This team's important parts are still too young.
Purvis is who he is. He's streaky. He can't be our best player.
Hamilton is our most important guy, and he's just too young to take over yet. I thought it was silly that people were predicting he'd be a professional after this season.
And Adams will be the third member of that trio.
Gibs is all right, and Miller is a really really solid player, (and I wish we had more years of him)...but those three will be back next season, and Next season we'll look like a great team. We're a year too young.
Good points.
I do not doubt thatCoach Ollie shares some of the blame here, but IMO many fans are taking it to the extreme.
Before the season, on paper, this team looked like they could be true contenders.
But, as you pointed out, although the players have talent had had statistics that that looked very promising, they all have flaws that unfortunately add up to a cumulative effect of team flaws that have had bad consequences.
Gibbs can be deadly from outside and has the quickness to make straight-line drives that can give him separation to score inside. But, he is not a good enough ball-handler to effectively drive through traffic and doesn't have the innate PG passing skills to make the tough passes on the move.
Purvis has shot well this season but over his career has been a streaky shooter and his cold streak today definitely hurt the team. He can be a powerful straight-line dribbler but is not a great ball-handler and although he has improved his passing this year, he is not a great passer and cannot create well for others.
Hamilton has a good handle for his height and is a good passer but before this season, he has never been expected to play the point guard role. Over the last several games, he has tried to do too much and when the defenses have adjusted, he has seemed unsure of what to do next and when his shot has not fallen, his overall confidence has been shaken. He has relatively short arms and is not an exceptional athlete, so he is not great at finishing at the rim. Defenses are now ready for the spin move and without an alley-oop target when he drives in it traffic they collapse and given his shooting struggles they give him open threes. Shonn Miller could be a good target for the passes at the rim but when he has to sit out for foul trouble, no one is left to be a finisher inside (Enoch doesn't appear to be ready yet).
Miller is vitally important to the teams effectiveness on both ends of the court. When he is not on the floor, the team must have an awful plus/minus. With problem is magnified without Brimah. Part of the reason Coach Ollie went to zone today (and the zone was effective for much of the game) was to save fouls on the big men. Shonn needs to cut down on the fouls!
Adams has talent, but he lacks confidence in his shot at present and although he has ball-handling skills, he lacks the experience to know when he will get into trouble with his dribble.
It has discussed over and over about the mental lapses on defense, particularly Hamilton and Gibbs, but others as well, which have made man-to-man problematic. This has been exacerbated by Brimah's absence/no rim protector.
Coach Ollie has clearly not made the best adjustments to mask the team's flaws. On the other hand, the flaws run pretty deep and fixing this mess is no cakewalk.