Godfather13 wrote:stan francisco wrote:Godfather13 wrote:
I promise not to be hurt by being called out / being proven wrong, as long as it's doesn't get personal my friend. And so far from my time in these forums, you come across as a real fan, so nothing but love.
As for the injury, I'm not ignoring it. I acknowledged the injury and said I didn't notice enough of a difference in his movement going forward to absolve him of everything that proceeded from there on. I believe it was like a niggle that may have impacted him in a bigger way immediately, but one of those injuries you either heal from next day, or do not hinder you much from being yourself.
And yes it fits my narrative, but so do these facts which I've explained previously in much greater detail.
- He got game planned out of minutes in the regular season as well, if you pay a close look at his minutes there - before the injury. Tim/Cranjis brought this up in a tweet as well if you wanna search it
- Ja, despite Jenkins' poor game planning, had, by far, the best time offensively against Vando of all Lakers defenders he faced - before the injury. The difference is actually laughable for someone we wanna hang our hat on as out POA defensive stopper. What you said about Vando having Ja's number is a 100% false. I shared the breakdown earlier.
- Kerr & Malone got him playing more minutes on their offensively inactive bigs than the PGs he was supposed to have as his primary assignment, because his screen navigation sucks ass
- He doesn't pair well with poor shooting stars like AD/2022-23 LeBron well to start with, which is a feature that only exacerbated against any half decent coaches / PGs who're worth their salt.
Now three of these are true for before and after his injury, so make of it what you must.
Now, did you not notice the change in strategy by Kerr after Game 2 to eliminate Vando from active coverages?
Denver attacked him the same way to an even higher degree by running him through screens to get their slashers on free rolls to the bucket, cos we couldn't let Joker(like Dray/Looney) alone even at the perimeter. Denver were also even more shamelessly disrespectful to him on offense making AD-Bron's life miserable in the paint whenever Vando was on the floor.
I may have smoked something & been texting too much at the same time, but how else do you explain the numbers I used to support my thoughts?
Let's turn this around and have you or anyone else answer these basic questions -
Why did he spend more time guarding Dray than Steph?
Why did Ja's efficiency go from 37% to 50% when he was on Ja, if he's such an elite POA defender as you believe?
Why did his minutes regress every series & through the regular season?
Let's hear it. Honestly open to being proved wrong, but I don't think you have a shot in hell on this one.
The word elite gets thrown around with too little context. Alex Caruso, Matisse Thybulle, Ben Simmons, Jrue Holiday, Marcus Smart, Dillon Brooks are some elite perimeter POA defenders. I'm sorry, but Vando just doesn't begin to even sniff that category & his offensive weaknesses just make him borderline unplayable - which is a fact that Ham finally happened to discover after 15 games in the playoffs.
I compare him to DLo. Not good enough on one end to carry his weaknesses on the other. Ergo, waste of a roster spot for the playoffs if you wanna be a serious contender.
Good post, good points. Maybe I need to rewatch. Still, I believe the change in tactics in game two was created by his injury in game one against GSW. We put him on slower players like Green after that because of the injury, which is not his comfort zone. I’d like to give Kerr and Malone the credit but I credit the injury more. See his sudden drop in intensity, not just stats. By the eye test, Ja was bothered and we win that series. I’d argue, a lot thanks to Vando’s defense on Ja. Let’s agree to disagree? Cheers.
RealGM really needs to up its emoji game man. I wanted to post the shake hands emoji. No gifs. No emojis. What year is this?
It’s the year of
