Not sure this team is better with Donnie

[OrangeFoo]

The issue is that while Donnie does make the ball stick on offense and he struggles to create his own shot... he still is one of the few players who can even try to create his own shot which means that he draws fouls and we get some easy points. His D also creates transition opportunities that get us easy points. This team is going to struggle offensively all season even with Donnie... without him it's going to be to get really grim come Feb in the dog days of the season. Our ticket to the dance will be made or broken depending on whether Red can find some easy offense.

FWIW this is better than last year when BOTH the D and O were broken.

 

[atlanticuse]

He’s our best free throw shooter. That alone shows his importance

That’s also a low bar.
Gaudin torched our free throw shooting

 

[2B20Again]

Hear me out. Betsy is a more versatile scorer in the half court. Is it also a coincidence that our defensive rebounding was respectable without Donnie?

I think Betsy for Donnie is a wash at worst and with physical matchups it’s actually a net positive. I do think Donnie’s length may have been helpful passing over their really hard hedges… but who knows.

Donnie has the much higher upside, but I’m not sure he has the mentality to reach his potential.

 

[2B20Again]

wow! No comment.
Hear me out. Betsy is a more versatile scorer in the half court. Is it also a coincidence that our defensive rebounding was respectable without Donnie?

I think Betsy for Donnie is a wash at worst and with physical matchups it’s actually a net positive. I do think Donnie’s length may have been helpful passing over their really hard hedges… but who knows.

Donnie has the much higher upside, but I’m not sure he has the mentality to reach his potential.

 

[Marsh01]

He’s our best free throw shooter. That alone shows his importance

You may be the smartest person here…..next to me of course

 

[baggerbob]

I was a little disappointed in Sadiq, tbh. He played good defense but he can do more on offense and rebounding. That play where he had an open dunk and instead tried to lay it in off the backboard (and scored on a goaltending call) drove me crazy. Sadiq has jump out of the gym hops and athleticism and needs to slam that home with authority. If Derrick Coleman or Etan or many many of our other star forwards were in that position, they would have attacked that rim like maniacs and slammed it home. You have to try to overpower your opponent. It was a moment of softness that I didn’t like to see from Sadiq. He and Donnie need to develop a little more of killer instinct around the rim. Kyle seems to have it.

If DC was playing in that game in his Prime, the Houston front court would have fouled out.

 

[General20]

Haha my goodness. This team is absolutely, without question, better WITH Donnie.

This isnt being said enough. We are best with everyone healthy. Case closed.

 

[MadNY3]

Hear me out. Betsy is a more versatile scorer in the half court. Is it also a coincidence that our defensive rebounding was respectable without Donnie?

I think Betsy for Donnie is a wash at worst and with physical matchups it’s actually a net positive. I do think Donnie’s length may have been helpful passing over their really hard hedges… but who knows.

Donnie has the much higher upside, but I’m not sure he has the mentality to reach his potential.

Not sure he has the mentality to reach his potential?

Goodness.

 

[NineOneSeven]

This isnt being said enough. We are best with everyone healthy. Case closed.

Period end of story.

Especially considering he’s our leading scorer, 2nd leading rebounder, 2nd in assists, 2nd in blocks, and also gets plenty of deflections. And might be our best FT shooter.

Does he settle sometimes? Yes. Does he fade away sometimes vs going right at the defender? Yes. But….. This is our best player!

 

[JustPherU]

If DC was playing in that game in his Prime, the Houston front court would have fouled out.

How about are all time team against theirs?Hakeem the dream,Elvin Hayes,Otis Birdsong, Clyde the glide Drexler and maybe Michael Young.
We might have a hard time in that matchup.

 

[baggerbob]

How about are all time team against theirs?Hakeem the dream,Elvin Hayes,Otis Birdsong, Clyde the glide Drexler and maybe Michael Young.
We might have a hard time in that matchup.

The best guard on the floor would be Dave Bing. DC, Melo, with Rony, and
Billy Owen's as your shooting guard.

 

[orangecuse]

Not sure he has the mentality to reach his potential?

Goodness.

It's unclear where your thinking went with that one word response...

Is it possible that he may have been suggesting what many Cleveland fans and media have been thinking in regards to Evan Mobley? That is, he's generally "soft." And, seemingly not consistently focused or interested in giving the day in and day out effort it takes to be truly elite. Case in point; the past 2 games (in the past week or so) against the Toronto Raptors Mobley has pretty much been MIA.

 

[tptcuse]

Period end of story.

Especially considering he’s our leading scorer, 2nd leading rebounder, 2nd in assists, 2nd in blocks, and also gets plenty of deflections. And might be our best FT shooter.

Does he settle sometimes? Yes. Does he fade away sometimes vs going right at the defender? Yes. But….. This is our best player!

He's not PERFECT so let's have a thread that says we might be better without him.. Lunacy.

 

[MadNY3]

It's unclear where your thinking went with that one word response...

Is it possible that he may have been suggesting what many Cleveland fans and media have been thinking in regards to Evan Mobley? That is, he's generally "soft." And, seemingly not consistently focused or interested in giving the day in and day out effort it takes to be truly elite. Case in point; the past 2 games (in the past week or so) against the Toronto Raptors Mobley has pretty much been MIA.

How does Evan Mobley enter this?

Goodness x2.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Really good stuff in here!

 

[tptcuse]

Really good stuff in here!

I was about to bump this thread as well. Madness.

 

[FrancoPizza]

Just because we lost 2x doesn’t disprove the OP. Let’s see how they fare when or if they get him back.

 

[Scooch]

"Guys, I think we'd be better off if we played with our feet encased in concrete and had all of our elbows broken."

--This thread, basically

 

[OttoinGrotto]

"Guys, I think we'd be better off if we played with our feet encased in concrete and had all of our elbows broken."

--This thread, basically

Would that help our shooting?

I don't think we should be too quick to shut down possibilities that could help.

 

[OrlandoCuse]

This is one of the dumber threads on this board. Anyone stating we’re better off without Donnie struggles to understand basketball.

Now if you made the same statement about JJ you may have a valid argument.

 

[DomeHolmes]

when we were down two points with five minutes left, having Donnie play the five in that situation would have been ideal.

 

[Orangefan1]

My take is Sadiq is not physical enough yet he doesn’t look ready which I’m a bit surprised by based on what I read about him, don’t really understand why Luke hasn’t played these last two games, I feel like JJ has seriously regressed and trying to do too much. I’m. Not sure what the answer is but perhaps we should play some zone here and there. Too many guys are getting beat playing man leaving someone wide open for a shot and it’s killing us. Our roster is better but we still aren’t beating quality teams yet. Some of it is coaching, you have two Hal of fame coaches that have a wealth of experience vs Autry who if you think about it still hasn’t figured out when to call a timeout when it’s necessary when another team is on a run. It really dawned on me that unfortunately right now in our current state a lot of us have the orange colored glasses on. We haven’t been good in basketball in a long time, however I still have a lot of hope this year and we have some big games coming up to prove ourselves.

 

[Gotothehole]

If anything JJ come off the bench when is Donnie back from his injury

 

[shu 49]

They were only plus 6 on the glass total. We got a higher pct of our own misses (42 pct) than they did (40 pct). That is also one of the strongest aspects of their program year in year out and we battled near even most of the game.

Well stats don’t lie but it sure felt worse ya know.