HALLELUKA: Luka Clinches All-NBA 1st team. 4th in 5 years

[fifteenth]

So, I see where that "sandbox" idea is coming from, to an extent.

I haven't thought of it as "playing in the sandbox" which sounds kind of haphazard. But we have heard from both Kidd and Nico (Kidd mulitiple times) something like "we'll see what we have around Christmas", "we'll know more about our team after 20 or 25 games". 

My interpretation of those statements has been that they have as a goal, to spend a somewhat predetermined time of the season doing information gathering for the sake of future planning. And my guess is that the information would be for the Coach to use the data to make decisions on how to proceed with lineups and system. And my guess is that the front office would use that information to inform their roster vision and plans. 

Related to all this, but slightly diffrent, are the comments about diversifying the offense and having some players do more because the Luka centric spread pick and roll has limitations if it's the only thing the team can do. It makes the team too predictable in the playoffs and puts an massive load on Luka. In my mind, that's where the experimentation comes in. It looks like there is experimentation for individual players to see if they can expand their role, and experimentation with the offensive system. 

NOTE: I could be wrong on the system though. Maybe that's just flat out decided and what we're seeing is just the process of learning the system. 

If I take all this and apply it to the questions about Luka, it leads me to speculate that Kidd is actually asking Luka to do less for the sake of the team. And it's possible that taking the foot off the gass a little, and intentionally letting others do their thing, is an adjustment for Luka that he has to work through. And that adjustment could account for what we see as Luka being less effective.