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The Non-Jazz NBA Thread in the Jazz Section

There’s probably more truth to what Donovan said. Sure, people “told him” about defense, but nothing was enforced, there were no consequences, people may as well have said nothing. And we saw those results. The “official” statements were always “yeah, needs to play defense,” but then the indirect reports to the media was always “Donovan the focal point of the offense and needs to have energy for that,” but that narrative continued to be perpetuated when we assembled a fairly impressive offensive cast around him. Then we let him do his 4th quarter things with no change. Or are we also saying that people told him to share the ball and keep his teammates involved? Or, if they did say those things, was it anything more than lip service?
 
infection said:
There’s probably more truth to what Donovan said. Sure, people “told him” about defense, but nothing was enforced, there were no consequences, people may as well have said nothing. And we saw those results. The “official” statements were always “yeah, needs to play defense,” but then the indirect reports to the media was always “Donovan the focal point of the offense and needs to have energy for that,” but that narrative continued to be perpetuated when we assembled a fairly impressive offensive cast around him. Then we let him do his 4th quarter things with no change. Or are we also saying that people told him to share the ball and keep his teammates involved? Or, if they did say those things, was it anything more than lip service?
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I mean I saw Rudy do it on the court. Prior to Covid it was a sore spot that Rudy would call out missed rotations in film review etc. Now... Rudy was painted as the annoying ******* rather than the supportive teammate but it was the same stuff... I guess Don respects Stevens more.

Cleveland is getting Honeymoon Don. it will get prickly over the next 18 months before he requests a trade to the market he wants. Behind the scenes Don is making Stevens carry his bags and pick up his dry cleaning for even looking at him and saying the word defense.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
I mean I saw Rudy do it on the court. Prior to Covid it was a sore spot that Rudy would call out missed rotations in film review etc. Now... Rudy was painted as the annoying ******* rather than the supportive teammate but it was the same stuff... I guess Don respects Stevens more.

Cleveland is getting Honeymoon Don. it will get prickly over the next 18 months before he requests a trade to the market he wants. Behind the scenes Don is making Stevens carry his bags and pick up his dry cleaning for even looking at him and saying the word defense.
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I watched the first half of the Cav/Tor game last night and Don just looked as complacent on both ends of the court as he did on defense here in Utah. We will see how long the "honeymoon" lasts. My gut feeling is that he really in his heart of hearts would prefer to play in a market such as NY, Miami, or LA. We will obviously find out in 2 1/2 years or less.

Yes OG was defending him last night.

Some Cav fans were making excuses on twitter saying he was supposedly sick or something. If that's the case why was he even playing in some almost meaningless game in November.

It just looked to me like their PG Garland for whatever reason isn't passing to Don like he should. Maybe he feels that Don won't pass it back. Who knows.
Watching Conley blossom again after Don left might be some kind of clue. They really have some work to do in order to get those 2 playing well together. They don't have any NBA caliber 3&D wing pieces surrounding that pair either. The bigs are very nice but Mobley hasn't taken a leap this season playing next to the ball dominant guards. They have LeVert who is also ball dominant who further mucks everything up. Good luck to them (not really).
 
NM. I assumed Lamar Stevens was someone on the coaching staff.
 
underdog said:
Last night Mitchell was "off" not only on defense but offense as well with 8 points in total. It will be interesting to see how his trade to the Cavs will shake out. He is under contract three years with the Cavs, but I predict he'll be out of there after two years.
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That is the OG Anunoby effect. The dude has been unreal this year defensively.
 
HeatCheck said:
I watched the first half of the Cav/Tor game last night and Don just looked as complacent on both ends of the court as he did on defense here in Utah. We will see how long the "honeymoon" lasts. My gut feeling is that he really in his heart of hearts would prefer to play in a market such as NY, Miami, or LA. We will obviously find out in 2 1/2 years or less.

Yes OG was defending him last night.

Some Cav fans were making excuses on twitter saying he was supposedly sick or something. If that's the case why was he even playing in some almost meaningless game in November.

It just looked to me like their PG Garland for whatever reason isn't passing to Don like he should. Maybe he feels that Don won't pass it back. Who knows.
Watching Conley blossom again after Don left might be some kind of clue. They really have some work to do in order to get those 2 playing well together. They don't have any NBA caliber 3&D wing pieces surrounding that pair either. The bigs are very nice but Mobley hasn't taken a leap this season playing next to the ball dominant guards. They have LeVert who is also ball dominant who further mucks everything up. Good luck to them (not really).
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One thing I’m pretty sure of is that Garland wasn’t too happy when he heard about the Mitchell trade.
 
HeatCheck said:
I watched the first half of the Cav/Tor game last night and Don just looked as complacent on both ends of the court as he did on defense here in Utah. We will see how long the "honeymoon" lasts. My gut feeling is that he really in his heart of hearts would prefer to play in a market such as NY, Miami, or LA. We will obviously find out in 2 1/2 years or less.

Yes OG was defending him last night.

Some Cav fans were making excuses on twitter saying he was supposedly sick or something. If that's the case why was he even playing in some almost meaningless game in November.

It just looked to me like their PG Garland for whatever reason isn't passing to Don like he should. Maybe he feels that Don won't pass it back. Who knows.
Watching Conley blossom again after Don left might be some kind of clue. They really have some work to do in order to get those 2 playing well together. They don't have any NBA caliber 3&D wing pieces surrounding that pair either. The bigs are very nice but Mobley hasn't taken a leap this season playing next to the ball dominant guards. They have LeVert who is also ball dominant who further mucks everything up. Good luck to them (not really).
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Even before the season started I questioned having two ball dominant guards, if Garland is able to handle dropping down to #2 and if they start competing in a negative way. Then after Donovan had a strong start and Garland started to struggle badly it raised flags that one or more of those concerns might be legit. I also watched a few games and it almost looked like Garland wanted to pass to anyone but Don. And I don't think its a "black hole thing", I think its more of "**** this guy, who does he think he is" type of thing.

And then there was that one moment where Donovan "stole" the rebound from Mobley. The fact that the whole team overreacted so badly made me question Dons position in the locker room. The fact such a reaction was directed towards "the new guy" (who you usually treat better than guys you know) and "the #1 guy" (who you usually let get away with stuff) was more than curious. Was there already malcontent or someone talking trash behind the scenes? Since then, their performances have been on a decline.

So the question is, how much respect the other players have for Don? I think the honeymoon is already over. Whether they gel or implode is still up to grabs, but right now the outlook is not optimal.
 
Listened to Basketball Illuminati this AM... mentioned Lakers stuff and the true target the Lakers are waiting for is Zach Lavine. I think that could be the case. Can't be traded until Jan 15th... but if I am the Bulls I might seriously consider Zach for Russ and the two picks. That contract is worrisome given Zach's history and current knee issues. Bulls likely can't tank down to a place where the land bottom 4... but I wonder if them signing Zach this offseason was a "preserve the asset" type move and they will deal him.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Listened to Basketball Illuminati this AM... mentioned Lakers stuff and the true target the Lakers are waiting for is Zach Lavine. I think that could be the case. Can't be traded until Jan 15th... but if I am the Bulls I might seriously consider Zach for Russ and the two picks. That contract is worrisome given Zach's history and current knee issues. Bulls likely can't tank down to a place where the land bottom 4... but I wonder if them signing Zach this offseason was a "preserve the asset" type move and they will deal him.
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If they trade LaVine they should look at trading DeRozan and truly trying to keep their pick this year. It’s their best course of action.
 
Elizah Huge said:
If they trade LaVine they should look at trading DeRozan and truly trying to keep their pick this year. It’s their best course of action.
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Not sure they can really give themselves more than a 15% chance or so of keeping the pick. Would just roll forward to the next year where its top 3 protected. They also owe a pick to SA that has some limited protections.

Every scenario gets messy for them... yowza.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
Listened to Basketball Illuminati this AM... mentioned Lakers stuff and the true target the Lakers are waiting for is Zach Lavine. I think that could be the case. Can't be traded until Jan 15th... but if I am the Bulls I might seriously consider Zach for Russ and the two picks. That contract is worrisome given Zach's history and current knee issues. Bulls likely can't tank down to a place where the land bottom 4... but I wonder if them signing Zach this offseason was a "preserve the asset" type move and they will deal him.
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I don't think the Bulls would do that. To get no useful players back for LaVine would doom them and I don't think they want to be bad.
 
Handlogten's Heros said:
These are some dumb bastards… not like Ryan is irreplaceable but they have no shooting and they wave the one “laser” they have.
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The news is being pretty generous calling the guy a sharp shooter. He shot 31% from the field and 37% from 3 which isn't anything special in very limited minutes. They can definitely find a better player in free agency.
 
sip said:
The news is being pretty generous calling the guy a sharp shooter. He shot 31% from the field and 37% from 3 which isn't anything special in very limited minutes. They can definitely find a better player in free agency.
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For them that’s basically Steph level. I get that he’s not amazing but it’s hard to shoot high percentages in limited court time and he was probably their best spot up guy… he’ll they were calling end of game plays for him when they needed threes. Ryan will find a home.
 
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