(01-04-2021, 04:27 PM)dirkfansince1998 Wrote: The Powell/THJ bashing is getting out of hand.I think there's a lot to this. It's sort of in the nature of fan boards to scapegoat players, and this one is better than most about that, but some people are putting a lot on Powell and THJ that doesn't really belong on them. If one were to replace all of Powell's minutes with Maxi, WCS, Bobi, and Johnson, and replace all of Tim's minutes with the other guards, I see nothing to indicate that the team would be likely to have done better, and may well have done worse. The alternatives to those two players all have their own issues.
It´s not like they are any worse (or better) than the other options. Yesterday WCS was worse than Powell has ever been this season but I don´t see anyone questioning him. When THJ is the only one that shows up against the Hornets and plays great defense in the next game against the Heat no one mentions it. But after a bad game the entire community cannot wait to throw him under the bus.
Yes the Mavs need more/better playmaking from the perimeter. But why is that on THJ? Can we at least question what anyone not named Doncic (or Brunson against the Bulls) is doing on offense. We all know that THJ is not a good 1st or 2nd option. Neither is Richardson. We also know that both are a lot better as spot up shooters.
Powell's injury is what it is, and he necessarily will have to operate within those limitations. Rick and the medical team evidently think he can get closer to where he used to be, and I don't have any information to the contrary. He is actually much smarter than WCS, who seems to be a bit of a coach's nightmare -- a guy that you never know what you're going to get when he's on the floor. Tim's assignment is to be the team's second scoring option while KP is out, and he is obviously trying to broaden his game. Volume shooters inherently have up and down nights.
Part of the overall issue is, tbh, using these players in ways they're not good at. For example, iirc, they had put Tim on LaVine when Zach got going. What were they expecting? A lot better defenders than THJ have been stifled in attempts to stop LaVine. I'm not really throwing stones at Carlisle, either -- he always experiments early in the season, and some experiments inevitably are going to work better than others.
This isn't really intended to be so much a defense of Powell and THJ as a comment that the Mavs' issues aren't nearly as simple as taking a couple of complementary players off the court and substituting others for them. Maybe they will be flipped eventually, maybe they won't, but for now, I think the best course of action is in helping them try to improve, hard as that is to stomach in the short run.