Lively should be the starter if he can hold up at all. I'm guessing he is in foul trouble quite a bit, but he needs the experience. Mavs had about as good of a summer as possible considering their ****ty assets. If they hadn't mega-tanked the last 2 games of the year they wouldn't have Lively. Prosper. and Holmes while dumping Bertans. I'm curious to see how Prosper's shot develops and to see how many minutes he can carve out minutes. It seems like defensively he is already the kind of big wing the Mavs haven't had in a while.

Other open questions are about Hardy and Green. Is Hardy going to be good enough to steal minutes from THJ? If not, he could get buried pretty far in the bench. I think he showed some good potential last year. Is Green going to be good enough to play 30 minutes per game with the starters? Sometimes he just disappears out there. I could see one or both of them being potential trade bait depending on what is available and how the Mavs feel about their squad in the West.

I'm hoping for pretty big things this year, mainly due to increased minutes and improved play from Hardy and Green. But our coaching situation is giving me major pause. If both are given a chance and aren't demoted to no playing time the first few times they screw up, I think their energy and play making will really help us out. And Grant Williams should allow us to get very creative with lineups and rotations (or at least we could if we didn't have a dud of a coach).

This team should get out and run. Hopefully Luka will embrace that, but I have my doubts. And he's got to move the ball more and not dribble the clock out over and over. We now have multiple playmakers so there is no excuse for Luka iso-ball all 4th quarter long. I'm sick of the step back 3s. Again, if we had a good coach I'd be much more confident in Luka improving in these areas.

So…how do we convince the Blazers to take THJ for Jrue Holiday? Anybody got any good blackmail photos of their GM?

J.P. 03 said:

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So…how do we convince the Blazers to take THJ for Jrue Holiday? Anybody got any good blackmail photos of their GM?

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Go for the triple point guard lineup

Dallas Mavericks

• Players on guaranteed standard contracts: 14
  
  • Seth Curry, Luka Doncic, Dante Exum, Josh Green, Tim Hardaway Jr., Jaden Hardy, Richaun Holmes, Kyrie Irving, Derrick Jones, Maxi Kleber, Dereck Lively, Dwight Powell, Olivier-Maxence Prosper, Grant Williams
• Players on non-guaranteed standard contracts: 1
  
  • Markieff Morris ($200K partial guarantee)
• Players on Exhibit 10 contracts: 3
  
  • Greg Brown, Jordan Walker, Joe Wieskamp
• Players on two-way contracts: 2
  
  • A.J. Lawson, Mike Miles

Mavs tip off against the T-Wolves in Abu Dhabi in 30 minutes. I believe Mavs.com is streaming the game.

Mavs starting lineup is Luka, Kyrie, O-Max, Grant, and Lively.

No Ant for Minnesota, which sucks because I wanted to see how O-Max did on him. Hopefully he plays in the second game on Saturday.

I don't understand baseball. Why do the rangers and astros pop champagne after winning a single playoff series? Lol imagine if the Nuggets had a champagne shower for beating OKC in the playoffs last year.

M.C. Swag said:

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I don't understand baseball. Why do the rangers and astros pop champagne after winning a single playoff series? Lol imagine if the Nuggets had a champagne shower for beating OKC in the playoffs last year.

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Lol I think it's because for the longest time there was only one playoff series and then even after that there was only the LCS then WS for a while. It was just a tradition that didn't die.

They all do it and it's been a thing as long as I can remember. Back in the day, you had to win your division to even make the playoffs, and there were only 4 divisions and a massive 162 game season. So basically, it was a huge deal to even make the playoffs. Plus, if you won a series, it was a pennant.

That was basically the deal until the mid-1990s when they added a "central" division and a wild card team. That's been expanded again with the wild card play-in, but the champagne tradition has remained. Because it's baseball, and tradition trumps.

Ya I just never paid attention. Baseball is weird.

Not gonna lie, I don't feel very good about the season after going 0-3 against the Timberwolves and Real Madrid.

The offense looked like the same out of sync unit it did last season against Minnesota and the defense/rebounding had no answer for KAT and Gobert. Luka only played a few minutes against RM and Kyrie didn't play at all, but an NBA team should still win that game.

The game is way too fast for O Max right now and Lively doesn't seem to quite get it yet, IMO. Hopefully they will get better as the season moves on and they play more.

I thought Josh Green looked good, though. He can really make some nice passes.

The season usually starts really rough for teams that come back from the overseas preseason tour. Hopefully they team can find their groove after a couple weeks of regular season basketball.

shack009 said:

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Not gonna lie, I don't feel very good about the season after going 0-3 against the Timberwolves and Real Madrid.

The offense looked like the same out of sync unit it did last season against Minnesota and the defense/rebounding had no answer for KAT and Gobert. Luka only played a few minutes against RM and Kyrie didn't play at all, but an NBA team should still win that game.

The game is way too fast for O Max right now and Lively doesn't seem to quite get it yet, IMO. Hopefully they will get better as the season moves on and they play more.

I thought Josh Green looked good, though. He can really make some nice passes.

The season usually starts really rough for teams that come back from the overseas preseason tour. Hopefully they team can find their groove after a couple weeks of regular season basketball.

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Ya the rookies aren't ready but Lively isn't gonna have a choice but to play right away. Did you see Holmes in that RM match? He and Jelly Walker were single handedly responsible for blowing that game. They were absolutely atrocious in a way that made me wonder how they're even in the league at all.

I actually didn't watch the end, which is a good thing because I can't stand watching Jelly. But we were losing all game and we had a nice 5 minute stretch where we took a 10ish point lead and that was about all that was good from the game.

Sucks to hear about Holmes. I wasn't expecting anything from him, but was semi hopeful. Looks like it's going to be a lot of Lively and Powell.

I try not to put too much into exhibition basketball, but damn we look sloppy

Haven't watched any preseason yet, but y'all's posts are depressing me. Oh, and Luka's ankle is tweaked. Could he really miss the opener? Someone pump some sunshine on the 23-24 season, please.

Luka/Kyrie becomes the best tandem in the NBA?
Green jumps to All Star level?
Kidd spent the offseason being mentored by Phil Jackson?
Grant Williams a candidate for DPOY?

"Hope is a dangerous thing..."

NoahAg said:

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Haven't watched any preseason yet, but y'all's posts are depressing me. Oh, and Luka's ankle is tweaked. Could he really miss the opener? Someone pump some sunshine on the 23-24 season, please.

Luka/Kyrie becomes the best tandem in the NBA?
Green jumps to All Star level?
Kidd spent the offseason being mentored by Phil Jackson?
Grant Williams a candidate for DPOY?

"Hope is a dangerous thing..."

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We have a 25 yr old PG that is on his 4th consecutive season as an All NBA 1st Team selection. If the Mavs defense improves from worst in the league to simply below average, we're competing for a top 6 seed in the west.

M.C. Swag said:

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NoahAg said:

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Haven't watched any preseason yet, but y'all's posts are depressing me. Oh, and Luka's ankle is tweaked. Could he really miss the opener? Someone pump some sunshine on the 23-24 season, please.

Luka/Kyrie becomes the best tandem in the NBA?
Green jumps to All Star level?
Kidd spent the offseason being mentored by Phil Jackson?
Grant Williams a candidate for DPOY?

"Hope is a dangerous thing..."

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We have a 25 yr old PG that is on his 4th consecutive season as an All NBA 1st Team selection. If the Mavs defense improves from worst in the league to simply below average, we're competing for a top 6 seed in the west.

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Luka is 24 til Feb

Just got done listening to the annual NBA over/under pods with Simmons, Rusillo, and House. At the end of the last episode, Rusillo made the Mavs over one of his locks. Bill Simmons vehemently disagreed and had the mavs under, but not as a lock.

It's interesting that Rusillo likes the team, especially since those guys hate Kyrie. Gives me some hope that a guy that knows more basketball than most really likes the Mavs to get at least in to the mid 40s in wins, which I believe would be top 6.

shack009 said:

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Just got done listening to the annual NBA over/under pods with Simmons, Rusillo, and House. At the end of the last episode, Rusillo made the Mavs over one of his locks. Bill Simmons vehemently disagreed and had the mavs under, but not as a lock.

It's interesting that Rusillo likes the team, especially since those guys hate Kyrie. Gives me some hope that a guy that knows more basketball than most really likes the Mavs to get at least in to the mid 40s in wins, which I believe would be top 6.

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I'm shocked, SHOCKED that Simmons was tanking on the Mavs.

It's not surprising but not unreasonable, in this case. I wouldn't bet this, but I would lean for the under on the mavs win total. I just don't see the drastic improvement from a team that won 37 last year. Hope I'm wrong.

shack009 said:

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It's not surprising but not unreasonable, in this case. I wouldn't bet this, but I would lean for the under on the mavs win total. I just don't see the drastic improvement from a team that won 37 last year. Hope I'm wrong.

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Excuse me, but they won 38! lol

The argument for improvement is:

• Adding Grant Williams to the 4/5 rotation
• Internal growth of Green and Hardy off the bench
• Full season of Luka+Kyrie (fingers crossed)
• Not tanking 2 games

If OMax and Lively (especially Lively) can contribute anything, then a 5-6 game improvement isn't unlikely. The Mavs also had like historically bad luck when it came to clutch time losses.

Is it unlucky, or is it inevitable when the star player is out of shape and has already had the ball all game, and the defense and rebounding aren't good?

shack009 said:

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Is it unlucky, or is it inevitable when the star player is out of shape and has already had the ball all game, and the defense and rebounding aren't good?

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Little bit of both.

M.C. Swag said:

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shack009 said:

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It's not surprising but not unreasonable, in this case. I wouldn't bet this, but I would lean for the under on the mavs win total. I just don't see the drastic improvement from a team that won 37 last year. Hope I'm wrong.

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Excuse me, but they won 38! lol

The argument for improvement is:

• Adding Grant Williams to the 4/5 rotation
• Internal growth of Green and Hardy off the bench
• Full season of Luka+Kyrie (fingers crossed)
• Not tanking 2 games

If OMax and Lively (especially Lively) can contribute anything, then a 5-6 game improvement isn't unlikely. The Mavs also had like historically bad luck when it came to clutch time losses.

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I think the mavs will probably be better, especially if Green/Hardy continue to grow with the bigger minutes.

Holmes and Williams should add some toughness, something VetMinWood didn't have.

Adding Curry's spot shooting should be really huge to have around Kyrie/Luka.

I'm a big fan of Grant Williams and I think Dallas is a really good fit for him.

Outside of Kyrie/Luka last year, the only shooters really were Hardy and Green, who combined for just 6 3ptA/game due to limited minutes (combined 40mpg in just 108 combined games). Then you had Hardaway at 39% on almost 8 3ptA/game, Bullock at 38% on 5 3ptA/game and Bertans, who was a 10mpg garbage time player.

This year, I would expect Hardy/Green to play a ton more. Green will easily be a 30mpg guy. Hardy 25-30mpg. I could see their 3ptA going from combined 6/game to 12-14/game.

Grant Williams hit 41% and 40% the last two seasons from 3 and is a career 43% from the corner. Luka and Kyrie should create a lot better for him than Tatum/Smart.

Seth Curry is obviously an elite spot up shooter. Career 44%. Career 50% from the corner. That's insane. He was 41% on catch and shoot 3s and 41% on pull up threes. He hit 45% of his wide open threes.

Dante Exum hit 45% of his threes in international ball. If he gives you anything, that's a win.

Dexter Dennis will probably be an All-NBA player by 2025 and MVP candidate by 2026.

Maxi played less than half the games last year. If he can return to his 20-21 form and give 20 solid minutes for 65 games, that would be a huge boost.

As long as Kidd or whoever else can figure out how to make Kyrie/Luka work together, I think this will be much better. Lively is raw, but will probably give more than JaVale did.


--------------

For the bigs, you go from Powell (1500minutes), Bertans, JaVale, Wood, Maxi - with only Wood/Powell logging over 950 minutes to Powell, Lively, Holmes, Maxi, Grant Williams - and I think it is clear that is a huge upgrade, especially defensively. You have more toughness, strength, and defense for sure. Grant adds a LOT more swagger.

For points, you still have Luka/Kyrie, but they had an off-season, training camp, pre-season to work together. Theoretically, they should work together better with more experience.

For the wings, you lose Bullock, who I liked, but he chose to go to Houston of all places, so he clearly isn't a winner. Hardaway is back, but could be traded at any time. Hardy and Green will give more minutes (combined just 2200 minutes last year - less than Bullock by himself) and I think everyone is pleased with their development. Seth Curry played 1200 minutes last year. I don't see any reason why he wouldn't be able to handle a spot up role and put up 10-12pt in 20 mpg. Exum should give at least as much as Frank the Tank.

If Lively and Holmes can play well enough (and Maxi be healthy enough) to let Powell be more of a 12-15mpg guy, I think Powell will be a better contributor. The development/improvement of Hardy/Green should replace Bullock. I think Grant will be a huge improvement over Wood/Bertans and OMax may give you some tough minutes at SF/PF by the end of the season, too. Curry definitely and maybe Exum help upgrade the second team.

Better shooting, better defense, continued development of the PG duo as well as Hardy/Green and better luck in health, and a full off-season of how to scheme for two of the best individual point guards in the league with 3-4 great shooters around them and I don't see how Dallas isn't in the 44-50 win range.

The small ball look with Williams - Hardaway - Green - Luka - Kyrie would be incredibly hard for most teams to defend and that is a killer 3pt shooting team around Luka. But you can also run a 2nd team look with Holmes-Maxi-Hardy-Curry-Kyrie is a fairly solid 2nd team that could fill up a lot of points.

So yeah, I think Dallas is improved pretty much everywhere. Wood put some points up, but probably gave up more than that to his man, which is why no one really wanted him and the only place that took him was a place where you could hide his defensive liabilities next to AD and LeBron.

The only place you could say was a downgrade was losing Bullock and having to replace his 2400 minutes with more minutes from Green, more minutes from Hardy, Derrick Jones, whatever you get from OMax, and Hardaway spending all his minutes at SF/PF now and none at SG since there is added depth at PG/SG with a rotation of Luka, Kyrie, Hardy, Curry, Exum, and MVP Dexter.

Unless a major injury bug comes along, I just don't see how this team could win less than 45 games.

Solid analysis. I would love for Hardy to get more minutes but Kidd is signaling that THJ is going to be the heavy minutes-getter off the bench. Kidd has said he told THJ he wants him to get 6th man of the year.

I do expect a jump from Josh Green, but he will get a lot of tough defensive assignments, so he better be ready to play good defense and hit catch-and-shoot 3s.

I'm not upset about losing Bullock at all. He shoots like 20% before the calendar turns and he is no threat to attack a closeout. I think the stat is that he drove the ball 0.5 times per game last year.

Ultimately, the team will go as Luka and Kyrie go, and more specifically, how Luka goes in the final 5 minutes of a close game. He better be in shape and stay in shape all year for this team to have a chance. Can't take any more 29-foot step backs in the final couple minutes just because you're too tired to drive.

Guitarsoup said:

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M.C. Swag said:

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shack009 said:

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It's not surprising but not unreasonable, in this case. I wouldn't bet this, but I would lean for the under on the mavs win total. I just don't see the drastic improvement from a team that won 37 last year. Hope I'm wrong.

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Excuse me, but they won 38! lol

The argument for improvement is:

• Adding Grant Williams to the 4/5 rotation
• Internal growth of Green and Hardy off the bench
• Full season of Luka+Kyrie (fingers crossed)
• Not tanking 2 games

If OMax and Lively (especially Lively) can contribute anything, then a 5-6 game improvement isn't unlikely. The Mavs also had like historically bad luck when it came to clutch time losses.

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Dexter Dennis will probably be an All-NBA player by 2025 and MVP candidate by 2026.

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Thought this was hilarious, btw. And apparently the Mavs will actually keep him around, which was surprising to me:

Report: Mavs will waive Mike Miles Jr. and sign Dexter Dennis, per @MazurFocus #MFFL pic.twitter.com/Vj6wZqylLG

— MFFL (@Mavs_FFL) October 13, 2023

Having Kyrie will help close out games.

shack009 said:

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Solid analysis. I would love for Hardy to get more minutes but Kidd is signaling that THJ is going to be the heavy minutes-getter off the bench. Kidd has said he told THJ he wants him to get 6th man of the year.

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I think that is a great role for him. I would probably start Luka+Kyrie and sit Luka first and have Kyrie run with THJ

Quote:

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I do expect a jump from Josh Green, but he will get a lot of tough defensive assignments, so he better be ready to play good defense and hit catch-and-shoot 3s.

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I think Green has to be a 30-32mpg guy this year. He was 25mpg last year. I think he will be fine there. Especially because on offense, they can probably spot him up and let him rest a bit. Throw him in the corner (70% of his three shots attempted there) and let Hardy/Hardaway do the cutting when Green has the tough assignment.

Quote:

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I'm not upset about losing Bullock at all. He shoots like 20% before the calendar turns and he is no threat to attack a closeout. I think the stat is that he drove the ball 0.5 times per game last year.

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Did you see what French Manute Bol did to him already?

WEMBY. pic.twitter.com/08qJq50ZUh

— Project Spurs (@projectspurs) October 19, 2023

Quote:

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Ultimately, the team will go as Luka and Kyrie go, and more specifically, how Luka goes in the final 5 minutes of a close game. He better be in shape and stay in shape all year for this team to have a chance. Can't take any more 29-foot step backs in the final couple minutes just because you're too tired to drive.

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Yep. I think that Kidd needs to be cognizant of how he distributes minutes.



This is Luka's pre-/post-All-star splits. Out of gas and heavy minutes.

This was the Mike DAntoni problem every year. He ran a 8 man rotation all year, his players lost their legs in the playoffs and their shots stopped falling. That why the Rockets went like 0-37 from three that one game and why every single DAntoni team ever has been a huge disappointment in the playoffs.

You have Kyrie and Luka. You can play each of them 30 minutes a game and have them fresh. Will Luka object because he wants his video game stats?

I like the over on our season win total this year, for most of the reasons GS described above. Our roster is drastically better this year in my opinion (especially when you consider we had Kyrie for an off season and will have him all year. Grant Williams should have a huge impact.

But I'd be much more confident if we had a different coach. I'm nervous that Kidd won't play Hardy and green enough and won't develop them at all.

I do understand this perspective, but it is a lot of projected improvement from young guys and probably an overrating of Grant Williams to just say with certainty the roster is 6-7 wins better.

It's wait and see mode for me.

Yea, I see the argument for the under. But adding an alll nba talent like Kyrie, getting improvement from young talents like hardy and green, and adding a guy like grant Williams who should be exactly what we need seems to easily be worth 6-7 wins. Adding Kyrie alone would likely be worth close to that for most teams. And Luka hopefully being in shape from the get go will also help a ton. I didn't like the over last year bc it was obvious we had no playmakers without Brunson and that would really hurt us. But we now have Kyrie plus hardy/green/Williams. I wouldn't consider willliams a playmaker but if he gets in 3 on 2 or 4 on 3 situations after teams double Luka/Kyrie I think he should be able to handle those situations (like draymond green).

Obviously Kyrie didn't work out last year but you have to hope it's better this year with an off-season to prepare. But there is the glaring coaching issue. , we have the same coach and if the plan is to just let both play hero ball then it likely won't work out. With a good coach, I think this team could be very dangerous. .

There's only 2 concerning elements to the Mavs hitting the under as I see it:

• Injuries to Kyrie or Luka - This one is basically guaranteed as both have missed substantial time in their career. We can't afford to have either go down for longer than a 5 game stretch and definitely can't have both go down or this season is tanked.
• Lively is unplayable - he's looked ok in the preseason but we'll see. Outside of Walker Kessler, rookie Cs are almost exclusively net negatives to their teams.

That's it. If we have injury luck and Lively can contribute 20-25 minutes of meaningful basketball, this team clears 45 wins. If not, I would bet money it's due to injury or lively being complete ass.

I like to follow this teams roster building strategy, but I wouldn't feel confident projecting how this will turn out. On the one hand Luka is good enough to be the best player on a championship winning team today. Literal championship upside. On the other hand, while I'm glad they refreshed the roster there is still the fundamental problem that almost everyone besides Luka/Kyrie falls into a solid 5th/6th/7th man category. For instance, if Grant Williams is my 5th/6th best player then I feel pretty good about that. However when Grant Williams is my 3rd best player then there is reason for concern.

I could see an elite coach like Spoelstra or Popavich elevating this club, but Kidd is nowhere in that class. So the variance on this season is pretty wide. I could see anything from Luka getting worn down again and the bottom falling out to LukaKai figuring out how to dominate while the role players mop up defensively. Probably the key to this thing is Josh Green. He is the only one on the roster who could make a legit jump to top ~75 player and fit a key defensive wing position between Luka and Kyrie.

jeffdjohnson said:

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For instance, if Grant Williams is my 5th/6th best player then I feel pretty good about that. However when Grant Williams is my 3rd best player then there is reason for concern.

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Ya I think 43.5 is a totally reasonable O/U. I'm not saying I'm "confident" they hit the over, but netting 6 more wins for the reasons I said before GS's soliloquy has me more optimistic in the over than the under.

And while this team is lacking a true #3, I think we have pretty solid depth of guys we can rely on as 5th dude (like you said). Reminds me of the 2011 Mavs a little (emphasis on LITTLE). That team didn't have a true #3 (especially after Butler went down) but was just solidly built in a complimentary way.

Now obviously this team isn't a contender and doesn't have the all-nba defenders that Marion and Chandler were, but to just get to 44 wins in a regular season? I think we can do it with 2 awesome players and 7 pretty good ones. Lol hell, we were relying on Frank Nkitilina and Theo Pinson in REAL games. Now we have Green, Hardy, Curry, and Exum to help bridge the non-Luka minutes.