TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[KillerLeft]

If the team is not succeeding well with SD in his current ROLE then they need to figure out how to adjust things.

What's got some people spinning (understandably) is this whole "two ball-handlers at once" concept that was trumpeted last season. The team told us that was the intent and we believed them. Then, it was successful, so many are assuming that it's STILL the intent. 

But I'm not so sure. 

One, if it was still the intent, they had the worst off-season ever. Utter failure, if what they were going for was a roster set up to play multiple ball-handlers almost constantly. Their choices were so inconsistent with that goal that we're forced to believe either that's not really their goal (or at least wasn't at the time) or that they're an unbelievably bad front office, as in even worse than what we suggest with our jokes born of frustration around here. Not sure which. 

It's possible that they temporarily abandoned that approach (two ball-handlers) and then after the slow start had an "oh damn, we need to get back to that" moment...hence Campazzo, Wright, Walker. Again, not sure. I think the trade deadline might shed a little light. 

What I think, at the end of the day, is that Kidd, a former NBA player, and probably still more player than coach, if we're honest, chose to start Brunson last season because it helped him define a hierarchal structure for the team that made sense to him, not for any tactical reason. Basically, the opposite of how Carlisle would ever do anything. And then, it worked, only he didn't get why. Maybe he thought the hierarchal structure and organization of egos is what "worked," not having two ball-handlers. I think maybe that two ball-handlers stuff was just spin for us (but ironically, the actual cause of success). 

And now, I believe he's just as locked into Dinwiddie on the "totem pole" as he was to Brunson. I think he views Dinwiddie as the team's second best player, so he must be a starter. Simple as that. I don't believe he's thinking tactically at all. I've almost reached the conclusion that he can't. I hope I'm dead wrong about both of the last two sentences. 

And this is all coming from someone who assumes the coach is right 99% of the time. I defended Carlisle for YEARS here, so I know how this looks from the other perspective. I just don't think much of Kidd as a thinker, and that makes it really difficult for me to give him the benefit of the doubt when he does things that surprise me.