Audi wrote:MagicMatic wrote:I spent WAY too much time on this forum telling people Fultz should have been moved prior to this season. Like… I need to delete this account and reevaluate my life amounts of time. Had the FO just moved Fultz and not split his minutes with Cole (and benched Black) we would have been better off. Why? Because I’m not just looking at box scores. I’m looking at trends in player efficiency over the course of the season. Cole Anthony became a shell of himself when Fultz returned. That’s the reason as to why. There’s a direct correlation and it’s not even an argument. Cole didn’t even look like he was having fun since like February. He looked pissed off and going through the motions. Suggs alluded to this.. Black was also getting good reps in those extra minutes. It really fcked a lot up in the guard rotation and it was a completely unnecessary decision that should have been avoided.
The thought of Fultz's mere presence back in the lineup being enough for Cole to 'become a shell of himself' makes me want Cole off the team, not to placate his weak mentality so he can 'have fun' or whatever.
Of course, I don't buy the correlation you are making at all. There's absolutely "an argument" about there being direct correlation. I think Cole hit a personal rough spot and it clearly got in his head. These things happen. Players hit low places and have bad seasons. I think we can rest assured that Fultz had little-to-nothing to do with it.
Of course you would like to believe Fultz returning had nothing to do with it… the problem with that is that we have actual data now to know it was absolutely the case. Now, could something else have happened? Sure. But you aren’t going to tell me that throwing another 16-20mpg minute split (effectively taking his spot in the rotation) into the mix wasn’t going to change something.
Cole Anthony’s numbers from the start of the season until Fultz comes back logging real minutes around January 17th changed immensely.
Just off the top of my head.. Cole goes from averaging 26mpg in the beginning of the season to something like 19mpg when Fultz returns and goes from averaging 14ppg and dropping to like 9ppg to round out that timeframe. The bench mob numbers also went down significantly after that timeframe. You can draw the correlation if you want.
If you want to argue something else happened to Cole we aren’t aware of, then fine. But the guy was having a great season until he started sharing his minutes in stupid lineups with Fultz.
Back to the point…
Markelle Fultz this season was not significantly better than the minutes we saw with Anthony Black to the point that thinking a section of the fan base is insane for believing he deserved those minutes, while simultaneously having Cole fall off a cliff as well.
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