Random NBA Observations 2019 - 2020
The fact you think Will Barton is a better basketball player than Michael Porter shows you have zero idea what you’re looking at. The fact Mike Malone and Gary Harris think they need him shows why they’ll never a real contenderAhead of the NBA Saturdays game between the Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings this weekend Nuggets’ star Gary Harris talked about the importance of having Will Barton on the roster and team’s defense.
On Will Barton
Gary: “He puts a lot of pressure on the defense and it opens up a lot of things for everybody else. He can score from all three levels, he handles the ball, he rebounds, he pushes it, he dictates the pace. With Will playing like that we’re at our best. Thrill has been huge on both ends. He’s been locked in defensively, offensively he’s had it going. He’s been playing great. We thrive off of his energy. When he plays like that and all of our guys are clicking we’re a difficult team to stop.”
According to data from Cleaning the Glass, the Nuggets have outscored their opponents by a whopping 30.2 points per 100 possessions with Barton on the court versus off, the most among all players on Denver’s roster, with Jamal Murray a fairly distant second at plus-23.6. That puts Barton in the 97th percentile among all NBA players, and what may be most impressive and encouraging is that he’s in the 98th percentile defensively, where he has shown visible improvement so far.
Crunching matchup data from NBA.com, opposing players have combined to make just 38.3% of shots which Barton has defended this season, which puts him in elite territory at least for the time being. Barton’s defensive rating of 90.8 is the best among Denver’s regular rotation players
Averaging 15-7-4 (in just 32 minutes with the slowest pace in the league) hitting 40% of his threes, one of the top offensive rebounders at his position and playing elite defense, one of the top energy guys who sparks the team and gets to the rim as well as anyone opening shyt up for everyone else, the team plays WAY better when Barton is on the court, and you think he should be sitting behind a guy who ain't hitting his shots OR playing defense solely because that guy was a great high school player in the state of Washington....before he got hurt.
MPJ might be a good player one day, but you will NEVER be a good basketball coach.
You said he was ALREADY the best player. Now you juelzing and blaming the coach for the "best player on the team" being a net negative every time he steps on the floor.
Denver has the best defensive rating in the entire NBA but it's the coach's fault that his "most talented player" can't play in the scheme even after having a full year to do nothing but sit and learn. Name one time when a coach was blamed for 1 player's struggles the way you trying to blame Malone.
And how is having a slow pace a bad thing? If you're winning games with a slow pace then you're already more playoff-ready than a team that gets its scoring off of fast breaks and easy shots. You really don't know much about basketball, do you?
Denver was 30-52 the year before Malone got there. Since then they've won 33, 40, 46, 54, and now on pace for 59. You called him "literally the definition of a treadwater coach" cause you literally don't know what "treadwater" means and are on this random crusade to try to juelz your way out of a really, really bad hot take about MPJ.
According to you Jokic sucks, the rest of Denver's roster sucks, Malone is a shytty coach, they have no offense, they don't know how to teach defense, and yet they're 2nd in the West.
Lytics' say MPJ is unplayable. He has 0 reason to touch the floor. Lytics also say Gary Harris shouldn't be starting. He must be only playing because of his contract. Look for the nuggets to try and move him at the deadline
Side note: Will Barton has taken a JUMP and Torrey Craig is a defensive nightmare
If he could shoot he would be playing 30mins a night. 
The Nuggets will win more games starting the current version of Will Barton than by starting the current version of MPJ. He helps them more in every facet of the game - he handles the ball better, breaks down defenses better, shoots better, hits the offensive boards better, and plays MUCH MUCH MUCH better defense. That's blindingly obvious.The fact you think Will Barton is a better basketball player than Michael Porter shows you have zero idea what you’re looking at. The fact Mike Malone and Gary Harris think they need him shows why they’ll never a real contender
You can argue that the Nuggets need to play up MPJ so that he stops looking like shyt on the court. But the problem is that the Nuggets win games with great team basketball on both ends, and MPJ plays sometimes like he doesn't even want to follow the defensive schemes. Unless you want to argue that he's defensively retarded, then he is CLEARLY loafing on plays like he just doesn't care on that end half the time. So you think Malone should ignore that and just reward him with full starter minutes immediately and without consequences? What do you think that will lead to?
Someone made a video on it earlier, there was one game where MPJ just made one brutal defensive error after another and Malone didn't even pull him until the 3rd or 4th time he let a guy score a layup with no resistance. The final time he missed an assignment Malone demonstratively yanked him from the game. What else is he supposed to do?
Harris was lighting fools up from three just a little more than a year ago then he was off-and-on hurt last year. He just needs to get his stroke back, you don't suddenly drop so dramatically like that at his age.Lytics' say MPJ is unplayable. He has 0 reason to touch the floor. Lytics also say Gary Harris shouldn't be starting. He must be only playing because of his contract. Look for the nuggets to try and move him at the deadline
Side note: Will Barton has taken a JUMP and Torrey Craig is a defensive nightmare
He's still playing good defense and the Nuggets are still better with him on the court, it's just that his shots aren't falling. They expect that his shots will start falling again soon enough, that's why they're not going to give up on him anytime soon. He's an established part of their system and their chemistry and if he gets back to his old form then he's one of the better 3-and-D wings in the league.
DetroitEWarren
Veteran
Zion started on court activities today, I think he will be back a few games before Christmas
Flex Luger
Job Is Finished
Th3G3ntleman
Superstar
Statistically the second best from 10-14 feet in the league outside of Khris Middleton
Richboi804
Pro
Eastside Get The Money
Veteran
They don’t get to touch the ball all game and Harden and Russ eating all the paper of the salary cap. I would be miserable as a role player on that teamthey shot a combined 18-68 from the field
and Lost?!?!?!
if I was a Houston role player, I'm in the office tomorrow asking for a trade.
Flex Luger
Job Is Finished
