2021-2022 AROUND the NBA: GSW Champs [ARCHIVED]

[Branduil]

That´s true. Play-off underachiever, but the discussion of always laying the blame on the star player is just stupid. Nurse is simply a much better overall coach than Casey and yes Kawhi is a better player than DeRozan. Well a healthy Kawhi is arguably the best player in the league. Even he was a lucky triple bounce away from losing in the 2nd (or 3rd?) round and the whole perception of DeRozan changes based on that.

It´s the same discussion people are just having about Gobert. Gobert is not the problem in Utah. Are you telling me the reason the Jazz can´t play the most dominant rim-protector in the game, cause Draymond and Ayton can stretch and force him off the floor. Well be my guest and have Draymond/Ayton shoot threes and mid-range all day. Also this myth that he´s an offensive liability. The guy averages 16 PPG. That´s nearly as much as our precious Unicorn. It´s not like he´s a complete non-factor, just because he doesn´t shoot threes.

Okay the Clippers had Marcus Morris at C to drag Gobert, but Morris ultimately shot 33% from three. I think the 48%+ that roleplayers like Kennard, Jackson, Mann and Batum shot were a much bigger factor and that´s not on Gobert.

....but I think Utha knows that, too. And as a small market team you don´t give away a top 25 player in the game.

I feel like this is a serious misunderstanding of how playoff basketball works. The difficulty Gobert(and every true center) faces today is not the other center shooting threes, it's getting switched through constant pick-and-roll action and trying to defend a modern scoring guard/wing. This is literally what Luka did to the Clippers and Zubac- repeatedly P&R to get him, and then Luka would destroy him every time. Zubac is not a bad center, but he can't guard Luka. Unfortunately for the Mavs, the Clippers could not just afford to bench Zubac, it turns out they were actually better without him, and that's why the Mavs lost that series. If the Clippers had Gobert instead of Zubac, it's quite possible they lose the series. Not just because Gobert's contract demands he stay on the court, but also because his contract limits your ability to add other talent.