Few thoughts:
- The losses are a blessing in disguise right now, we should be playing for next season already aka developing the youth...but until we're out of the playoff race, that won't happen. For whatever reason (probably the logic that causes a man in 2016 to have a twitter porn scandal a couple of weeks into his first shot coaching a team since a debacle in Minne), Calderon is seen as the best option to win now...he's not...but until we're not playing for immediate wins, he'll get starts. We need some more L's so that Rambis can focus on Grant, Galloway and other young cats (the under 25's basically).
- Melo is playing well. RoLo is looking like a keeper. KP is fatigued but obviously a keeper as well. 3/5's of the starting line-up can be set for the future which means this offseason the focus can go entirely to the backcourt which is nice. Worst case scenario, we bottom out and Melo demands a trade; which is fine if he keeps up this level of play...we'll get substantial offers.
- Grant being handcuffed to Cleamons is a great move. If he's not gonna play much now, at least he's getting real time advice. He showed more willingness to shoot last night, had more impact in 12 minutes than Calderon and Sasha had all game and he brought KP to life for a minute there. I'm still really confident that he'll be good.
- Galloway was a better defender last season. He puts forth more effort than Jose but he's gotta be better than last night. We had three guards putting up worthless impact last night, two of them are hopeless old men... Galloway needs to step up.
- AA isn't getting post ups nearly as often as he was a while ago; I can't see him having positive impact without more of them.
- KOQ showed more defensive effort and board work, but he needs more offense to carry value. He needs private lessons with RoLo too, to figure out the spacing and hedging on PnR's but to be fair...no one's been good in that aspect lately.
- Lance Thomas is on a long streak of sucking, following the trend I've been pointing out all year...ten good games followed immediately by 8-10 invisible games where he causes more harm than good. No he's not our best player off the bench. He just gets the most consistent minutes to snap out of a funk (and it still takes too long).
- D-Will wasn't good but wasn't terrible (aka he was better than most of our bench but that's hardly a compliment), he's gotta get on the boards better. He had a couple of nice moments in post defense against bigger guys though which stood out solely because no one else stood out defensively ever.
- Jimmer hit a 3 as soon as he got out there then gave up an and one drive on the ensuing defensive set. I don't think shooting is our problem. I'd prefer Toure Murry or someone with a defensive reputation get brought in, guard penetration is the big issue with this team and Jimmer won't solve that. Case in point, we scored plenty in the fourth but never could string stops together.
- Patrick Patterson is the type of guy I'd love to have as an off the bench option.
