Call it pushing an agenda, whatever you want. It’s time we play our shooters as this isn’t 2005 anymore. I love Naji and Jose, seriously I do. They’re good enough to help us bully low-tier teams but not good enough to help us compete against the elite level teams in this league.
Playing Hawk and Matt Ryan will not only give us a few extra points offensively but it’s the affect they have on the rest of the court. You can find a plethora amount of tape of Naji or Jose’s man leaving them to either double or collapse on Zion or CJ as they’re driving. Will Naji and Jose both hit 3’s from time to time? Yes. The difference with playing actual shooters is you can’t leave Hawk’s hip. I encourage you to look at the 2 min of tape from last night when Z-Hawk-and Naji were at the top of the key. Guess who’s man the Thunder sent to double?
You can point to other problems – CJ’s lack of clutchness, JV getting pulled for no reason, Z needing to demand the ball, etc. But if we want to start finishing comebacks, if we want to increase leads in the fourth quarter – this is the way. Z gets easier drives, CJ gets more room to work, JV will be 1-1 when backing down post players. The slight defensive bump is just not worth losing the entire universe of offense that sitting our shooters entails.
NOLA_haze7
Another post in this sub made me think, say we hypothetically had thabo sefolosha on the team. And then we draft rookie damian lillard. Do you, in your heart of hearts, think Willie would allow damian to play over thabo? Tbh I’d put my life savings on him saying damian just isn’t ready defensively yet and continue to play thabo over him.
It’s really crazy how much Willie will take the slightest bump in defense over any gap in offensive talent. Starting to really give me Mark Jackson Warriors vibes.
slim-uncle-brandon
Would like to see Hawk get some minutes. I think taking minutes away from Naji, Jose, and Dyson for Matt Ryan going into the playoffs is insane. Naji and Jose have won us multiple games this year – people forget I swear
Illustrious_Figzzz
Naji and Jose gave us our only win against a playoff team since BI went down.
And let’s not act like Hawk or Matt Ryan were stopping OKC from scoring 70 in the 1st half.
sonics_fan
Sure, let’s remove the two players who have the best on-off numbers on the entire team (Jose +8.7, Naji +7.1) and replace them with the one player who has the worst on-off numbers on the entire team (Hawkins -8.7). Makes complete sense.
JasonHannan
As usual, one loss and this sub freaks out
Aggravating-Lake-717
Hopefully Jose is ok
That being said, Hawk deserve some minutes. He provides spacing
7 Comments
Last time I felt passionate enough to make a post was here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/NOLAPelicans/comments/148iv19/to_my_12_who_want_to_trade_our_only_mvp_caliber/](https://www.reddit.com/r/NOLAPelicans/comments/148iv19/to_my_12_who_want_to_trade_our_only_mvp_caliber/)
Call it pushing an agenda, whatever you want. It’s time we play our shooters as this isn’t 2005 anymore. I love Naji and Jose, seriously I do. They’re good enough to help us bully low-tier teams but not good enough to help us compete against the elite level teams in this league.
Playing Hawk and Matt Ryan will not only give us a few extra points offensively but it’s the affect they have on the rest of the court. You can find a plethora amount of tape of Naji or Jose’s man leaving them to either double or collapse on Zion or CJ as they’re driving. Will Naji and Jose both hit 3’s from time to time? Yes. The difference with playing actual shooters is you can’t leave Hawk’s hip. I encourage you to look at the 2 min of tape from last night when Z-Hawk-and Naji were at the top of the key. Guess who’s man the Thunder sent to double?
You can point to other problems – CJ’s lack of clutchness, JV getting pulled for no reason, Z needing to demand the ball, etc. But if we want to start finishing comebacks, if we want to increase leads in the fourth quarter – this is the way. Z gets easier drives, CJ gets more room to work, JV will be 1-1 when backing down post players. The slight defensive bump is just not worth losing the entire universe of offense that sitting our shooters entails.
Another post in this sub made me think, say we hypothetically had thabo sefolosha on the team. And then we draft rookie damian lillard. Do you, in your heart of hearts, think Willie would allow damian to play over thabo? Tbh I’d put my life savings on him saying damian just isn’t ready defensively yet and continue to play thabo over him.
It’s really crazy how much Willie will take the slightest bump in defense over any gap in offensive talent. Starting to really give me Mark Jackson Warriors vibes.
Would like to see Hawk get some minutes. I think taking minutes away from Naji, Jose, and Dyson for Matt Ryan going into the playoffs is insane. Naji and Jose have won us multiple games this year – people forget I swear
Naji and Jose gave us our only win against a playoff team since BI went down.
And let’s not act like Hawk or Matt Ryan were stopping OKC from scoring 70 in the 1st half.
Sure, let’s remove the two players who have the best on-off numbers on the entire team (Jose +8.7, Naji +7.1) and replace them with the one player who has the worst on-off numbers on the entire team (Hawkins -8.7). Makes complete sense.
As usual, one loss and this sub freaks out
Hopefully Jose is ok
That being said, Hawk deserve some minutes. He provides spacing