[JJ Redick] What’s Up With The Warriors? | JJ Redick | OM3 Things Exclusive
November 7, 2022
[JJ Redick] What’s Up With The Warriors? | JJ Redick | OM3 Things Exclusive
7 comments
This has happened every year after the 73-9 season for a simple reason: Kerr knows that the regular season is a very long training camp for the playoffs.
Take teams like the Suns last year. Absolute beast in the regular season because they built a team that is versatile enough to play well against many styles of play, and their starting five create a lot of synergy.
Things change a lot during playoff times. Games are more intense and thus more rotation is required, and coaches/players have the time to really study their opponents and create counters to their style of play. Versatile teams fall to specialized teams, teams with a strong starting five fall to deep teams, and teams with innovative plays dominate those who relied on the same strategy the whole season.
This is why Kerr looks like an idiot every regular season and a genius every playoff. He is purposefully putting players from the third unit to play, and young players to live stressful situations during the regular season. He’s not just relying on the strategies he has used for almost a decade, but creating and testing new ones and allowing players to develop.
So I wouldn’t worry too much. People complained about poole/wiggins playing too much/shooting too much last season, and then during the playoffs everyone was surprised they developed tough skin and basketball IQ in the playoffs. It’s not a coincidence.
TL;DW:
JJ thinks the starters are awesome but the bench sucks top to bottom (except Ty Jerome). However he’s still bullish on our bench because he expects the whole bench to improve throughout the year and that Kerr will eventually figure out the right combination of players.
Every commentator does this: comparing the superstar-led lineup offense to that of another whole team (including their non-superstar minutes). It’s meaningless. You have to compare the Steph minutes to the Luka minutes, and the total Ws offense to total Mavs offense. You could find 10 teams with superstar minute offense better than the Mavs’
These takes are always “see the world through the eyes of people who don’t watch the warriors much”
What people overlook is that basketball is all about fit. The Jazz are winning right now, not because of stars, but because their pieces fit together. So with that context, our bench has solid pieces, but none of it fits together. And in particular, Wiseman is completely at odds stylistically with the Warriors pace and space system. Once we ditch the Wiseman experiment, JMG can go back to the 5, JK the 4, and suddenly everything will fit together again.
Only disagreeing on the ‘versatile’ point. It seems the Warriors were most dominant when they were versatile. If a team wanted to play big, Warriors could match them. And lots of lengthy defenders meant the team was versatile in the matchups. Teams that are specialized tend to fail in the playoffs because someone will figure it out — and then you’re done, because you can’t do anything else
Why is anyone questioning Kerr? The dude is a top 3 coach of all time. We have the best starting lineup in the league. Let them figure it out. It’s a long season. Championships are won in fucking June, not November.
7 comments
This has happened every year after the 73-9 season for a simple reason: Kerr knows that the regular season is a very long training camp for the playoffs.
Take teams like the Suns last year. Absolute beast in the regular season because they built a team that is versatile enough to play well against many styles of play, and their starting five create a lot of synergy.
Things change a lot during playoff times. Games are more intense and thus more rotation is required, and coaches/players have the time to really study their opponents and create counters to their style of play. Versatile teams fall to specialized teams, teams with a strong starting five fall to deep teams, and teams with innovative plays dominate those who relied on the same strategy the whole season.
This is why Kerr looks like an idiot every regular season and a genius every playoff. He is purposefully putting players from the third unit to play, and young players to live stressful situations during the regular season. He’s not just relying on the strategies he has used for almost a decade, but creating and testing new ones and allowing players to develop.
So I wouldn’t worry too much. People complained about poole/wiggins playing too much/shooting too much last season, and then during the playoffs everyone was surprised they developed tough skin and basketball IQ in the playoffs. It’s not a coincidence.
TL;DW:
JJ thinks the starters are awesome but the bench sucks top to bottom (except Ty Jerome). However he’s still bullish on our bench because he expects the whole bench to improve throughout the year and that Kerr will eventually figure out the right combination of players.
Every commentator does this: comparing the superstar-led lineup offense to that of another whole team (including their non-superstar minutes). It’s meaningless. You have to compare the Steph minutes to the Luka minutes, and the total Ws offense to total Mavs offense. You could find 10 teams with superstar minute offense better than the Mavs’
These takes are always “see the world through the eyes of people who don’t watch the warriors much”
What people overlook is that basketball is all about fit. The Jazz are winning right now, not because of stars, but because their pieces fit together. So with that context, our bench has solid pieces, but none of it fits together. And in particular, Wiseman is completely at odds stylistically with the Warriors pace and space system. Once we ditch the Wiseman experiment, JMG can go back to the 5, JK the 4, and suddenly everything will fit together again.
Only disagreeing on the ‘versatile’ point. It seems the Warriors were most dominant when they were versatile. If a team wanted to play big, Warriors could match them. And lots of lengthy defenders meant the team was versatile in the matchups. Teams that are specialized tend to fail in the playoffs because someone will figure it out — and then you’re done, because you can’t do anything else
Why is anyone questioning Kerr? The dude is a top 3 coach of all time. We have the best starting lineup in the league. Let them figure it out. It’s a long season. Championships are won in fucking June, not November.