The Optimistic Thread! (TRD's FREEDOM THREAD!)

therealdeal wrote:Somogyi (who I have watched a lot) looked okay. Sacre looked pretty bad and Somogyi looked good by comparison.

Not sure you were watching Sacre play, maybe you confused him with Aguilar, like some others in this forum did. Somogyi looked very raw and unpromising offensively, and I haven't seen enough of him yet to think that he can provide as much as Sacre, especially in the up tempo style we are installing now. Except for Somogyi's 7'3 frame, I like what I see from Sacre more.

Greg strikes me as a Darko Milicic type of big...slow, plodding kind of game. He has plenty of time over the next few weeks to prove his worth, I am far from attached to Sacre at this point, but I need to see more from him before I am convinced that he has the fundamentals to step onto an NBA roster right now..I already know Sacre does.

Optimist says - Sacre becomes a Gortat behind Dwight!

Snakell Beast wrote:

therealdeal wrote:Somogyi (who I have watched a lot) looked okay. Sacre looked pretty bad and Somogyi looked good by comparison.

Not sure you were watching Sacre play, maybe you confused him with Aguilar, like some others in this forum did. Somogyi looked very raw and unpromising offensively, and I haven't seen enough of him yet to think that he can provide as much as Sacre, especially in the up tempo style we are installing now. Except for Somogyi's 7'3 frame, I like what I see from Sacre more.

Greg strikes me as a Darko Milicic type of big...slow, plodding kind of game. He has plenty of time over the next few weeks to prove his worth, I am far from attached to Sacre at this point, but I need to see more from him before I am convinced that he has the fundamentals to step onto an NBA roster right now..I already know Sacre does.

To be honest I posted that before I saw the 1st quarter. His 1st quarter with the starters looked good. The rest of his game looked bad. Obviously being surrounded by talent does a lot for anyone's game and in this case it was no different.

After watching the first quarter I rescind that statement.

If sacre is on the floor with nash i think he can be good for us. when nash is on the bench and blake is in sacre will be that energy rebounding guy for us. not like hill but still is a good backup for dwight

Our starting 5 won't be denied ... the opponent best options will be : sending D12 to the line/leaving MWP open

Sacre's biggest strengths, as an unheralded #60 rookie draft pick, are defensive positioning, physical strength and good mobility. Sacre is already becoming somewhat polished. He is getting into a nice rythm with Howard out. He should be a nice role player coming off the bench this season. CDR is also proving that he is an asset on the floor, especially since most of the time he is on the floor in preseason garbage time, with no real quality teammates around him. I would like to see CDR play with Nash. Same with Earl Clark. We could go Nash/CDR/Ebanks/Clark/Pau sometimes, for very effective run and gun offense. So many possibilities.

As far as the rest of the team goes, I saw improvements from the last game to this one, especially with the second unit. I am starting to think CDR is pretty much a lock to make the team, as is Sacre I believe. DJO, Goudelock, Aguilar, Somogyi, and Nelson are all goners. I think we should keep 14 of the 20 players. We can cut Darius Morris to make room for a player down the road. I say we should cut him now, even though his contract is guaranteed. The kid simply cannot play effectively at the professional level. He has an inefficient shot, he is careless with the ball, and he doesn't play good postitional defense. He also tends to foul when he's in man on man defense.

Pau was way too inefficient tonight. He kept badly missing open jumpers, as well as that dunk on a great pass by Nash. Ebanks was pretty good, he is showing some improvement, but he missed 2 easy open looks under the basket, so there is still a lot of room for improvement. He seems like he is trying too hard sometimes.

Earl Clark and Darius Johnson-Odom need to get more PT with one or two starters, otherwise they are not getting a fair opportunity to prove themselves IMHO. Mike Brown seriously improved the continuity of the bench reserves play, so props on that. Overall, I am very optimistic after this performance. We played a hungry, aggressive Portland starting unit to a first half standstill with Meeks and Sacre repacing our two best players. Not too shabby, especially when you consider that Jordan Hill wasn't coming in for Gasol or Sacre either...

This is awesome because our bench is going to develop better with Kobe, Dwight and Hill out. When we get those three back, then the guys behind them will be that much more prepared. AND HOW ABOUT MEEKS? He is thicker/more athletic than I thought. Kid has put in some serious work this off season. Me Likes!

Okay... I dozed in and out of this one but here's what I saw:
- Nash is incredible and he does amazing things on the floor at all times. He's a better defender than advertised meaning he's okay. He won't get a stop for you, but he won't quit on plays either. One thing he isn't great at: catch and shoot threes. Sometimes we run the offense and he finds himself open on the move from the Princeton and he doesn't catch and shoot as well as he shoots off the dribble. He's one of the best shooters in the game though so I expect that he's simply not used to it.

- Pau looked awful offensively. He wasn't ready for Nash's passes, he missed layups and dunks, and his jump shot wasn't nearly as smooth as it usually is. I was upset during the game, but afterwards they talked about having a 3 hour practice before playing this game. Apparently they practiced for nearly 3 hours, took the bus ride 2 hours before the game started, and then walked through, and then played. I'll give him a pass on this one since he's clearly not in game shape just yet.

- Metta looks fantastic on the floor. He looks better offensively than he's ever looked as a Laker. He's smooth, he's decisive, he's focused. His defense looks good as usual. He's going to be a real X-factor this season. Don't sleep on him.

- Sacre looks solid. I was happy with him in Summer League (relatively) and I'm happy with him now. He makes the rookie mistakes, but he looks like a real NBA player. If Hill misses more time than we're expecting, he's going to do just fine in limited minutes. I really like his activity on the floor as a big man. Offensively he looks a little better than I expected around the basket. Yes he shot 2-5, but they were good looks.

- Meeks shot horribly from the field, but in EVERY other facet of the game, including defense, he looked great. I think he really wanted to come out here tonight and use this opportunity to shine and he did a little too much. He really worked hard though defensively, getting to the basket, and rebounding the ball. Don't let the box score fool you, this was a good outing.

- Jamison's offensive rhythm was nonexistent tonight. I'm not too worried about it, but he definitely struggled on that end. He's definitely not a strong defender, but he worked the glass at a decent rate.

- Ebanks, Douglas-Roberts, and Blake all looked pretty good as well. They definitely looked like solid bench players. Blake again with a modest stat line, but he looked good on the floor. He handled the ball well and he looks a LOT more comfortable doing so. He was credited with at least one unfair turnover as most of our guys were not ready for passes at all tonight. Ebanks and Douglas-Roberts each looked like backup SFs.

- Somogyi, Goudelock, and Morris didn't really do anything of note in their limited time. Brown liked Morris for some reason in those 5 minutes. DJO and Nelson didn't play (not a good sign for DJO).

Bump!

I missed the end of the 4th and the start of the 3rd but the things that I saw were all pretty much the same as they were last game.

Our starters are amazing. Once Dwight is back, they're not going to lose many games or even be down many games. Most of the time they're going to be head and shoulders above any other team, and all of the time they should be at least a head above. Metta particularly stands out as a guy that's going to be solid for us all season long.

Our bench has some talent and some tools, they're just not meshing at all. Meeks is starting out really slow from the field although I really like his activity. Douglas-Roberts looks like an NBA level scorer. Jamison is looking good, but I'd like him to be more aggressive. Ebanks has looked really solid for our team and I'm hopeful he'll have a solid season here. Sacre (I'll count him as a bench guy) looks great for a 3rd string Center. Keeping things in perspective, he's got a ton to learn, but he's about as good as you can ask for from your 3rd string Center. Gasol looks good, not great. He'll be able to do some things out there. I don't think he looks anything like 2010 Pau, but he certainly is a MASSIVE step up from 2011/2012 Pau.

The rest of the guys... Nelson, Somogyi, Goudelock, and Morris all look like real hot garbage. Johnson-Odom has looked alright, but he barely plays so it's hard to say what he looks like. Those other guys... oh man.

Well, our starters are fantastic, except that Kobe doesn't care that much in the preseason, especially on D and Pau is sort of sleepwalking on the court. But they have shown flashes of brilliance too. Metta and Nash are amazing, and Dwight will dominate once he gets back, which will be soon.

Sacre is actually good as a 3rd string center and is a hard worker. Jamison is alright when he is focused, and so are Meeks/Ebanks (sometimes) and CDR. So was Hill before his back problems. That gives us 11decent/ good players. The rest are awful. And I mean awful. Hopefully we have enough depth to let our starters rest a little bit.

It was a lot of fun seeing Kobe lock down defensively too at the end of the 2nd quarter. He forced something like 3-4 turnovers in 5 possessions. Then the team got out on the break and that looked good too.

Defensively I think this team can really be something special.

Our starters are looking fantastic out there and this is with Sacre instead of Dwight. Can't wait till the true starting five play together.

^^Pau hasn't looked "fantastic". Sacre is playing better than him honestly..... and for about $18,500,000 less

^Agreed. I think we might have found a sleeper in CDR; Ebanks looks solid. Metta is going to have a great year. He looks good. Kobe is looking in midseason form.

Look OTBS. We were without Howard, Gasol, AND Hill. All of our rebounders. That's like the Jazz without Jefferson, Millsap, and Kanter.

Yeah, I mean I'm not worried about the team at all because of last night. What frustrated me was seeing Aguilar/Nelson coming in first off the bench.

On the brigter side: Duhon was a servicable NBA player. Kobe looked fantastic. Ebanks continued to be a solid player. Meeks was hitting outside shots finally.

There's a lot to be happy about on the bench, we're just not seeing enough of it yet.

I'm optimistic (perhaps rationalizing) that the team looks so crappy because we are force-feeding the Princeton offense even though most of the players are nowhere near close to being able to run it. Looking terrible but learning is better than looking good but ignoring the new offense. Uncomfortable players overthink things and offenses look like crap. Bad offense can discourage focused defense, especially in transition, which is where the team has been really bad. Once the Princeton clicks and becomes second-nature, even our bench will look much better. In the mean while when the games count, there will be much more PnR and only as much Princeton as the team can handle, as not to be a detriment to the outcome of the game.

That's definitely something that has crossed my mind. I feel like Brown is just using these games as elaborate practices for the Princeton offense. When things start to get serious, I have a feeling the offense will smooth out by nature.

Not to mention, we haven't even seen our full starting five yet. Not even once.

lakerswiz wrote:What I have noticed is that with the new offense, Sacre ends up getting the ball in very many spots where Pau would be more comfortable with the rock, most notably the high post / elbow area. I haven't been paying close close attention to the game, but last night I saw instances where Sacre was getting the ball there where it used to be Pau getting the rock there. But I certainly know how Pau can act so I won't put that past him.

Didn't Buss and Brown both say they were going to move Pau in closer to the basket to increase his effectiveness? When is that supposed to happen I'm wondering?

Alcindor wrote:

lakerswiz wrote:What I have noticed is that with the new offense, Sacre ends up getting the ball in very many spots where Pau would be more comfortable with the rock, most notably the high post / elbow area. I haven't been paying close close attention to the game, but last night I saw instances where Sacre was getting the ball there where it used to be Pau getting the rock there. But I certainly know how Pau can act so I won't put that past him.

Didn't Buss and Brown both say they were going to move Pau in closer to the basket to increase his effectiveness? When is that supposed to happen I'm wondering?

Probably when Dwight gets his break and Jamison/Hill plays the 4 while Pau is at the 5.

We're slowly approaching the end of the useless preseason

oops, nm...there it goes.

nice team pic. kobe and blake got a twins thing going on.

Just a few questions...
1. Where'd you get this?
2. Where's Steve Nash?
3. Why is LeBron James back there next to Sacre?