mavsfan4ever said:

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I'm interested to see how it goes just bc that lineup would be so different from most teams. All I hear about is how good the defense will be and that no one will be able to score, etc. But I actually think our defense will get torched with a lineup where AD is the 4, and Cooper is the 2.

AD is a great defensive player at the 5. He's a liability at the 4 in my opinion. He can't keep up with small 4s and will be away from the rim with 4s who stretch the floor (which is just about every 4 in the league). Thats a major problem.

PJ at the 3 is decent. But I actually like him at the 4 better defensively against a lot of teams. And we just saw a lineup of lively, AD, PJ get torched in the play in by an awful grizz team. That is not a defensive juggernaut lineup.

Adding Cooper Flagg is not going to turn it into an awesome defensive team. Especially not with him at the 2. I think I would also like him better at the 4 defensively or possibly the 3. With him at the 2, he is not going to be able to keep up with playmaking guards. So we will have a 4 and a 2 who can't guard the players they will have to guard on the perimeter. And cooper's off ball defense is supposed to be great, but he won't be able to do much of that at the 2. And obviously we don't have a pg who can really stay in front of anyone.

Can you imagine this lineup playing someone like the Thunder or the pacers from this year? I think it will be very ugly against a lot of teams. Playing AD at the 5, cooper/PJ at the 4 and PJ/naji at the 3 would be much better defensively.

And we have no playmaking or shot creating, or at least very little. I don't expect Cooper to do a ton of that his first year, or at least not be very efficient at it. But he's really our only option.l other than AD, who is not really a playmaker in my opinion.

I'll likely be taking the under on season wins. I just don't see them being good enough defensively to make up for the struggles on offense.

But maybe I'm biased bc I still feel completely dead inside about this team/franchise, even after winning the lottery. I know a lot of people are likely looking into season tickets again (the people who said they were leaving in March/April. And I don't blame them if they want to do that. But i have no desire to. Even if this team is great, I just don't think I'll be into it like I was before. But I'll still follow them and watch a lot of games to see how good Flagg is.

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Well I got one right. I've made a killing betting on mavs opponents in both games bc I felt Vegas was severely overrating us. Took a ton of alternate lines with big odds. I'll keep doing it until Vegas severely corrects our lines.

Mavs are so bad. No creators at all, which is the biggest issue. And defense can't be that good without any guards. Mavs are a bottom 3 team without Kyrie. Honestly probably bottom 1. They just lost by 10 at home to the wizards.

PJ with an 18 point, 1 assist, and 8 turnover night. That's hard to do. Or easy, I guess.

You are absolutely right on defense. They are big, but they are lumbering.

Klay Thompson also became unplayable in favor of Jaden Hardy…

Just complete disaster for this team.

Yea and we haven't even played a good offense yet. I think this is going to get very very ugly when we do.

Thunder on Monday

mavsfan4ever said:

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mavsfan4ever said:

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I'm interested to see how it goes just bc that lineup would be so different from most teams. All I hear about is how good the defense will be and that no one will be able to score, etc. But I actually think our defense will get torched with a lineup where AD is the 4, and Cooper is the 2.

AD is a great defensive player at the 5. He's a liability at the 4 in my opinion. He can't keep up with small 4s and will be away from the rim with 4s who stretch the floor (which is just about every 4 in the league). Thats a major problem.

PJ at the 3 is decent. But I actually like him at the 4 better defensively against a lot of teams. And we just saw a lineup of lively, AD, PJ get torched in the play in by an awful grizz team. That is not a defensive juggernaut lineup.

Adding Cooper Flagg is not going to turn it into an awesome defensive team. Especially not with him at the 2. I think I would also like him better at the 4 defensively or possibly the 3. With him at the 2, he is not going to be able to keep up with playmaking guards. So we will have a 4 and a 2 who can't guard the players they will have to guard on the perimeter. And cooper's off ball defense is supposed to be great, but he won't be able to do much of that at the 2. And obviously we don't have a pg who can really stay in front of anyone.

Can you imagine this lineup playing someone like the Thunder or the pacers from this year? I think it will be very ugly against a lot of teams. Playing AD at the 5, cooper/PJ at the 4 and PJ/naji at the 3 would be much better defensively.

And we have no playmaking or shot creating, or at least very little. I don't expect Cooper to do a ton of that his first year, or at least not be very efficient at it. But he's really our only option.l other than AD, who is not really a playmaker in my opinion.

I'll likely be taking the under on season wins. I just don't see them being good enough defensively to make up for the struggles on offense.

But maybe I'm biased bc I still feel completely dead inside about this team/franchise, even after winning the lottery. I know a lot of people are likely looking into season tickets again (the people who said they were leaving in March/April. And I don't blame them if they want to do that. But i have no desire to. Even if this team is great, I just don't think I'll be into it like I was before. But I'll still follow them and watch a lot of games to see how good Flagg is.

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Well I got one right. I've made a killing betting on mavs opponents in both games bc I felt Vegas was severely overrating us. Took a ton of alternate lines with big odds. I'll keep doing it until Vegas severely corrects our lines.

Mavs are so bad. No creators at all, which is the biggest issue. And defense can't be that good without any guards. Mavs are a bottom 3 team without Kyrie. Honestly probably bottom 1. They just lost by 10 at home to the wizards.

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So you're saying we are completely hosed.

Seems like Jason Kidd is taking the Jason Garrett role of playing the company man and collecting a nice paycheck (he's already wealthy enough). No real urgency to win, it is what it is.

Kidd looks to be playing the long game with Flagg. He taught Giannis how to be a point forward and it was rough those first couple years but now Giannis is Giannis.

He took the extension and he's adamant about starting Flagg at PG. I wouldn't have a problem with that if we didn't have several older win-now players on the team. The GM thinks it's time to go for a championship and the coach thinks it's time to develop the future.

This is starting to reach the point where I feel sorry for guys who stuck with this franchise. Slight admiration for that level of loyalty, but mostly just pity.

Wild to think that Luka for AD was a "win now" move and it appears the most rational course of action is to completely scrap that idea.

The fact Nico still has a job is hilarious.

You're probably right, that's why I used quotes. It's his word he used and it's his team he assembled, everything about this team is the way he wanted. And really even more so because he lucked in to Flagg.

Yep, Luka is a diva. Nico is a diva. It was a personality clash. Nico invented reasons to explain it.

I can get over the bad offense (that is expected until Kyrie returns) and I can even forgive some of the perimeter defensive issue, but what gets me is that this team has been out-rebounded in each of these losses and rank 28th in points in the paint. The 1 unique advantage that we have over almost every other team is size, but that advantage isn't bearing out in any metric.

Also, the haphazard rotations are alarming. Kidd clearly doesn't have any defined roles, even within the starting lineup (as we've seen Klay get benched). DLo, Brandon Williams and Hardy are the avatar of this as they are just as likely to play 20 min as they are 0. Idk how anyone is supposed to grow in their role when it's obvious there are no defined roles.

M.C. Swag said:

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I can get over the bad offense (that is expected until Kyrie returns) and I can even forgive some of the perimeter defensive issue, but what gets me is that this team has been out-rebounded in each of these losses and rank 28th in points in the paint. The 1 unique advantage that we have over almost every other team is size, but that advantage isn't bearing out in any metric.

Also, the haphazard rotations are alarming. Kidd clearly doesn't have any defined roles, even within the starting lineup (as we've seen Klay get benched). DLo, Brandon Williams and Hardy are the avatar of this as they are just as likely to play 20 min as they are 0. Idk how anyone is supposed to grow in their role when it's obvious there are no defined roles.

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Yep, really exhausted by the j Kidd roller coaster ride of him looking kind of smart and beyond reeetarded with rotations throughout each season.

Zachary Klement said:

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shack009 said:

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Zachary Klement said:

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Wild to think that Luka for AD was a "win now" move and it appears the most rational course of action is to completely scrap that idea.

The fact Nico still has a job is hilarious.

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Id bet he's fired very soon if the team continues to look like this. His "vision" was position-less basketball with tall people that play defense.

Well not having a good guard looks really dumb and the defense has been terrible to start.

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There was no vision. He just disliked Luka and is an idiot.

A 6'8 PG would fit that "vision" well.

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And let's not absolve kidd of this. I have it on very good authority that kidd is just as much to blame as Nico, maybe even more so. As in Kidd talked Nico into it. **** that guy. And we just have him an extension. Unbelievable.