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Whiteside Is Going to Be Good

infection said:
I don’t think the problem is the guy hitting the three inasmuch as Quin won’t let him commit to guarding him, and the subsequent challenge of poor perimeter defenders left without Rudy there when mentally their whole strategy is to funnel to him.

Here’s the way I see the problem with small ball:

1. Teams going small puts Rudy in an impossible position.
2. That impossible position exists only because our perimeter defense can’t do an average job.
3. Rudy can’t punish them on offense (and/or Quin hasn’t found any way to punish this [I’m in the latter camp, FYI]), so a team doesn’t sacrifice much to run 5-out.

Countering by going small does not address any of the issues above. If it does improve things, it’s only because the 5 is allowed to stick to the perimeter guy and/or the other guys are having to step up, knowing Rudy’s not there to back them up. In any case, small ball is either worse or better defensively. If it’s worse, it highlights the fact that Rudy isn’t the problem. If it’s better, it’s because of aforementioned defensive adjustment, indicting Quin’s defensive strategy with Rudy on the floor as the problem, and not Rudy. Change that defensive scheme and Rudy at the 5 defensively is better than any small ball 5 option.

Then there’s the counter that “you play small ball for offense and not defense” and we neglect the fact that the reason we lost that series was the defensive scheme above, and not offense.
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Its one of those catch-22 problems because the reason you can build a great team around Rudy is he can cover for the weaker defenders so you can balance his offensive limitations by having more dynamic offensive players. If he could punish them more on offense then you can put more defenders on the floor.

Last year was a little exaggerated since our starting backcourt was on like 1/2 a leg. Jackson and others going nuclear was another issue... but yeah this is still a problem. I don't have great answers but it'd be nice to see us really try some stuff. And trying for like half a regular season game doesn't count... it needs to be over multiple matchups and multiple games. Don't abandon the trial the second you lose one game or get lit up for a quarter.

I do think Gay can help us with rebounding and as a secondary rim presence when teams go small and Rudy has to be a bit more spread out.

There is a balance between over-reacting and changing nothing... we've skewed more towards doing nothing. I think we have to try some things... and I'm not sure there is an answer but you have to discover that there isn't an answer... ya know.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Here is my bold prediction for the year...

Locke has been really talking this up. I think Whiteside is going to end up being really good for us. So good in fact I think some morons will say we should play Whiteside over Rudy... I feel like its almost a certainty and may even be able to predict the posters that will do it.

Anyway... the system is set up for someone that can do some Rudy stuff... Whiteside is not Rudy... but he can do some Rudy stuff. In limited minutes he will look good and put up numbers. We likely won't be anywhere near as good on defense as he's much more limited than Rudy there but he will cover the rim up and we will be better than we were with Favs.

I did not expect to be a Whiteside Guy.... but here I am. I hope yall are ready for the multiple threads about how we should start Whiteside and how are we going to clear space to retain him in the offseason.
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Bold prediction: we should play Whiteside over Rudy.
















Sarcasm.
 
I hope we can keep him engaged. I worry that only playing 15-16 minutes a game and not getting many touches offensively will impact his effort.
 
Me and 7 others voted that of the new guys Whiteside would have the biggest impact.

He can give Rudy rest and if he's tossed into the starting rotation due to injury he can produce.

Sure - he was meh with dumpster fire Sacramento last season but look at the season prior with the Blazers - his stats were nice after Nurkic went down to injury for most of the season: 15.5 PPG, 13.5 RPG, 2.9 BPG
 
It is too early to take a victory lap here, but I'm going to do it anyway because in the World of Whiteside things can change on you fast. BUMP
 
Whiteside has had a positive +/- all 6 games for a total of +60. Favors did not have a streak of 6 straight games in the positive one time last season and unless I missed something, the best 6 game stretch Favors had was +35. The lineups are more or less the same, just very different results so far.
 
I figured it out. Whiteside is actually a rogue agent who is only here to sabotage Gobert's On/Off numbers..the long con.

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Can you tell when we got Whiteside? :D
 
Hassan has had a positive plus minus in every game except the last one. He was very good and individual plus minus is not a great measure... unless it is consistent. His on/off splits are bonkers. I enjoy his game... his antics... the fact he will also likely lose us a game with his non-sense at some point is something we can totally overlook.

Do you remember the days of just watching the clock waiting for the time that Rudy could check back in so we would stop being garbage? Those were painfully slow minutes... no more with Whiteside. I just hope we don't do something dumb and let him walk because we think Udoka is ready to take over. This assumes Hassan continues to be a positive. I don't think he's gonna get a big offer elsewhere. If we have to go over the minimum to keep him do it for hells sake.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Hassan has had a positive plus minus in every game except the last one. He was very good and individual plus minus is not a great measure... unless it is consistent. His on/off splits are bonkers. I enjoy his game... his antics... the fact he will also likely lose us a game with his non-sense at some point is something we can totally overlook.

Do you remember the days of just watching the clock waiting for the time that Rudy could check back in so we would stop being garbage? Those were painfully slow minutes... no more with Whiteside. I just hope we don't do something dumb and let him walk because we think Udoka is ready to take over. This assumes Hassan continues to be a positive. I don't think he's gonna get a big offer elsewhere. If we have to go over the minimum to keep him do it for hells sake.
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This is why we needed to evaluate what we needed from that spot a long time ago. I'm actually in the camp that we didn't have to evaluate that at all as it was painfully obvious. But we got lost on focusing on nostalgia, feel goods, and total overall talent rather than fit. We could have dodged all the nonsense by making Udoh a primary backup a long time ago and showing that you don't need high level talent, just very specific talent, to exceed in that role.

But what do I know?
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Hassan has had a positive plus minus in every game except the last one. He was very good and individual plus minus is not a great measure... unless it is consistent. His on/off splits are bonkers. I enjoy his game... his antics... the fact he will also likely lose us a game with his non-sense at some point is something we can totally overlook.

Do you remember the days of just watching the clock waiting for the time that Rudy could check back in so we would stop being garbage? Those were painfully slow minutes... no more with Whiteside. I just hope we don't do something dumb and let him walk because we think Udoka is ready to take over. This assumes Hassan continues to be a positive. I don't think he's gonna get a big offer elsewhere. If we have to go over the minimum to keep him do it for hells sake.
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If Hassan continues to play well he will get a decent offer but finding a back up C who fits our needs is not easy. The Jazz were very lucky to have gotten HW on the cheap.
 
When your best player is Gobert and you’re paying him the supermax I don’t think you should use anything more than a minimum to find his backup. If the backup stinks…so what it was just a minimum deal and Rudy is going to play more in the playoffs anyways.

Where you get into trouble is when you spend several first round draft picks and MLE’s to fill the least important spot on your roster. Backup C is also the easiest position to fill on the minimum because teams aren’t using as many bigs these days.
 
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