This is Powell Thread. Powell Thread has one rule. Don't talk about Powell Thread outside of Powell Thread.
No holds barred. All the hate, love and everything in between welcome here. Punch each other in the face but hug before you leave.
Powell has dirt on Cuban. That´s the only reason why he is still on the roster.
...just testing the thread. Now I am waiting for the ban hammer.
You are welcome in Powell Thread df98
Powells skill was as rim runner to elite level, and perhaps still will be able to. There is nothing more outside that in terms of skills. He is a one dimensional player. And it's OK to be that, NBA history is full of one dimensional players that contributed very well, and can be highly positive if the system is suited for this. There were many cases where this skill from Powell contributed well to our game. He seems also to provide energy and dedication, and is well liked by teammates. In case he loses a step and cant do this single skill well any longer, he has far less value obviously. Thats a big worry obviously. Personally, I want the two big to be great on defense. There was too much liability in having Powell in there compared to Maxi. Maxi and KP provide defense. Maxi also adds 3P shooting and some level of rim running as well. So overall, I think Powell should never start over Maxi. Especially if he has lost a step, which seems to be the base from preaseason, but could come back in his old shape with time. However, even in top shape and with that elite skill, he is not an all around two way player as Maxi is. Its great to have Powell on our team.
Good idea, @"fifteenth"! I'll help move us along with some questions:
1) Has Powell done enough yet to get his jersey in the AAC rafters, or do we need to see one more great season?
2) Is there a secret, hand shake deal between Powell and Cuban on a way to get him some extra money after this extremely selfless and team-friendly contract expires?
3) On a team comprised of the greatest Mavs of all time, would Powell start, or come off of the bench?
More later, but that should spark some interesting conversation.
(12-18-2020, 04:13 PM)DanSchwartzman Wrote: [ -> ]I get really tired of being a Powell apologist. I don’t have any emotional ties to the guy and I am perfectly willing to include him in deals or support deals that replace him in the starting lineup (and do so regularly). I didn’t use the word “hate” in my post this morning, but it is certainly possible that I’ve used it before. BTW, it is hyperbolic to label all negative comments toward Powell as “hate”. We are all smart enough to know the difference. I do think much of the commentary (normal and hate) about Powell is really unfair...especially in the game threads. Rather than shut the whole place down, maybe I just avoid going into the game thread.
Instead of further polluting the prediction thread, let me provide a few comments here on some of the more common criticisms I’ve seen:
Powell’s D is really bad: You know how to tell when someone’s D is bad? When the team is constantly having to help them. That hasn’t happened against two of the best offensive players in the league the last two games. Powell is on his own and that allows everyone else to play head up on their own guy. Yeah, Powell is giving up some points (every team does to GA and Towns). But the TEAM isn’t. BTW, spend some time actually watching how much Powell helps others on D even though he’s guarding an offensive stud. A casual fan sees the occasional bad dunk because Powell was out of position by helping too much. They almost never recognize it when the help D contributing to the stops.
Powell has one elite offensive skill: Sorry, Powell doesn’t regularly own the highest O-Rating on the team because of 2-3 highlight dunks a game. He’s also elite at setting picks. Again, watch him sometime. In the first quarter last night he got screen assist after screen assist. And, it isn’t just setting picks for Luka. He’s in constant motion and is a huge part of getting guys open. Have you seen our 3% in the preseason. BTW, we do all realize Powell had the best On-Court number at 8.4 pp100 last season and tied Finney for the best On Minus Off at 4.9. Damn, that one elite skill must really be something.
Maxi and WCS look much better: Yeah, Maxi and WCS get to guard some guy named Naz and Powell plays almost all of his minutes against KAT. Yeah, Maxi gets a few possessions against the stars. Powell gets almost all of his against the other team’s best player. Scoring stats were offered up as proof in one post. Powell is the 5th option on O when he’s in the game. Maxi is arguably the third option when he’s in the game. Maxi is playing his role incredibly well right now.
Powell has subbed out at the end of quarters, so Carlisle must know he’s bad: Or, we have him on a minutes restriction?
The only reason Powell gets minutes is because he has a good PER or some other advanced stat: You know why advanced stats even exist? Because casual fans only value scoring. Turns out you can’t win with five 25 point per game guys on the same team. But, how do you measure the impact of the guys who don’t/can’t score 25. If your team plays consistently well when you are on the floor then all the evils in the world can’t be your fault. Powell is only +5 and +8 the last two games, was single-handedly asked to guard an offensive star and be an important offensive motor while shaking off rust from a devastating injury. Given that NO ONE on this team had a better on court impact (on/off or O-Rating/D-Rating) than Powell last season, I would have thought we might actually applaud the effort we’ve seen so far and give him a little leeway. Silly me.
Here ya go. Good seed post for some punch throwing.
Some super random stuff on what I thought about DP over the years:
- Loved how he worked his way into the team, I still remember the OKC-series where it looked like we had something with him and Simba for a second. Or how he took charges against Anthony Davis in early matchups.
- Big fan of the DP/KP combo last year as it allowed KP to stay inside on defense but on the perimeter on offense. I’m well aware of the +/- numbers of that duo and DP‘s pnr percentile stats. That was a big part of our strong start.
- Criticized the Imo premature extension a lot back when it was unpopular on this board bc of how the market is set up these days. Non-shooting bigs are just ridiculously cheap around the league these days and I wasn’t fond of how we didn’t take advantage of that market inefficiency. I’m still convinced that we could get 90% of what DP offered even before the injury for a small exception-type salary.
- now after the injury I expect close to nothing. His game relies a lot on athleticism and this injury usually just destroys players in that regard. Even Kobe clearly lost a step and he had a freakish work ethic and a pretty high level athletic abilities when the injury happened (even at his age). He still was not remotely the same physically.
- for this season : my preference would be to ease DP in off the bench alongside Maxi knowing these two have great chemistry and will face lesser opposing lineups. Instead Id let WCS start the year and go from there.
(12-18-2020, 04:13 PM)DanSchwartzman Wrote: [ -> ]Maxi and WCS look much better: Yeah, Maxi and WCS get to guard some guy named Naz and Powell plays almost all of his minutes against KAT. Yeah, Maxi gets a few possessions against the stars. Powell gets almost all of his against the other team’s best player. Scoring stats were offered up as proof in one post. Powell is the 5th option on O when he’s in the game. Maxi is arguably the third option when he’s in the game. Maxi is playing his role incredibly well right now.
That´s just not true. Maxi actually gets more minutes against the best scorers in the league because he is a way better defender. That was basically the story of the early 19/20 season. When the team needs to stop a big wing or bigman Maxi replaces Powell. After Powell went down Maxi´s role changed and he turned into a starter/backup hybrid for the rest of the season.
Maxi was the Mavs first option against Towns, Giannis, Siakam and later in the season against Zion and even Kawhi.
Maxi also isn´t nearly as featured on offense as Powell. When Powell is on the floor he is the focal point of the pick and roll attack. Same cannot be said about Maxi. He spends most of his time as a spot up shooter on the perimeter. Scoring stats were offered up. Maybe you can take a look at the shooting percentages. I provided them as well.
As mentioned. Powell made his biggest impact as a rim runner (I combine screens, timing and finishing ability in this category). In the preseason he wasn´t able to fill that role.
I don't get all the hate for Powell. He does a few things great, some good, and a few more things not so good. Sounds like a basketball player to me. One thing we do get from Powell is effort. I wish his 3 point shooting was better, but I think that's all we're going to get from him on that aspect. Starter or bench guy? Well...I would prefer that he starts on the bench and eases into the year. But I'm not the coach, so I'll take what happens. There are others on the team I'd like to see traded first...
Better player...13-15 Brandan Wright or 18-20 Dwight Powell?
I think where the talking past one another happens its because certain fans expect/prefer/value "toughness" defense/rebounding and setting a hard tone to start the game.
Looking at our starting squad we have Luka who runs the show offensively and gets by on defense, we have JRich who's been smooth so far adding offensively while being active on defense and being a + for the overall team defense. THJ is a mini JRich on offense and passable on defense. DFS is the glue to it all as is Powell to an extent but when the two of them are responsible for being the final layer of the defense/rebounding...... we get mixed results. And vs good teams; they just back up and let Powell shoot 3s, the spacing for Luka gets messed up, DFS has to really exert himself and we look bad for stretches that could perhaps be controlled if for example either we played a true PF and made DFS SF.
So when the good teams pressure us and pack the paint, we play hot potato around the perimeter and take a 3 that is a 50/50 make or miss. The wasted moves include having Powell ever pick and pop (thats not his game) or when he's screening but the defense just crowds Luka who may (sometimes) make quick rash movements tryna draw fouls {and spiral into giving up a run god forbid the refs dont call it}. So bottom line, there often comes a time when the lineup of DFS and Powell gets outworked by starters and ignored on offense while giving up size/height and deficits grow and leads are lost. What bothers some of us is our coach can't recognize it and switch it up so we have players played in their position and good "flow".
If we bench DFS, the defense really suffers (especially without KP) and if we bench Powell, the offense sorta suffers but we can get a board when we need it and maybe even get some lobs and mixed looks with Maxi/WCS/Boban or another big. Thats my take hope its not disrespectful or hate. Its just frustrating to watch when a team recognizes and switches to exploit our lineup and we dont switch up to match it.
Powell kills the offensive spacing. That's why they put him in so many pick and rolls - there's no good way to play with him off the ball. When KP comes back his touches will be limited by this just like they were last year.
I would start Maxi or WCS until KP gets back and see if Powell can find some success off the bench with Brunson/Burke. Once KP returns, I'm still not thrilled with DFS at the 4, but I don't think starting Powell is a path to long term success either.
Since I'm on the team that criticizes DP as a sole starting big, I'll say this:
His interior defense BLOWS. Among starters last season, DP is ranked on the bottom on pretty much any interior stat (Opponent FG%, dashboards, blocks, etc). A bunch of games last season when KP was out, it was he and Kleber starting (which I have no problem with). He and DFS just offer no rim protection at all, with lackluster interior defense (RC knows that, because he played them some times when KP was out). It's an invite to other teams bigs (a lot of skilled bigs in the league) come and have a feast. Now if it's against a team without a skilled big (Clippers/Warriors) I guess it's less problematic since there aren't many touches for their bigs.
Saying that he doesn't need help against Towns/Giannis is laughable. He needs all the help he can have on the paint, and DFS is just not that. To be fair, there is not much you can do against Giannis, but KAT yesterday was unintrested (almost sleeping) and gave him problems, gotta make him at least work for it. Obviously it's preseason, so I'm OK giving him some time to recover and be a valuable piece on our championship team.
I think the biggest thing wrong with Powell is the lingering stench of the Rondo trade
I hope that other teams' front offices and analytics department sees the same value from Powell the way some of the respected posters here. That way people will actually want to acquire him in a trade. I just don't feel he provides us with what we need most from the 5, defense and rebounding.
Time for you troglodytes to accept that Dwight is the 10th best player on the roster at best!
I have been trying to figure out what Rick sees in Powell. I think the big thing is that Rick sees the offense perform better with Powell out there. Now this is mostly with KP also out there. I don't know that this iteration with Powell and DFS as your frontcourt is going to enjoy the same kind of statistical success as past Powell-featured lineups.
On defense I think it's the same situation where he does okay in his unit and so the overall impact is a positive over time.
I like to look at ratings of the lineups that were played the most over the course of a season:
https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/advanc...on=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&TeamID=1610612742
You see 2 of the top 3 lineups in minutes played featured Powell and have a very high offensive rating. The defensive rating with Powell and Kleber is also really good.
Luka, THJ, DFS, Kleber, Doncic did really well for 97 minutes last year. You could argue that Luka, THJ, Rich, Kleber, Powell would be a very good starting lineup. I know Rick loves Kleber off the bench but I think DFS could do well in a bench unit where maybe he plays the small-ball PF role against backups along with Johnson or WCS.
I do believe Rick and company believe a lot in advanced stats and unit stats. Bottom line is a unit gets it done or it doesn't. Some units don't get a large sample size but Powell was a starter obviously and thus played a lot in some of the lineups that garnered the most minutes and had success.
He's too good for this world and if this board is any indication of the greater whole, too good for our fanbase.
(12-18-2020, 04:16 PM)fifteenth Wrote: [ -> ]Here ya go. Good seed post for some punch throwing.
As a long time fan with a very good eye for watching the game, I can confirm that Dan S. makes some excellent and very accurate points. Powell is easy to notice when he gets beat on defense. He is very hard to follow when he does all those numerous and valuable things he does on offense. He is hard to notice when he does so many things he is supposed to do to play team defense.
Last year, the month before Powell got hurt, 8-10 times I watched him closely as he was getting scored on by the good offensive players he was guarding. But, Powell was winning the plus minus against his own guy. The seemingly superior scorer also could not guard Powell. Powell was either scoring right back or was defeating guys with Picks and rim running. In other words, he was just as unguardable as his opponent. Powell was getting it. Yes, his play was indeed leading to his excellent PER numbers. You have to be very observant and basketball smart to see all that he does.
There is one guy who clearly sees Powell's value. His name is Coach Carlisle.
(12-18-2020, 10:44 PM)IamDougieFresh Wrote: [ -> ]Time for you troglodytes to accept that Dwight is the 10th best player on the roster at best!
I actually knew a guy nicknamed Trog in college. He turned out to be very, very successful and married one of the most beautiful girls in the school.
That being said, Powell, when we add a two more hi quality guys, Powell will still be one of our top 7 players. Just because you enjoy saying these things a lot does not in any way make them true. Sorry, I will not take time engaging this Powell thing further. Bate rejected!
I fully expect the proof of this to come when we raise the next banner and Powell is still in the playoff rotation. Then, we will know.