01-13-2023, 05:08 PM
(01-13-2023, 05:03 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: My take on this notion that great players can’t fit with Luka because he has the ball too much was summed up nicely by Charles Barkley last night:
“Jalen Brunson didn’t just magically become a good player last year. They gave him the ball.”
He also said things like “they won because they took the ball out of Luka’s hands” and “Luka doesn’t have to make every play.”
I agree with all of that, and believe that what is needed is not “merry men” but the most talented players possible (with some good merry men mixed in, obvs).
The thing is, there needs to be willingness on both sides to make the situation work. Said players have to know coming in that they are here to play with Luka, and the Mavs need to do a good job of using said players’ strengths to the team’s benefit. I believe we are starting to see this work to fairly decent effect right now with Christian Wood.
When it comes to Porziņģis, I personally don’t believe the problem was not having the ball in his hands, because I remember them throwing it to him at the elbow so many times every game that I wanted to kill myself. The problem was that he did absolutely nothing with those opportunities.
It's why my dream has been Lillard even if he has no desire to leave Portland. He's show great leadership by trusting CJ (when he was there) and by helping to develop some of the younger players on the team (Simons in particular). He's the type of player who would have no problem letting the majority of the burden fall on Luka but also someone with enough stature for Luka to trust and share the ball. Luka needs to be that guy but he will share the ball if he trusts the player he is passing to.