[JoeD]

Originally Posted by Husstla

Getting rid of chauncey would be the biggest mistake ever. I know you are upset, and so am I, but watch what you wish for. We don't want to give up chauncey. Althought I wouldn't mind getting rid of flip for taking Dice out when he was playing so good.

I know we have no one to replace Chauncey with, but when he is not going to take us to a championship there is no point keeping him, and we should trade him before he goes for nothing or we cripple ourselves maxing him out. I'd trade him to Milwaukee for Charlie Bell or Mo Williams.

Another thing that pissed me off tonight is Webber barely touched the ball. He practically seemed frozen out of the game. Why can't Chauncey pass it to another facilitator when he was clearly struggling himself?

Someone has to be blame for this massively talented team under performing so much.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by XMATTHEWX

Who right now is available and better than Saunders? No one.

Hard to say how people will do until they are actually doing the job. As it is, Flip is probably the worst coach we've had in the last decade.

We do have former head coach Terry Porter on the bench. Even if he might not be the coach for next season, he could finish this one.

I wonder if Flip is pulling a Larry Brown...trying to get fired so he can get another job (gophers) while still under contract. The Gophers sure are confident they'll land him.

BTW, did anyone see when Rip was getting his technical, Flip was holding him and it looked like Rip almost threw him angrily to the ground?

[Husstla]

Originally Posted by JoeD

I know we have no one to replace Chauncey with, but when he is not going to take us to a championship there is no point keeping him, and we should trade him before he goes for nothing or we cripple ourselves maxing him out. I'd trade him to Milwaukee for Charlie Bell or Mo Williams.

Another thing that pissed me off tonight is Webber barely touched the ball. He practically seemed frozen out of the game. Why can't Chauncey pass it to another facilitator when he was clearly struggling himself?

Someone has to be blame for this massively talented team under performing so much.

No dude. That's a horrible deal. You let chaunceys value drop to zero after one game. He's worth more than bell or williams.

[JoeD]

I like Mo Williams better than Chauncey. He's fast paced, creates, and more clutch than Chauncey the past two seasons.

Bell is also fast paced, all around solid, and he's a good defender.

With the talent at all positions on this team we could be very good with a point guard who is decent but lets others be the focal point. With Webber on the team now we'd have less of a void at floor general if we replaced Billups.

I'm not just saying this off of one bad game, it's mroe this game has confirmed my beliefs of Chauncey's problems through out the season. We are not going to win anything with him as the focal point of this team.

I don't see how anyone can realistically think Chauncey can lead us anywhere. He is way out of his league against people like Arenas. Right now I don't even think we are good enough to get to the eastern conference finals, let alone beyond.

[MLKG]

I have no idea how anybody could think Chauncey could lead us anywhere either. I mean, outside of winning a championship, what has he ever done with this team?

[Husstla]

Lol Joe D sorry to say but Chauncey for Mo Williams is a rip off for us.

[DetBNyce]

Trading Chauncey... i dont even know what to say. Does anyone seriously doubt that we can't make the finals with the group we have here? Once you get there, anything can happen. I mean we had no chance to win in '04 right? Once you get to the point where a championship is no longer an option, that's when you start looking to 'unload' guys. We're not there yet.

[Husstla]

Originally Posted by DetBNyce

Trading Chauncey... i dont even know what to say. Does anyone seriously doubt that we can't make the finals with the group we have here? Once you get there, anything can happen. I mean we had no chance to win in '04 right? Once you get to the point where a championship is no longer an option, that's when you start looking to 'unload' guys. We're not there yet.

Yeah. There is nothing wrong with this team. We are 2-2 for the season so it's not like Wizards beat us every single time this season. I mean look at last year. We beat every single team last year regular season, 3-1 against Miami and when Playoffs came everything changed. If we lose games like thse doesn't mean we will in the playoffs. We have the squad to last against a 7 game series against wizards.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by MLKG

I have no idea how anybody could think Chauncey could lead us anywhere either. I mean, outside of winning a championship, what has he ever done with this team?

Chauncey not only had a smaller role then he was also playing better, we were a different team, he was going up against Gary Payton and Derek Fisher, we had a better team and a better coach.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by DetBNyce

Trading Chauncey... i dont even know what to say. Does anyone seriously doubt that we can't make the finals with the group we have here? Once you get there, anything can happen. I mean we had no chance to win in '04 right? Once you get to the point where a championship is no longer an option, that's when you start looking to 'unload' guys. We're not there yet.

I seriously doubt we can make the finals. On paper we look like the team to go to the finals. I think we have the most talent in the East, but we don't play up to it.

I'm feel we are at the point where we can't win a championship unless some major change takes place.

Whatever our talent may be, our offense is so-so, and are defense can't get a stop. We have some decent man to man defenders, but basically any team that makes a lot of passes and has guards that can penetrate (and it looks like everyone can go by Chauncey these days) = automatic points for them, and usually a foul for whatever unfortunate big man is forced into paying for the defensive error of our perimeter players.

So-so offense and horrible defense doesn't sound championship caliber.

[Goubot]

Wow, talk about overreaction.

Maybe you don't remember earlier in the month, when we were floundering without him. We couldn't buy wins against the dregs of the league.

Listen, Billups isn't perfect. He doesn't look like an All-Defense player (he's always fared better against strong guards rather than fast ones, Rip has defended faster guards before and that has worked in some games), but his offensive capabilities have been as good as ever. His 3 point shot is not quite as deadly as in years past, but he finds ways to get to the free throw line and is generally our most efficient offensive player (think about how many threes and free throws he takes. He's not stellar from the field but he takes a lot of threes and getting to the line is also a use of a possession. And those free throws are money). He's not even dominating the ball half as much as you're making it out to be, he's even avoided taking a high volume of shots until the second halves of some games. He's third on the team in attempts, and Sheed would have more if he played more. That's a sign of a balanced attack.

He is still a good passer who knows his teammates better than anyone and he avoids turnovers very well for someone who handles the ball so much. Again, his game is not perfect, he is not a good rebounder and we need that without Big Ben, and his defense against quicker guards is suspect. But you're pointing the finger in the wrong direction if you think he's at fault for our team's inconsistency.

Tayshaun frustrates me sometimes because he can be great on offense but has a tendency to disappear sometimes. But Sheed's inconsistency has been driving me insane all season. When he has his head on straight, he's unguardable and we can't be stopped. When he's off, he kills us (although he still plays hard on defense, always).

Doesn't help that Flip's supposed playbook seems to only have two pages, his substitution patterns make no sense, and he'd kill to have half of Larry Brown's ability to make in game adjustments.

With all that said, you're still overreacting. I could understand if we were at .500 or something, but we're still close to the East's best record even though we completely sucked for a few weeks without Billups. Our offense is deceptively decent. Our field goal percentages are not great, but we're league low in turnovers and we hit the offensive boards so we get extra possessions.

As for defense, we keep other teams to relatively low field goal and three point percentages. We've slipped in that we're fouling a lot more (an area where Wallace really helped) and we're bad at forcing turnovers, but our defense is still firing.

All of this isn't meant to be an attack on you, but your criticisms of Billups have always been really baffling. I can understand your apprehension at lavishing a huge contract on him, but players of Billups' type have aged well historically. Point guards reliant on speed lose it in their 30s, but point guards who are able to pass and shoot are still able to produce into their 30s (Cassell, Nash, Kidd [his shooting has never been great, but the passing point stands]).

[JoeD]

only going to respond to 1-2 things because i'm tired and going to sleep in a min

I know chauncey doesn't dominate shot attempts, but he works slowly on everything. He goes up the court like a slug these days (except his first few games back from injury, which had me really optimistic for a while). Then he stops at the perimeter and waits for someone to make a play off the ball. He's good at scoring for himself pretty much only if he gets a pick or two, as I've said 100 times this year. He almost never can create his own.

He makes better decisions than Flip Murray or Blalock, for what that is worth, but my feeling is, for whatever reason, certain players aren't getting the ball enough. It was pretty obvious last night. Webber touched the ball like 10 times all game, it was like Chauncey thought he was Ben Wallace. Our offense kept putting up low percentage shots, particularly when we dug that big hole, when we had dominant big men to go to. One of whom can make plays for others besides himself. Not to mention, most of the game, one of our bigs had to be guarded by Caron freaking Butler.

[MLKG]

Originally Posted by JoeD

only going to respond to 1-2 things because i'm tired and going to sleep in a min

I know chauncey doesn't dominate shot attempts, but he works slowly on everything. He goes up the court like a slug these days (except his first few games back from injury, which had me really optimistic for a while). Then he stops at the perimeter and waits for someone to make a play off the ball. He's good at scoring for himself pretty much only if he gets a pick or two, as I've said 100 times this year. He almost never can create his own.

The problem with everything you are saying is that none of those things are valid criticisms of Chauncey's game.

How can you on one hand say this isn't the same team as it was when they won a championship, and then on the other complain about the way Chauncey plays?

THIS is the team. They are not a running team. They slow the game down, take care of the ball, and work out of the half court. Things are not that way because that's the way Chauncey is. Things are that wasy because THAT'S THE TEAM. Chauncey isn't being slow or lazy, the pace is intentional.

Why do you think they lead the league in fewest turnovers by such a big margin? It's not called working slowly, it's called being patient and letting things develop. Why do you think the team is second only to Phoenix in A/TO ratio?

It's called running plays and adhering to a philosophy. What do you think would happen if they replaced Chauncey with someone like Mo Williams? Do you realize that that wouldn't change the way the team plays? They would still play methodically. The only thing that would change is that instead of having a point guard who can sit back and read games, we'd have one that would make frustrating turnovers trying to play faster than the rest of the team.

Saying things like Chauncey needs screens to score is just head scratching. He doesn't NEED the screens. The screens aren't for Chauncey, they are for the big guys. The screens are what gets Rasheed and McDyess open shots. Once again, these are set plays. Getting a different point guard isn't going to make them stop running high pick and rolls. Did you watch the game against New Jersey tonight? I certainly didn't see him having any problems getting into the paint on his own.