in the lineup.

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He wasn't hurt last year at any point.
He didn't play in 16 of the 72 games, and played single digit minutes in 8 more, so you can basically say he played 48 of the 72 games.
He had a pretty terrible season last year. His FG% was significantly lower than usual at 42%, as was his 3P% at 37% His Off and Def ratings were worse than usual, as was his +/-. He appears to be regressing, as most of his numbers over the last 2 years are going down.

I do'nt get why you're using him as someone who played some kind of integral role in our spacing. Even when he shoots really well, he doesn't demand gravity like Redick does. No one is going to stay on Etwaun over helping with Zion down low.

Jrue was an average 3 point shooter. Defenses did not care about him being left open on the 3 point line. Bledsoe sucks at catch and shoot 3's, but it's not like he's a crappy 3 point shooter. He's above average when he's shooting off the dribble. Lonzo is the opposite. He's an above average 3 point shooter when it comes to catch and shoot, and crappy off the dribble.

Saying that, doesn't it make sense to take the ball out of Lonzo's hands in the half court, and put it in Bledsoe's, where both of them are at their best?
Once Zion catches the ball he's shooting quickly more than likely, so if the spacing didn't happen before the catch, it doesn't matter anymore. Same with Adams. the offense pretty much stops once they touch the ball b/c they are shooting it quickly more than likely.
The only other time the ball is being dribbled is when BI has it, and he doesn't need spacing to do what he does late in the shot clock.

I think the system change you've brought up is the bigger issue than the personnel changes.

Jrue > Bledose
Moore > Hart

but

Lonzo now > Lonzo before Christmas (that was a painful first 2 months of the season)
NAW > Frank
Josh Hart > Kenrich

Between Lonzo's first 2 months, Kenrich having an equally long shooting slump where they didn't tell him to stop shooting, and Frank getting minutes over Moore, I would say the 3 point shooting "ability" this year vs. last year is probably a wash to maybe even a little better depending on how real Lonzo's shot is. Early Lonzo and the back end of the rotation was really bad.