Minny also lacks a real PG that is not 38 yrs old, that can make plays and lost one of the best 6th men in NAW Walker.....
The defense is questionable as well. The transition d has been terrible all year and nothing is improving. Ime’s lack of developing players and the team is more of a problem than lack of offensive coaching. Plus his player relations do not look good either. I think he will be a culture setter coach for bottom teams or an assistant coach. Can’t see a successful career for him.
Agreed all around. A lot of our defense is built around this idea that besides Alpy and Reed, everybody else is switchable. That is just not the case. Bari is actually a mobile big, NOT a big wing. He's fine in spurts defending on the perimeter but he really should be the low man, long enough to provide some weak side help defense or close out on the corner shooter. We get torched so often giving up switches with Bari having to guard smalls on the wing or above the 3 point line. He should not be put in that situation over and over again. Tari is really who I'm most disappointed in. His defense has fallen off a cliff from his first 2 years. He consistently gets beaten off the dribble by mid-tier ass players. It's one thing to get cooked by stars but what I have seen from Tari this year makes me want to move on completely. Josh was ok, got switched off a lot and honestly Ant is just a bad man. Tate is not a good perimeter defender anymore. He's already 30 and has lost a step. Aaron didnt play much, which is surprising given how good he has been for the last month or so. Again, not starting Reed makes it hard to get Holiday a decent amount of minutes. Could he have helped against Conley, Ayo, Donte? Probably. The leaky perimeter defense compounded by the fact that we have no rim protection / deterrent whatsoever. Stone / Ime have a lot of work to do this summer rethinking the direction of the team. Depending on Fred and Steve alone will not cut it. We need to replenish our bench, revamp our playing style and bring in players that allow us to play different styles. And for God sakes we need to stop trading so many 2s for 3s.
I know but his contract isn't really bad, he is owed 20-21 million.....and he plays harder than Fred VanVleet. Plus he is a fan favorite, why would Phoenix do it......obviously for picks.....but Ott is not necessarily a tanking Coach!
I'm not sure if he checked out or if he just checked out on the team and became all about just playing for himself. A lot of his more boneheaded moves really come across as super selfish more than just stupid
This Rockets squad has no identity and seems to play each game on the fly. On both ends of the floor, so very often they don't know their purpose, especially on offense. After having 81 games to figure it out, that is tragic.
The best defense is a great offense - that is the hill I will die on. I've been in pickup games where you've got a couple of guys who can really shoot on your side. They inspire confidence in everyone else - suddenly your own shot starts falling. But what's more, you smell blood in the water and your defense picks up as well. The energy that comes from a good offense is infectious. But the same is true of a bad offense. If your key guys are missing shots, then everyone starts to press. No one trusts anyone else to make a play, so things get stagnant. The energy is drained and it impacts the defense as well. BTW, if you keep missing shots then it releases pressure on the other team. That's why you see all of these nobodies on tanking teams going on hot streaks against us. Our lack of shooting creates confidence on the other side. You can have the tallest guys with the longest wingspan, but it really comes down to energy that flows from confidence, which is boosted by shot-making. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Rockets offered him nice contract for what he worth. Greed, why offer starter money when they cant stay healthy?
A lil while back Ime tried that Amen, Tari, DFS, and Jabari lineup and we still were getting toasted on defense. No matter what we throw out on defense , the other team figures out how to beat it.
And this is how you know Ime's not actually a good defensive coach. He has more defensive expert players than damn near any coach in the last 20 years all on one roster, and we still can't even muster up an average looking defense. That's the actual opposite of a good defensive coach. Good defensive strategy creates a defense that is overall better than the sum of its parts - you cover weaknesses, bolster strengths and ultimately find the strategy to maximise the bodies on the bench - Ime is doing the opposite, we're playing way way way WORSE than our roster should be on paper. We've got so many plus defenders that it's actually embarrassing when we put on a defensive "performance" like last night. Fraudoka has no discernible strengths at all if we're not a good defensive team, because he's in worst of all time territory as an offensive strategist.
Nobody can defend, it is the way the game is called and it is why we should be embracing a modern approach. Shoot 3s, run and gun. let's go. Defending is so 1990s..... DD
