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Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

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  • #46
    Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

    Originally posted by owl View Post
    The worst part on DJ is he is so bad on offense.
    FTFY. The fact that he hasn't been able to pass, shoot, or run any semblance of any offense is by far the worst thing about DJ. We knew his defense was terrible. The second unit offense should work, in theory. Green's a spot-up shooter, Young moves without the ball, Ian hits from mid-range and Tyler crashes the boards. All these guys do need someone to set them up, and DJ has been completely inept at running the PnR and setting anyone up. Because of that, you ask Green to make creative decisions, Young to shoot too many jumpers, and Ian to drive to the basket like Lebron. It's wrong to put it all on him, but DJ's job is to run that unit, and he's been so bad, it's like Tony Clifton playing point guard.
    You Got The Tony!!!!!!

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    • #47
      Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

      Originally posted by Bball View Post
      If anyone is expecting any moves then you best dial it back- This team is hovering around .500... still has a chance at the playoffs... has a built in excuse for coming up short ("We didn't expect Danny to miss this much time").... AND has Donnie Do Nothing Walsh running things. He'll be more busy preparing new contracts and checks for the existing players than actually talking to anyone about any trades.

      Checkbook Donnie in charge of negoiating DWest, Granger, and Paul G's coming contracts scares the carp out of me. I'm so afraid he'll bury the Pacers in cap hell again, then walk out the door leaving the Pacers for years saddled with no way to do anything until contracts expire.

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      • #48
        Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

        these are some general observations:
        every player has had some off nights. this is totally understandable. however, of all the guys who are in the regular rotation, dj has been by a large margin imo- the absolute worst. i am more than ready to give ben a shot instead. he may be a rook but, i am willing to see him give it a go as i don't see how he could do much worse as that would be impossible as far as i can tell.
        i agree with most of those who say tyler has made substantial improvements on defense. this was absolutely necessary as it has been really bad since he got here. thing is though even while his mid-range 10-17 foot jumpers were inconsistent then- now they are non-existent. i swear i haven't seen him hit one this year despite trying several times. this is an absolutely essential aspect to his game given his physical limitations. imagine if west had no jump-shot? he would not start anywhere if he didn't. and this is something else about tyler that bugs me, he is never going to be more than a mediocre rebounder at best. i see him play around 15 minutes a game and he seems to rarely pull down more than 1-2 rebounds. i worry donnie will go into his "we gotta re-sign our guys mode" and bring him back but, unless i saw something more than i have seen already- i am not interested in bringing him back.

        frank has still shown a desire to go all bench and i don't think that is ever going to work out with this group. i am on board with the "we need at least 2 starters out there whenever possible" and his stubborn refusal to call timeouts when other teams make their runs troubles me. back in the day, bob knight used to do this at IU and i swear far more often than not- the whole "they gotta figure it out on their own" backfired. i remember some saying phil jackson did it this way too but hey, phil jackson also had the luxury of having some of the absolute greatest players of all freakin time on his teams and that makes a HUGE difference and you can afford to play it that way when you got guys like jordan and shaq playing for you.

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        • #49
          Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

          Originally posted by rexnom View Post
          I mean, that's not fair. We lost two first round picks (to draft Paul, trade for Hill) and 20 million dollars (David West).
          True, obviously nothing is free. All I met is that we didn't give up any core foundational players to get those guys. We lost draft picks, Troy Murphy, and some money. I'll take it.

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          • #50
            Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

            Originally posted by vnzla81 View Post
            Even if Green is "neutral" paying him 3mil a year to be "neutral" is a huge fail.
            I'm not arguing that he has liked up to any expectations, just that he shouldn't be lumped in with DJ. Green still looks like he could turn it around and average 10 or so points efficiently. DJ just looks like a player who wouldn't make it in high school.

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            • #51
              Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

              Quick response:

              Paul George actually blew two lay-ups (four points)
              The refing at the end was awful. Miller got two fouls, one for tripping over his feet, one for diving with Lance guarding him. Also, Lance got thrown to the ground on a rebound. If lance get's those calls his game looks much better.
              Is it to early to mention cutting DJ, not just benching him? The only thing I've ever seen worse than him running the offense is his D.

              The second unit can't play all at the same time. It doesn't work.

              Hibbert, hit a freakin' shot.
              Danger Zone

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              • #52
                Originally posted by Pacerized View Post
                Good summary. If you just called for Donnie Walsh's head for squandering a huge amount of cap space on this down graded bench it would be perfect.
                This is getting old. I'm sure Donnie is just as disappointed as any of us. He signed a guy who is the most athletic player ever to wear a Pacers jersey, can create his own shot and shot a high percentage from deep. He signed a starting PG to be our back up and an athletic 7 footer to back up Roy. I would say 95% of us felt that he got exactly what this team was lacking last year and that our bench would be much improved.

                Stop acting like you saw this coming from day one and that he "squandered" cap space!

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                • #53
                  Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                  Originally posted by 2minutes twoa View Post
                  This is getting old. I'm sure Donnie is just as disappointed as any of us. He signed a guy who is the most athletic player ever to wear a Pacers jersey, can create his own shot and shot a high percentage from deep. He signed a starting PG to be our back up and an athletic 7 footer to back up Roy. I would say 95% of us felt that he got exactly what this team was lacking last year and that our bench would be much improved.

                  Stop acting like you saw this coming from day one and that he "squandered" cap space!
                  I guess I was in the 5%. I was never of the opinion that DW made the right moves and brought in just what we were lacking. Some were that blind, but I think most were disappointed from what he did with our long waited cap space anyway. I thought it was a crime to spend significant amounts of cap space on a shuffle of the bench from the word go. However you're right in that I didn't think the bench would be this much worse and I hope DW is disappointed.
                  The thing is that it's his job to spend that cap space on the right players and to manage the timing of signing our own players. He failed at this and should be held accountable.
                  If you're a DW fan don't worry though, it won't happen. Our best bet is to hope that he doesn't screw with the roster any more until he retires which I hope is at the end of the season.
                  Until then or until I see this bench out playing last year's bench, I'll be calling out DW.
                  Why do teams tank? Ask a Spurs fan.

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                  • #54
                    Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                    Originally posted by 2minutes twoa View Post
                    This is getting old. I'm sure Donnie is just as disappointed as any of us. He signed a guy who is the most athletic player ever to wear a Pacers jersey, can create his own shot and shot a high percentage from deep. He signed a starting PG to be our back up and an athletic 7 footer to back up Roy. I would say 95% of us felt that he got exactly what this team was lacking last year and that our bench would be much improved.

                    Stop acting like you saw this coming from day one and that he "squandered" cap space!
                    I did and was trashed for it, Sollozo and Bball saw it coming too.
                    @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

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                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Pacerized View Post
                      I guess I was in the 5%. I was never of the opinion that DW made the right moves and brought in just what we were lacking. Some were that blind, but I think most were disappointed from what he did with our long waited cap space anyway. I thought it was a crime to spend significant amounts of cap space on a shuffle of the bench from the word go. However you're right in that I didn't think the bench would be this much worse and I hope DW is disappointed.
                      The thing is that it's his job to spend that cap space on the right players and to manage the timing of signing our own players. He failed at this and should be held accountable.
                      If you're a DW fan don't worry though, it won't happen. Our best bet is to hope that he doesn't screw with the roster any more until he retires which I hope is at the end of the season.
                      Until then or until I see this bench out playing last year's bench, I'll be calling out DW.
                      I guess I just don't see any moves that could've been made that would've been drastically better than what was done.

                      I like the addition of Ian. The way he was added was a little puzzling though.

                      I loved the addition of Green. DW was the only guy who thought highly of him. Both Pritchard and Shaw thought he would be a real difference maker off the bench. No clue why he's been so irrelevant.

                      I thought DJ was a good signing. Starter experience and a low risk 1 year deal.

                      In a perfect world, I would've loved to have gotten Mayo and Kaman, but neither wanted to be backups. I liked Barbosa, but his complete fade in the Miami series left a really bad taste in everyone's mouth.

                      Kudos to you guys for seeing this coming. What moves do you feel should've been made instead?

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                      • #56
                        Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                        I think we could have landed Kaman with a longer contract offer in the same price range and that would have been my first choice. Having Kaman playing at the 4/5 would have been a huge upgrade over what we had and a huge upgrade of giving those minutes to Ian and Hans. That and the bench we had and we'd be talking about how much closer we've came to the finals not hoping to make the playoffs. Failing to do that I think the F.O. should have forced the signings of Hibbert and Hill back a week or 2. Scola was already waived prior to the signings so they had that knowledge and all they would have had to do was to back up the signings by a few days to make a run at him. They should have forced those signings back to be able to land bargain players beyond what they knew about Scola. Once Nash was gone I didn't see any reason to go after a pg since no real upgrade was available and as nice as Mayo would have been, going after another backup wing player was not a priority to me and we had no knowledge of what was going on with Granger.
                        Imagine right now Kaman coming in for Hibbert then rotating West out and Hibbert in, no more Ian and Hans. Imagine having DC backing up Hill and having the option of starting Barbosa, Jones, or Lance and never seeing Green or DJ on the floor.
                        Last edited by Pacerized; 12-09-2012, 11:34 AM.
                        Why do teams tank? Ask a Spurs fan.

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                        • #57
                          Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                          Ah, the classic, "no one could have seen this coming," argument. It gets used often here, historically. For example drafting Shawne Williams instead of Rondo. No one could have known we should draft the best PG available instead of a SF when SF was our strongest position! Drafting Tyler over Holiday... we still have no point guard, but NO ONE could have known drafting the best point guard available instead of a low ceiling big man who can't even play both positions in his best case. Now this, no one could have known giving a marginal bench big a 4 year contract would be foolish. NO ONE could have known that acquiring players from the worst teams in the league last year wasn't going to improve us. No one.

                          Except those of us who said all of these things prior to them happening. It's not hindsight bias when you call it long before it happens. No one... smh.

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                          • #58
                            Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                            Only few of us(the haters) could see this coming, there is a whole thread full of people ("sunshiners and positive people") trashing us because we didn't agree and still don't agree with their point of view, the same "sunshiners" and "positive people" are still in denial about the off season maybe because they don't want to prove us "hater" right or because of pure blindness.

                            The fact is that the Pacers had the potential to have one of the best off seasons ever and they screwed it up by signing a bunch of scrubs, I mean they had everything, cap space, trade assets, picks, they were also under the cap what else do you Fing want?

                            They also had a one time opportunity to sign amnesty players without having to give up anything of value because they were under the cap but they decided not to pursuit anybody because "they knew what they were doing", how stupid can a front office be to decide not to sign quality players pretty much for free?

                            I've been saying it for a while the Pacers signed the equivalent of Solomon Jones, Kareem Rush, Travis Diener and to do it they decided that this time they were going to spend 10mil dollars a year, how stupid is that?

                            Just imagine if the Pacers had a competent front office and instead of signing the scrub of Mahinmi(while giving away a trade asset) they have waited for Philly to amnesty Brand, or for Houston to amnesty Scola, imagine if instead of signing the scrub of Green they decided to keep Barbosa for veteran minimum, imagine if instead of DJ we have DC and instead of Young we have DJ.

                            If the Pacers had a competent front office they would have made similar moves to the ones I'm describing but instead they decided to make moves that only worse GM's could think about making, hell I don't think I can see another worse GM making the same stupid moves I just can't.
                            Last edited by vnzla81; 12-09-2012, 02:02 PM.
                            @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

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                            • #59
                              Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                              The one that gets me the most is I often see people lamenting how we haven't had a quality point guard here in a decade or so... yea, of course we haven't, we let teams behind us draft all the good point guards ala Rondo, Holiday, and Lawson. Then they STILL refuse to hold the management accountable. Woe is me we don't have a point guard, but let's not be upset that all star quality point guards get drafted behind us repeatedly, that's no one's fault!

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                              • #60
                                Re: Odd Thoughts: Blinded by Gold Dust

                                Originally posted by vnzla81 View Post
                                Only few of us(the haters) could see this coming, there is a whole thread full of people ("sunshiners and positive people") trashing us because we didn't agree and still don't agree with their point of view, the same "sunshiners" and "positive people" are still in denial about the off season maybe because they don't want to prove us "hater" right or because of pure blindness.
                                You trash every move. It's a self-fullfilling prophecy. Other people, that have diverse opinions, get credit.
                                Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

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