Mock NBA Teams - Part 1

Nate Robinson

Matt’s Criticism of Josh’s Team

I like Josh’s starting line-up. He has put together a solid complementary group of players. Kyrie Irving has shown flashes of becoming a star in the NBA. He and Klay Thompson will provide a solid scoring backcourt. He paired them with a very solid defensive front court. Teams will have a very hard time getting points in the paint against Hibbert and Davis, who could earn themselves the tag team name of Block Party. Klay and Kyrie could be the new splash bros on the outside while the Block Party is going on at the other end. All I know is there would be balls flying all over the court. Kawhi has shown that he is an elite defender in this league and can provide some very solid scoring. He allows for Klay to guard the second best defender and focus more on scoring while he focuses on D and hitting the open threes.

The key to me is Kyrie. Can he become the superstar that Josh’s team truly needs him to be? Arguably only two teams in the NBA in the last 25 years have won a championship without a superstar. The 2008 Celtics and the 2004 Pistons. I would argue that Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett were still superstars in 2008, but for Josh’s sake we will count them. Those odd’s don’t bode very well for his team. I really like Kyrie and I think he has a ton of potential, but I just don’t know if I want to bank on him becoming a superstar when we really don’t know. I also have another concern with Kyrie. His supporting cast struggle to get their own shots. Kyrie needs to change his style to become more of a distributer and take less of the scoring load. It is possible that Kyrie just scores now because the Cavs don’t have anyone who can score on their team. I would have liked a Tony Parker or Chris Paul type player at this spot. Someone who’s primary focus is to create.

Josh’s bench is by far the strongest out of all four teams. Splitter starts for the Spurs, but already plays like a bench player getting about 20 minutes a game. Nate Robinson and Jamal Crawford both provide scoring sparks on the bench, while Jimmy Butler may be the best perimeter defender on his team. The funny thing about it is his least talented player is actually my favorite one coming off the bench and I wish I had thought of him myself. Jordan Hill is what every head coach wants in a backup big man. He gives you 110% on both ends. He doesn’t overextend himself and turns every hustle stat in his teams favor. He can let Splitter do all the work on the offensive end while he does all the work on the defensive end. I love these two together and they can both play with Davis and Hibbert when the groups will obviously overlap.

I think Josh did a perfect job in terms of chemistry except for these three players: Nate Robinson, Jamal Crawford and Jimmy Butler. I think he went a little overboard with the bench scorer who can’t play any D. You really only need one of these players and if you are going to have Jimmy Butler on the bench, up his minutes and get rid of Crawford. Let Nate the Great be your spark off the bench and allow for Jimmy to make up for Nate’s defense. You can’t really play Nate and Jamal together because they will just start competing for who can jack up the crazier shot with more people on them. These guys are selfish scorers, which is why they are good, but selfish scorers don’t play well with other selfish scorers.

I have an overall concern with Butler coming off the bench. It is true that he was a bench player all last season, but come playoff time that all changed. He played every minute of every game that he was eligible to play and you know what, he did a fantastic job. He guarded Lebron James for every minute Lebron was on the floor during their playoff series and did a decent job of it. Not only that, but he scored while having to guard Lebron. I don’t think I have seen any other player in the NBA put up that type of defensive effort on Lebron and be successful on the offensive end as well. Butler earned himself a starting spot and the right to play 35 to 40 minutes a game. In my mind you either have to choose Klay or Butler as your two guard. You can’t have both.

Ryan’s Critique

Where to start with my good friend Josh? He always gets a good ribbing from us for some of his outlandish ideas, but this team is well thought out, and as Matt as already mentioned, his Laker fandom allowed him to smartly place Jordan Hill on his team.

I’ll begin with Kyrie though, a player who hasn’t come close to playing for a winning team yet. Irving has immense talent, he can already stroke the ball with the best of them, has big marbles, and is very adept at running the pick and roll, a player that I really enjoy watching. However, there is something I’m missing with him because he has failed to elevate his teams play in anyway. He has taken a step back in on-court production this year (mostly in shooting stats and it’s a small sample size so we can’t take put too much stock into it).

Don’t get me wrong, I think this kid is a star (I can call him that because he’s younger than me), but as Matt mentioned as well, I don’t know if he’s a superstar. Some of me thinks he’s a gunner in the mold of a Carmelo and we all know that isn’t good. He’s also a noticeable minus on defense and Russ told me that he can’t wait to attack him off the dribble possession after possession. Since no praises need to be sung about Klay, The Brow, and Hibbert, I’m gonna skip right to Kawhi.

I think everyone is overblowing his Finals performance from last season a little too much. I guess on this team he’s gonna play the role he has on the Spurs so this thought probably doesn’t hold much weight in this forum but I want to say it anyway. People who think he is going to become a 18-point a game scorer are going to be sorely disappointed, he doesn’t really possess an offensive game that can lead to that. I’m not sure he can be Paul George of last year which is what everyone thinks will be the case. He also isn’t an elite 3 point shooter (37% last year on only 3 attempts per game).

The bench is very intriguing for many different reasons. I love me some Nate Rob, that guy has the ability to go on scoring streaks unlike few bench players in this league, but so does Jamal Crawford (who I’m not a fan of) and I don’t see the need for both of these guys. I would hope Josh plans on playing Nate more because I think he offers more as a ball player, and, with the roster’s current make up, I’d like to see Jordan Farmar more than Crawford to give the team a traditional point guard to run the offense off the bench instead of singularly minded gunners.

Where Tuckness has a problem with Jimmy Butler’s desire to come off the bench, I think this will work perfectly because there is no other ? combo player on the roster. Butler will get more than enough minutes serving as Klay and Kawhi’s backup and he’ll have some built up chemistry with Nate from their days on the Bulls. This now brings us to the best back bigs situation of the 4 teams in Jordan Hill and Tiago Splitter. With the rest of Josh’s team, these guys won’t get many touches to score the ball but that won’t matter because these two pride their game on hustle, boards, and not getting plays called for them. Plus, they both have proven their worth when called upon to start and complement each other well if they are both in at the same time.

Parker’s Critique

First thoughts: OOOOHH Uncle drew, I like it. I like the starting 5, very based around Irving who is the best player. Kawhi is a steal at 4.3. Nate Rob is a solid bench guy for Kyrie… A WILD TIAGO SPLITTER APPEARS? Love jimmy butler, Jordan Hill? Farmar? what?

OK, I really like Josh’s first 7. I have Jimmy Butler as his 7th man in the game. But then, Tiago Splitter? *Stephen A Smith voice*… Are you serious? At $8.5 million, you can find much better. I too looked for Splitter for like a split second (no pun intended) until I saw that number. I assumed he’d be cheap, because the truth is he isn’t worth anywhere near $8 million, let alone over it. Jamal Crawford is nice but that’s a lot of change for him too. I’d say his over investment in those two spots, his backup 5 and backup 2, are why the rest of his bench suffers. Hill, Farmar, and Johnson just don’t do much for me. I’m sorry, cut the bull-splitter and maybe you’ll have the cash to put together a solid second unit.

That being said, if his starting 5 could put together serious minutes per game (because of his bench, he could play at 7 or 8 deep, and be a really good team. I just think that, for this experiment, he has spent way too much on a back up center, especially Tiago. He must lean on his starters all playing 30+ minutes, Splitter getting 12, Crawford 12-16, and Nate Robinson getting 16 or so. He’d have to have a lineup where Robinson and Kyrie played together for this to make sense, so I assume they will. I don’t know Josh, at the end of the day, when comparing your lineup to tuckness’, all I can think of is this:

Ryan Interjection: Hahahahahaha. Jokes aside, I did just read something that had Splitter in the top- 5 for defensive player of the year so far, so maybe the joke is on all of us (the list was top 10). We all had some multiple people on the list to be honest, except Tuckness (Noah, Hibbert, PG, Kawhi). The guy put the Brow at honorable mention because the Pellies have such a horrible defense that he felt if someone was that good on defense, he would affect a team more than Davis is at this point of the season. And Tuckness will probably call the whole list bullshit because a list with no LeBron in his eyes is invalid, and to that I say, this guy watches way more basketball than us and knows what is happening way more. If he thinks LeBron’s defensive responsibility is not on the level to be included, I’ll take his word for it.