Granted it was a tough year and the record was not what anyone hoped it would be, but are you happy with where the team was at the end of the season (in terms of how well they were playing)?

I'm torn. It was taking Foye a little while to get back up to full speed, but we see that all the time. It's obviously much harder than we think trying to play catch up in the second half of the season.

Telfair (or SeaBass as I like to call him) obviously exceeded expectations. I personally think that too much if being made of the winning percentage before and after Foye's return. The team as a whole was playing better after Foye's return and therefore, IMO, articially inflated those numbers in Foye's favor. I would have no problem running with Foye and Seabass as our PG combo next year.

I think Gomes was solid, but I dont' see that his ceiling is much higher than where he is now. If he's to work on anything in the offseason, I would think it would be his ball-handling and ability to drive to the rim. If he was able to add that to his game; the ability to break down his defender and beat them off the dribble, then I'd be much higher on him. As it stands now, I think he's backup/role player material.

McCants: Dec. 4th against the Nugs McCants made an obvious adjustment to his game. Whether someone got in his ear or something just clicked for him... it doesn't matter. The point is that he quit camping on the 3pt line and hoisting up shots all game long. He started to drive to the rim, drawing contact or dishing off. Yeah, his defense still needs work... but so does half of the NBA. He'll get better. I'm really high on him. I think they just need to loosen the leash and let him play. So far in his short NBA career, he's always had to worry about making mistakes... and no one plays well under that situation.

Brewer: Defensively, he lived up to the hype. Offensively he was a mess. But I don't think that it's something that adding some size, confidence, and another years experience won't help. This offseason he just needs to work on adding some size (especially to those twigs he calls legs) and working with Freddie on his jumper all off season. He'll be fine though. You gotta love his motore. (And not Jamebo.... I'm not talking about the "motor boat")

Snyder: great at getting to the rim, but the rest of his game seems... well... just average. If you could add his ability to get to the rim, to Gomes game, then you'd have a pretty dynamic player. Snyder doesn't seem interested in being here either. If he's here or gone, to me, it's just not that big of a deal.

Smith had a pretty good season. I didn't think he'd do as well, without his 7ft all-star next to him. But he surprised me. He has a knack for getting his shot off over taller players. The problem is that he became somewhat of a black hole at times this season. I love what he brings now, but IMO, if he could still tone up/thin down more and add a consistent jump shot, he could potentially reincarnate himself into a SF and continue to improve. I just don't see him ever doing much better as a PF. I know asking a big guy like him to tone up and thin down is a lot to ask, but he's a professional athlete getting paid millions. High protein, low carb, and if he lifts; light weights/high reps. I would absolutely love to see that. But it might be more a mental hurdle for him to think of himself in terms of a SF than anything.

Richard: I don't know....we didn't get to see him much. They should've had him in the D-League for most, if not all, of the season. He obviously has great fundamentals. But we need to see him play ....and he needs that playing time, before anything can be said about him.

Big Al is the low post presence that we always wanted KG to be. Now if he can add that jump shot that KG has/had, it will be amazing. I love his heart, I love his style of play. Overall, he's the reason that I'm happy with the trade. I think we all (along with Big Al himself) know that he needs to continue to work on his passing and his defense, but to his credit his defense got much better over the last couple months of the season.

That's all I'll do for now. What do some of you think?

 

I'm sorry.... I completely forgot about coaching!

The coaching was horrible. First Casey, then Wittless.... both have been horrible and we watch coaches like PJ Carlisimo go to a division rival and Scott Skiles go to a division rival... while we sit here with Randy Friggin Wittman.

IMO, this is easily the worst aspect of our team; coaching. Wittman has effed around with McCants all year. Messed up on Richard's development, and just overall made horrible lineup and substitution decisions. We can only hope that he has to have back surgery about 20 times next year.... then maybe they'll be 20 games better as McHale has mandated.

stopnpop over at canis hoopus had a great breakdown of the "progress" of the team today.  Basically he concluded that individual players such as Al, Telfair, etc, showed improvement, but the team as a whole did not.  Despite the increased winning percentage, most of the other statistics showed no real improvement.  And a lot of the blame for that can be put on coaching...

Well, the encouraging part of that article, and one I wholeheartedly agree with, is the benefit of the "Foye effect". This kid is just flat out good, and although his stats this year (after a knee injury) may not show it, he's the second best player on this roster, after Big Al. I'm expecting great things from him next year, and even though most people don't agree with me, I think he's fully capable of becoming our PG of the future.

 

From watching them close up this year, I'd still be cautious about labeling Foye the point guard of the future. There's no doubt he'll be a big part of this team, but as a point guard, the jury is still out.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to next season...to see Foye's development as a point for an entire year.

 Yeah, the jury is definitely still out, but I tend to agree with Cat.

I'm hopeful that Foye can become every bit of the PG that Chauncey is. And, IMO, there's no reason (other than lack of coaching) that he can't. It will just take time and experience.

I'm more than happy to watch them roll with Foye as the starting PG next year. As a matter-of-fact, that's why I'm hoping we get lucky and get Beasley in the draft. Then we have the starting lineup (if Wittman pulls his head out of his ***) of:

PG - Foye
SG - McCants
SF - Beasley
PF - Jefferson
C - Richard/O'Bryant?/Hibbert?/Jawia?/Dorsey?/etc.

I would love to go watch that team on a nightly basis! 

Chaos:

 Yeah, the jury is definitely still out, but I tend to agree with Cat.

I'm hopeful that Foye can become every bit of the PG that Chauncey is. And, IMO, there's no reason (other than lack of coaching) that he can't. It will just take time and experience.

I'm more than happy to watch them roll with Foye as the starting PG next year. As a matter-of-fact, that's why I'm hoping we get lucky and get Beasley in the draft. Then we have the starting lineup (if Wittman pulls his head out of his ***) of:

PG - Foye
SG - McCants
SF - Beasley
PF - Jefferson
C - Richard/O'Bryant?/Hibbert?/Jawia?/Dorsey?/etc.

I would love to go watch that team on a nightly basis! 

Perhaps I should change my avatar, so as to avoid confusion with our resident feline lover.

Stephen_Litel:

From watching them close up this year, I'd still be cautious about labeling Foye the point guard of the future. There's no doubt he'll be a big part of this team, but as a point guard, the jury is still out.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to next season...to see Foye's development as a point for an entire year.

 

Especially defensively; he couldn't stay with his own shadow this year.  You can't really have both he and McCants playing that kind of defense and both be on the court at the same time.

boognish:

Perhaps I should change my avatar, so as to avoid confusion with our resident feline lover.

  Bwahahahahahaa.....sorry. Not needed. I'll play closer attention next time.

Thanks for the link above.  The thing that is most frustrating about this year is that there was a period in March where you could really look at the squad and say "wow, they're a player or two away from doing something here".  They got the point differential down to about -3/game which is well within any sort of standard deviation for any opponent on the schedule and they were competetive.  The ball movement was crisp, they had more assists than normal, they didn't turn it over as much as previous months, and they got to the line 21 times/game.  Then, heading down the stretch in April, they started giving up a ton of points, the effort went out of the sails, and any sort of "smell test" critique that could have been given to the squad to show improvement (however modest) was replaced by the cold hard fact that they basicaly ran the same stats throughout the entire season.  It almost got comical near the end.  Why did they lose? Small ball bad defense with a big free throw disparity.  Same at the beginning of the year as it was in the end...except for a minor uptick in shooting and a very nice decline in turnovers, there wasn't anything big that you could hang your hat on and say "yeah, that's where they (not he or him) improved." 

No problem stopnpop, like I wrote before, hope you don't mind me linking to your site.  Most can see I'm a big pimp of your articles. 

 

I wonder how much of the regression in April can be attributed to purposely tanking, end-of-season boredom, or something similar. 
 

Is this working?????????? 

 

 

 

 

******* HOLY CRAP!!!! IT WORKS WITH FIREFOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****** 

 atta boy, V

Vendetta11:

Is this working?????????? 

 

 

 

 

******* HOLY CRAP!!!! IT WORKS WITH FIREFOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****** 

IE is the devil's browser!

MattyP:

No problem stopnpop, like I wrote before, hope you don't mind me linking to your site.  Most can see I'm a big pimp of your articles. 

 

I wonder how much of the regression in April can be attributed to purposely tanking, end-of-season boredom, or something similar. 
 

I don't know if there is a good answer to that question.  I don't think it's tanking as they obviously tried in games against Orlando, Memphis, and Detroit, but...well, I don't know.  Either they tried or they didn't.  What they did do is end the year with a disturbing point differential, which is one of the most troubling stats a team can have. 

 

Also, link away!!! We love the links over at Canis Hoopus. 

Firefox is the way to go.

Personally, I was please with the development of Brewer as the season came to an end.  I anticipate that he will average between 10-12 ppg next season, assuming he gets regular playing time.  Big Al was good and is improved defensive efforts showed towards the end of the season.  However, I would suggest better conditioning for Big Al because if we would hit the playoffs in the next year or two, he will need it.

The other board had a lot of rips on Foye and rightfully so.  However, I thought he showed improvement towards the end of the year.  Frankly, the biggest issue is his ole defensive style right now.

Jamebo Jackson:

Stephen_Litel:

From watching them close up this year, I'd still be cautious about labeling Foye the point guard of the future. There's no doubt he'll be a big part of this team, but as a point guard, the jury is still out.

That's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to next season...to see Foye's development as a point for an entire year.

 

Especially defensively; he couldn't stay with his own shadow this year.  You can't really have both he and McCants playing that kind of defense and both be on the court at the same time.

 

My satisfaction for this season pretty much only goes with Al Jefferson. The guy was much better than I thought he would be. The coaching, McCants and Wittman's silly feud, the defense, and Foye's injury really dissapointed me.

There were some some things that had pros and cons like Telfair's play. But I guess overall this season wasn't up to snuff like it should have. Now, I am not saying we would have been a .500 team, but I really did think they could have pushed 25-30 wins. 

Vendetta11:

Is this working?????????? 

 

 

 

 

******* HOLY CRAP!!!! IT WORKS WITH FIREFOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****** 

 

There goes the neighborhood. 

Jamebo Jackson:

Vendetta11:

Is this working?????????? 

 

 

 

 

******* HOLY CRAP!!!! IT WORKS WITH FIREFOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ****** 

 

There goes the neighborhood. 

Insert George W Bush photo giving you the bird
 

 This picture?

YES!!! LOL

 

I wasn't sure if we would get into trouble we put up pictures like that here!!!!  

Not positive I like it, but I'll let it slide this time. LOL.