I'm sooo happy!

Mudiay has been semi-okay this year, there is hope for him yet.

i mean, you mentioned the weight difference yourself and smart is a bulldog and has the defensive rep. denver's d was really bad last year, so idk that moving guys out of position defensively makes sense

i agree that they need more perimeter playmaking though. they're a good perimeter player away from being dangerous, but i don't think playing those 3 together is a huge boon offensively and it could be extremely bad defensively. could see situational use, but okc seems like a particularly bad team to do this against-- someone way undersized ends up on george. again i am mudiay hater though. should have tried to swindle bledsoe for him or something.

i think mudiay is a much better fit for the bench b/c i don't think the people the nuggets want touching the ball will see it as much as they should if mudiay is w/the starters

This seems especially salient.

Mudiay appears to be at his best when he is attacking and I’m not sure he has the proper wherewithal to distribute when in that mode. It’d be better served on a second unit. At the same time, having Murray be the primary point of attack could be equally limiting, if not more so.

Almost prefer the idea of Mudiay as the guy who can carry out ball handling/distribution and breaking down of the defense in a way that involves some of the primary players (Jokic, shooters, et al). Haven’t watched enough nuggs to make more than an estimated guess though of what kind of offense would work between them all.

paul george one shot in the 4th lol

edit: yeah idk murray not killing it either

I think they just need time to figure out which one of their young guys are going to be best in which position. Don't forget they have Juancho who has Mono now but was awesome last year, he might be their 3ish of the future.

Apparently they really wanted OG at 24, he went 23rd

In many ways Paul Millsap messed up their plans, their draft wouldn't have been terrible had they not gotten PM for a song, but you can't say no to him on that deal.

Also Paul Millsap is a ****ing beast defensively. He reminds me a lot of Iggy in that he doesn't necessarily do it in a flashy way like say a Draymond, but then you look down and the team just always plays a ****ton better on that end while still being ok offensively.

The difference defensively is like night and day from last year, they were painful to watch on that end.. Hopefully the offense comes around because it's not there yet by any stretch.

Melo sucks an impressive amount of ass

He, and to a lesser extent PG13, don't have the type of skill-set that's additive unlike say, ldo the Warriors where their pieces fit like a glove.

They will still be much much better, it seems like the majority of their problems come from them forgetting how they started out the game and reverting to how they each individually played last year sans any other talent. It'll get there I think, and defensively they should be one of the top teams (Grant+Adams are BEASTS).

PG13 doesn't suck he just doesn't give a **** and hate playing with the 2 ball hogs

Ahh I just realized you meant playing Mudiay/Murray/Harris. They've gone to it a few times with some success and it's what I've been suggesting. Mudiay is a bit small to guard 3's, but in reality there are maybe 3 guys in the league that you'd have to worry about in that regard, and he would bring some of what Gallo brought in the penetration and foul-drawing department.

6'5 with a 6'9.5" wingspan seems just a little small to do it full-time.

It's not that Russ is a ball hog as I truly believe he's trying to involve everyone and take a back seat in the scoring department, it's just that I don't think he has the mental BB capacity to do it in a way that it highlight's their strengths, especially down the stretch. In this game they know how Denver defends the PnR with Jokic(he hedge's aggressively) or everyone else (switch), and they know that one of the non-Melo defenders is going to tag the original screener meaning someone is open on the weak side. Ofc it'll be their worst shooter, but with Denver's D scrambling on a PnR involving Jokic they are 3 passes away from a wide open Melo 3 in the corner.

Instead, they attacked the PnR go get a switch on Gary Harris who's not a terrible defender and will give up a likely contested 2.

IMO the good players see the action well before it happens, and I just don't think Russ is there mentally. I heard on one of the pods that he doesn't even watch game-film which seems like a huge leak.

Russ got that fat bank account though.

Russell is better as a 1 man band anyways. Melo needs to get out.

He's PG version of Wilt Chamberlain

Omitting Lonzo getting sonned by John Wall and continuing to be terrible at basketball, we had a great series of competitive games last night

dood is right.

Nice, that's nice.

If Webber never got hurt he maybe had a shot at being better than Jokic but after the injury he was an amazing passer and very good defender but a huge chucked and didn’t get to the line much. Jokic is better and should have a shot to be much better. Webber after his second major injury, really sucked ass and it was sad to see.

Harden with a 35-10-10-5 game, 6th all time. MJ had the only other one in the last 30 years #mymvp

He was gassed incredibly hard at the end though, CP3 needs to get off the pine and get in there soon before he wears himself down again.

as i see it, denver doesn't need more offensive power, they were one of the best offenses last year with jokic basically playing PG. a competent PnR point man might be nice but if anything shoring up their defense is the way to go.

My point is that I think some of those positives are simply being made up

Well he was being hyped as a generational talent and when he falls flat on his face especially when he plays for the lakers, people are going to talk about it. Nobody gave two ****s or was surprised when someone like Anthony Bennett sucked so much ass but lonzo has shown glimpses in college and summer league of being great. I’ll give him some time before I totally write him off but I’ll be ragging on him until he hits his stride. I got a feeling it’ll be a while. You gotta also rag on him for all the hype his dad created. Lavar has been awful ****ing quiet lately which is great as well. I thought rondo couldn’t shoot but lonzo is taking it to the next level.

One problem with Denver is that jamal Murray is not at all good yet. He’s a near zero passer who can’t manage the PnR on either end. Still has upside as a shooting specialist wing but it’s looking more and more like he’s not the answer at PG

This is exactly how I feel too. Lakersfan friends keep saying how it took Nash a long time to git gud but he also didn't come with the hype since day 1.

Ball should be evaluated in relative and not just absolute terms. First is whether or not Danny Ainge looks correct in trading down to take Tatum rather than take Ball or Fultz because the value of the pick he received is bigger than the gap between Tatum and the best of Ball/Fultz. Second, does Ball look good relative to the other PGs taken in the top ten: Fultz, Fox, Ntilikina, and DSJ?

At draft time, the consensus was "lol Ainge". That seems to have shifted, partly due to Tatum being good, but also to Fultz and Ball being not good, so that maybe that trade doesn't look so bad and might even look good to some people. After 11-12 games, how do you rank those five PGs?

This current evaluation isn't Ainge-related unless you're just a Boston fan and want it to be