Current Team: Stay The Course or Shake It Up?

[Proudiddy]

With the way the team is currently constructed, and subsequently playing, I thought we should have a definitive thread on your opinion of whether we should stay the course with the guys we have, or should we be looking to make a significant move.

It's hard to put my finger on what is exactly at the root of our problems. I have stated a million times that I was a Born Ready fan since way back, but I wasnt a fan of the signing with the way the team was already setup. He has to have the ball A lot offensively to impact the game on that end, and the problem there is that Kemba and AL also dominate the ball at their respective positions. I had a feeling that was going to cause us some problems going into the season this year, but, I was hoping for the best.

Now the problem is, if you were going to shake things up, do you move one of those guys, or do you try to add complimentary pieces around them and hope it fixes things. The issue there is, Kemba and Lance can't really be moved right now, iirc, due to their newer contracts. And AL is a weapon many teams would love to have offensively, I just fear that his need for the ball offensively limits our offense tremendously because he isn't the greatest Passer and is fairly one dimensional. When he could dominate the ball last season, it made up for his deficiencies on the defensive end. This season, he doesn't get the ball enough to do what he did last season, and he appears to have regressed even more so as a defender when he was pretty bad to begin with.

Is the answer already on the roster? I think it's possible, but it's hard to tell with Clifford's horrible rotations. We've barely seen MKG this season, and when we have Cliff inexplicably only plays him 20-some minutes. What could help our "big three" tremendously is surefire shooters on the outside - Neal and PJ fit that role. But again, it's like he doesn't know when to play who and with whom does he play them with. And with those guys out there, where does MKG fit? You can always use a guy with his skill set, especially with his increased ability and confidence on the offensive end, but if Neal and PJ are logging serious minutes, where does he play?

It just seems like we have several great individual pieces that just don't make a very good collective unit as a whole. I could see troubles, but not like this... We look atrocious. We looked better last season. We need to fix it and quick... But I'll leave the discussion to you all, because I'm not sure what we should do to fix it at this point?

[carolina-chuck]

Roy Hibbert?

[yasuhara2241]

Stay the course. Way too early to determine how this team will look come end of the year. I say if we are still looking terrible end of december and beginning of january now we can start to panic. 

 

82 games is a lot of games and we are introducing 2 new starters and pretty much an entirely new bench rotation. Now take into account all the injuries thus far and that equals a recipe for instability and bad play. 

Why do you think we have one amazing quarter or half and then a completely terrible one? Right now we have a bunch of individuals playing 1 on 1 basketball. My hope is that they can start playing as a unit but Im thinking end of dec. 

[bLACKpANTHER]

Stay the course.. when MKG and Neal come back the 30 pt losses will be a things of the past

 

but i agree it doesnt look good right now

[pantherfan49]

Too early to panic. 

 

But the lack of a good passer on this team really hurts.  I don't want this to turn into a bash Kemba thread where Chuck goes off, but the Hornets are really limited offensively when your PG can't shoot and can't pass.  Last year the Bobs played really good defense and that made up for some offensive limitations but the defense appears to have left all of Carolina's sports teams this year.

 

McBob is missed.  

[cbarrier90]

Too early to panic.

But the lack of a good passer on this team really hurts. I don't want this to turn into a bash Kemba thread where Chuck goes off, but the Hornets are really limited offensively when your PG can't shoot and can't pass. Last year the Bobs played really good defense and that made up for some offensive limitations but the defense appears to have left all of Carolina's sports teams this year.

McBob is missed.

Al-fense from the Van Gundy tree requires shooters on the perimeter to take advantage of the matchup down low (see Magic Finals team.)

The problem is the acquisitions made in the offseason can't shoot and are never going to be spot up shooters. You're trying to fit a round peg in a square hole. The strength offensively of this team one would think could be in one of those high flying fast paced suns offenses but that completely negates what Al does and you're still left with marginal shooters.

Of course Lance is going to get the blame, but the real culprit here is Marvin. He's not a factor at all offensively and undersized to defend the power forward position. When he can't defend his side that completely exposes Al and everything falls apart.

It's important to note that Al and Kemba haven't changed from last season. If anything, the young players around them from that team have improved drastically. The problem is the personnel and system that was able to hide their deficiencies is no longer there, and so we are seeing too many defensive breakdowns. To make matters worse, the secret is out about how to stop us and Al can't pass out of triple teams because, again, he has no shooters.

It's too early and the east is too bad and the early schedule too brutal to be making any blockbuster fire sales just yet, but if we can weather the storm of this early part of the schedule (it doesn't get any better for awhile) hovering around .500 we can hit the eastern part of the schedule running and be buyers at the deadline and find some much needed upgrades.

It's a weird team and it's been a weird season.

[Proudiddy]

In regards to Marvin, I sidestepped that issue bc its obvious he is a huge part of the problem. He was brought in to space the floor, but he is so hit or miss that he isn't a real threat to do so, and as you mentioned, his deficiencies across the board negate any impact he occasionally makes offensively.

He can still be a valuable asset in the right role, but right now he is horribly miscast. I still argue there are too many guys that need the ball to be effective offensively, and having guys like Marvin just exacerbate it.

[cbarrier90]

In regards to Marvin, I sidestepped that issue bc its obvious he is a huge part of the problem. He was brought in to space the floor, but he is so hit or miss that he isn't a real threat to do so, and as you mentioned, his deficiencies across the board negate any impact he occasionally makes offensively.

He can still be a valuable asset in the right role, but right now he is horribly miscast. I still argue there are too many guys that need the ball to be effective offensively, and having guys like Marvin just exacerbate it.

I think he could be good on a second unit of Roberts, Hairston, Zeller and Biz designed to just put up points but the front office was so concerned about spacing they sacrificed the defensive identity AND failed to get an offensive boost.

That's why Kenneth Faried on the block fascinates me. I don't know about his shooting (at first guess I'd say it's not that good) but he covers Al's defense and rebounding. A front line with MKG and the Manimal would be an absolute nightmare. Add in Lance to grab some more additional rebounds and run in transition and this thing could get turned around.

But that's none of my business...*sips tea*

[JJman]

If we are gonna shake it up then the most logical thing to do is to trade Al. No doubt Al is my second favorite BOBCAT of all time but as of now he plays with no interest in defense and no aggressiveness on the boards (I think having Lance has made him lazy). Al would be the best player on the block by far and I could see teams like the Knicks, Lakers, and Celtics being interested if they don't have themselves set on tanking the (lol, yea right) season. Unfortunately none of those teams have anything we'd be interested in. So how about one interesting possibility? The Raptors. Maybe they'd do this trade, maybe they wouldn't. But I'd think very long about this.

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=m9xoje2

[WUnderhill]

Did anybody really look at our early season schedule and expect a rosy record at this point?

 

We also get to play @ Indiana on the 10 yr. anniversary of the Malice at the Palace. One quote I read went "Who authorized this schedule?"

 

All we can do is hope the adversity does us some good down the road.

[Plewis]

Did anybody really look at our early season schedule and expect a rosy record at this point?

 

We also get to play @ Indiana on the 10 yr. anniversary of the Malice at the Palace. One quote I read went "Who authorized this schedule?"

 

All we can do is hope the adversity does us some good down the road.

 

Don't we have like 17 back-to-back's, most in the NBA? That shows we either put no effort to get a decent schedule or we have zero clout to do so.

[RoaringRiot]

Don't we have like 17 back-to-back's, most in the NBA? That shows we either put no effort to get a decent schedule or we have zero clout to do so.

It was actually because they made a request to have as many home games on the weekend as possible.

[Omega Atrocity]

Way too early to consider blowing it up. Ask again about Christmas time.

[MCC]

Stay the course! There are 71 games left in the season!!!!!!!!