User Blog: Ian Buchanan Posts made by Ian Buchanan on Nets Defense vs Knicks Ian Buchanan Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:00:21 -0500 <p>After watching Kidd sink a dagger in us to win a close game, I rewound the last 8 or 9 minutes I had on DVR and focused on defense. Melo scored 13 of the Knick's 20 points during that span. Kidd had 6, Chandler had 1.</p> <p>When we played man (pretty much always), here were the assignments:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Felton: Dwill</li> <li>Kidd: Stackhouse or Evans</li> <li>JR: JJ</li> <li>Melo: Crash</li> <li>Chandler: Blatche or Evans or Hump</li> </ul> <p>The Best of what I saw:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Blatche owned. Chandler didn't attempt a single shot while Blatche was on him. The <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Knicks</a> kept bringing Chandler up to pick Dwill, JJ and Crash and Blatche was always there to contest the ball-handler's shots. I counted 5 shots against Blatche and only 2 points (by Melo on a drive that missed but then Melo got the putback).</li> <li>JJ: JJ helped on Chandler and fouled him at 8:47 when Hump and Crash doubled Melo. Chandler missed a FT so JJ saved a point there. JJ also contested a JR miss, and covered Melo on the play when crash went down (Melo scored on a jumper that play). JJ generally was all over the place, switching on guys when his teammates would get stuck on picks.</li> </ul> The worst of what I saw: <ul> <li>Stackhouse was responsible for 5 Knicks points: he had a TO that led to a Melo fastbreak, and he left Kidd open on the final play for 3. That final play may not have been entirely his fault, see the Avery section below.</li> <li>Evans: Evans defensively was probably pretty valuable: he had 16 defensive rebounds for god's sake. But on one play he cheated inside and left Kidd wide open for an open 3. 3s are all Kidd does this year. That's unforgivable.</li> </ul> Coaching. There were 3 plays that really stood out as breakdowns in the defense: <br> <ul> <li>6:50 left: The Knicks do a 3-man play with tons of picks to get Melo an open 3. I'm not sure what should have happened on the play. Melo has the ball. Chandler picks Wallace and Melo runs past Felton on the perimeter giving him the ball. Dwill goes under Melo trying to get to Felton, then gets caught in a ridiculous pick/grab by Chandler taking himself out of the play. Evans sticks with Chandler. That leaves Crash covering Felton AND Melo. Crash follows Felton, then can't reach Melo for an open 3 after Felton simply passes it back. On the player side I blame Dwill for not anticipating the picks and sticking with Melo. I don't think Avery's team was prepared for that play.</li> <li>6:13 left: Knicks inbound play. Dwill is on Melo. Melo gets the ball and simply jumps over Dwill for a pretty much uncontested short jumper. Why is Dwill covering Melo?? Melo has 5 inches on him!</li> <li>0:23 left: The infamous Kidd 3 to win the game. I'm no expert, but it looks like the <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Nets</a> go zone for once. Melo is dribbling the ball trying to figure out what's going on. Eventually Avery yells at Dwill to double Melo so Dwill runs over leaving the upper right area open. Melo passes to JR who was in Dwill's zone. From here the entire zone concept breaks down. JJ has to come up from the right wing to cover JR. That leaves Felton alone in the corner, JR passes to Felton. Dwill sprints over to the corner from the upper left, Blatche helps a little, leaving Chandler alone-ish in the middle. Stack cheats toward Chandler. Felton drives in and kicks it to a WIIIIIDE open Kidd who swishes the 3 (with Stackhouse launching himself at him far too late). So... why switch to zone?? And why double from the zone when Melo is so far out? The team clearly wasn't prepared to cover in that scenario because the obvious plays by the offense totally effed the defense up (passing to the empty spots). I think the same ol' man defense would have been way better. Over the last 8-9 minutes the Nets had allowed 17 points in 18ish shots playing man, which is great. </li> </ul> Let me know if you interpreted those plays the same way I did. My biggest takeaway is that Blatche is MY FAVORITE move that Billy King made this summer. He was probably the MVP of the game, scoring team high points and owning on D. How to get back to NJ after Nets game?? Ian Buchanan Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:34:28 -0500 <p>Most <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Nets</a> games end after 9:30pm. PATH service to NJ is currently ending at 10pm. I'd really like to go to some Nets games this month but I don't want to risk getting stranded in NYC.</p> <p>Does anyone know a reliable affordable way of getting back to NJ after a Nets game? I'm guessing a taxi will cost over $60, which is more than a ticket to the game off stubhub would cost.</p> <p>Thanks!</p> Reload next year Ian Buchanan Wed, 13 Jun 2012 00:28:26 -0400 <p>New rebuilding concept: take on some large 1-year contracts that will go off the books in time for next year's FA bonanza. Who's available?</p> <p>CP3, The Beard (Harden, RFA), D12, Bynum, and a ton of good non-max guys</p> <p>The goal is to get at least 1 and maybe 2 of these max guys. The lure would be Brooklyn plus the ability to sign 2 of them to the same team (similar concept to Boston and Miami). Implementation after the jump.</p> <p><b>Possible Implementation:</b></p> <p>I'm trying to stay around $60M in salary cap.</p> <p>Starters:</p> <p><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Steve Nash</a>, 1yr/$10M<br>Louis Williams, 3yr/$21M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Matt Barnes</a>, 2yr/$8M (crash would be too expensive with these other guys)<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Ersan Ilyasova</a>, 3yr/$30M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Kevin Garnett</a>, 1yr/$15M</p> <p>Bench:</p> <p><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Armon Johnson</a>, 1yr/$1M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Mike James</a> (or <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">John Lucas</a> if we can get him), 1yr/$1M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Keith Bogans</a>, 1yr/$1M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Anthony Morrow</a>, signed, $4M next season<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Chris Wright</a>, 1yr/$1M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Marshon Brooks</a>, signed, $1M next season<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">James Singleton</a>, 1yr/$1M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Brian Scalabrine</a>, 1yr/$1M<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Jordan Williams</a>, signed, $1M next season<br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Johan Petro</a>, signed, $3.5M next season</p> <p>To summarize:</p> <p>Nash / A. Johnson / M. James<br>Lou Williams / Morrow / Bogans<br>Matt Barnes / M. Brooks / Chris Wright<br>Ilyasova / James Singleton / Brian Scalabrine<br>Garnett / J.Will / Petro</p> <p>I think this is an upper 40 win team, good for a 6th seed in the playoffs. Decent 1st year in Brooklyn.</p> <p>More importantly: Nash + KG + Morrow + Petro + at least 6 min guys come off the books giving us $49M in cap space for next season. Helloooo Harden and D12!!!</p> <p>The strongest points for this argument are:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>Scenario fits in the cap</li> <li>There's a long-term goal</li> <li>The FA signings are at least plausible b/c we're offering Nash and KG so much money</li> </ul> <p>The weakest points are:</p> <p> </p> <ul> <li>It's unlikely we get both Nash and KG</li> <li>The bench really sucks</li> <li>We could miss out on all the max guys next year and have no roster (we'd have flexibility though)</li> <li>Realistically we're not going to let dwill and crash get away</li> </ul> <p>D-Will is not included because while I love dwill, I don't think he's as good a superstar as CP3, Beard, D12, and Bynum.</p> <p><br> 3, 2, 1, commence ridicule!</p> $42 Million Isn't Enough... Ian Buchanan Wed, 06 Jun 2012 23:25:27 -0400 <p>This season <a href="" target="_blank">the nets paid their top 5 players $42 million</a>. The year before that <a href="" target="_blank">it was $38M</a>. Before that <a href="" target="_blank">it was $34M</a>.<br><br>To sign 3 max guys (dwill, gay, howard?) it'd cost $50M. Add $7M for Morrow and Petro to round out the top 5 and you're at $57M. That is a HUGE jump. How much will Uncle Mikhail pay??</p> <p>Do we expect our team to start shelling out cash? If not, why would max guys want to come (or stay) here? I feel like it'd be better to end up in LA, Boston, Miami... basically anywhere the head honcho has shown he'll pay for a full cast.</p> <p>Let's look at the <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Nets</a>' "most likely" scenario right now (approximate numbers):</p> <p>Re-sign Dwill ($18M)<br>Re-sign Wallace ($8M)<br>Sign Ilyasova ($9M)<br><br>Throw in Morrow and Petro and you're already at $42M. Add a few cheap FAs ($3-4M), then fill in the roster with a bunch of minimum guys, and you have a typical nets roster.</p> <p>If the nets are really constrained by the budget, I think we need to abandon scenarios where we bring in every max guy we can get, and start focusing on the draft (rookie contracts are cheap) and hidden gems in FA.</p> <p>Just to invite ridicule, I'm going to copy my list of beloved cheap FAs here:</p> <p><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Steve Novak</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Greg Stiemsma</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Spencer Hawes</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Chauncey Billups</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Ronny Turiaf</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Ian Mahinmi</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Danny Green</a><br><a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Brandon Bass</a></p> Trading Dwill, dumping Hump, and other FA thoughts Ian Buchanan Mon, 04 Jun 2012 23:26:50 -0400 <p><br>I think you've got to call <b>Billy King successful</b> for 2 reasons:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li>The team has improved each year he's been here (slowly...)</li> <li>The team has tons of flexibility this off-season for Billy to rebuild as he sees fit. This is really a make or break year for him.</li> </ol> <p> </p> <p>There's so much flexibility this off-season that the team could look totally different: it's heaven for armchair GMs. <b>Here are 3 things I think I think</b>:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li>We could get the most value out of dwill by signing and trading him</li> <li>We should replace Hump and <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Brook Lopez</a> </li> <li>We need to get rid of Morrow and Petro </li> </ol> <p>Details after the jump.</p> <p><b>Signing and trading dwill</b></p> <p>I don't know shit about how signing and trading works. All I know is:</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li>The nets can give dwill the most money (according to posters around here)</li> <li>Dwill has not played to his peak level as a net - his load is too high (usage up, shooting down)</li> <li>There's a ton of PG talent in FA, not much at SG and SF</li> </ol> <p>Given that it seems like signing and trading is better for everyone: dwill gets his money and hopefully a better situation for him (less load). The nets have an opportunity to use him in a trade, ideally to get a top SG or SF. I think NY (Melo), Indy (Granger+?), Philly (Iggy+?), or Denver (Lawson+Gallo) make some sense. I think Gay is too big a contract. We would have to sign a PG in FA (Nash, Lin, Billups, Jameer, Dragic, or combo G Lou Williams) or get one in the trade.<br><b></b> <br><b><br>Dumping Hump and Lopez</b></p> <p>Hump and Lopez are 2 of the <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Nets</a>' best players from their latest roster. I still think we dump them because:</p> <ol> <li>Hump and Lopez will (probably) be expensive, but they're not elite</li> <li>In FA there is better talent and cheaper talent</li> </ol> <p>For PF I'm thinking KG, Ily, Novak, Bass, <a href="" class="sbn-auto-link">Carl Landry</a>. For C I'm thinking KG (he plays both!), Stiemsma, Hawes, Turiaf, Mahinmi. All of those guys would be better, cheaper, or both.</p> <p>I think this is a great year to rebuild our front court. My dream pairing, Ily+KG, would be one of the best in the NBA. But even if we can't get those guys, I still think there's talent out there. The talent pools aren't as good at 2 and 3 which is why I expect we'll try to re-sign Farmar (for combo guard, 2ish spot) and Wallace. That and King has said so RE: Wallace. <br><br><br><b>Morrow and Petro</b></p> <p>This doesn't really need saying, but these guys hold our team back:</p> <ol> <li>Their talent suggests 2nd-3rd team</li> <li>They're being paid 1.5 team money</li> <li>They only have 1 year contracts now ($7.5M together)</li> </ol> <p>If we want to make the most impact this season (sign the most FAs, get multiple stars), ideally we lose the 7.5M tied up in them. Because they only have 1 year contracts that could make them attractive in a trade. Worst case scenario we just live with them on the roster for another year.</p> <p><br><b>Again...</b></p> <p>To repeat the bottom line: we should sign and trade dwill, replace our front court, and hopefully dump Morrow and Petro.</p>