Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[KillerLeft]

I do truly believe this.

We don't have to continue the conversation if you don't want to, that's totally fine. I'm entrenched in the idea that THJ is too hot and cold for this team to ever be truly competitive. We have evidence replacing THJ with someone who can handle the ball and facilitate while hitting 3s (Dinwiddie), catapulted that team from meh to great. I think Exum has shown he can replicate a lot of what we had with Dinwiddie. 

Let's just agree to disagree

When Hardaway is gone, you’ll think the next shooter is too hot and cold. After that one, you will think the next one is too hot and cold. On and on. 

Shooters shoot. Sometimes they miss. The best ones have a very short memory and almost no conscience, and most importantly are ENCOURAGED to shoot by their teams. Hardaway is easily the best catch and shoot player on the Mavs, and he’s one of the better ones in the NBA. The percentages are what they are because he goes into every game with the mentality that he has to get shots up - no matter what. The thing that people don’t understand is that at the professional level, only the best shooters deal in the kind of volume Hardaway does. The percentage should be tracked, certainly, but it’s his ability to get credible shots off at high volume, despite everyone in the arena knowing that’s the goal, that makes him.

If all he shot were open corner threes, like Green, for example, his percentage would go up but the Mavs’ offense would be much worse than it is. That’s really saying something, because it’s pretty bad sometimes. I can think of like 10 games just off the top of my head for the last couple of months that would’ve been blowouts if it hadn’t been for Hardaway keeping them connected, entire quarters and halves at a time. 

It’s like people think him shooting is preventing somebody better from shooting. That’s pretty dumb, honestly. The evidence is right in front of us – he wants the ball, when so many others are too scared of the moment. Yes, I would much rather the ball be in Luka’s hands, or Kyrie’s, but when it’s forced out and starts to move, there is literally nobody on this team I’d rather it find than Hardaway. I don’t know how people don’t get this, but THJ is shooting as often as he does because that is what the team believes is it’s best chance to score efficiently in certain situations (a lot of situations).

Doesn’t seem like people are wanting to give him credit for the uptick in drives and paint scoring we are seeing this year, so I won’t bring that up. Maybe we can talk about his mid-range pull up game that’s effective all of a sudden.

No? We all just want a scapegoat because we’re bored with the team and mad that it’s not winning? Ok. 

My favorite part of this is that once he’s gone, the team will still not measure up to expectations, and there will be another scapegoat, and another. Then, a couple of years later, we’ll start seeing good box scores, and a whole crop of people will appear who wonder “why didn’t it work here with THJ?” We’re seeing it right now with Porziņģis, and tons of the same people who hate Hardaway thought Brunson was overrated and wouldn’t be missed that much.

Hardaway is not the problem here. They can certainly move on from him if/when something works out, But that’s not gonna fill the holes in all of your bad-fan hearts, I’m afraid. Heck, I don’t even think roster construction in general is the problem. I think this is a young team with a young superstar and a terrible coach. Quite literally, they do not know how to win. That’s it.