Harden and Mitchell are both very ball dominant, but they play best at two very different paces. Offensively, it’s really hard to get them both going at the same time. Defensively, they can both be traffic cones.

I also don’t think that Harden’s pace has aged particularly well considering the blistering pace of the modern NBA, and that’s before taking any/all of Harden’s age-related decline into account.

Cleveland is -3.5 this season with both Harden and Mitchell on the floor. -0.8 with Harden on and Mitchell off. +19.6 with Mitchell on and Harden off. In the playoffs, when the Cavs’ pace slowed down, the opposite was true: Harden performed better than Mitchell. At the same time, I’m not sure that the Cavs were correct to slow their pace last playoffs.

The Cavs rely quite a bit on both Harden and Mitchell, but the combination is kind of cursed from a roster construction perspective.

It’s been 8 games. I feel like nobody has a solid feel on how a seasons going until ~ 20. There’s too much variance

70 million for Donovan…

Cavs play hero ball except the heroes are Mitchell and harden. Imo the fact that everyone else doesn’t seem to be able to take another step offensively is telling. Mobley has improved his production by 3ppg since his rookie year…

There’s a smack of desperation, we saw in the playoffs last year that this is not a strong contender but they had no choice but to lock in the same core, it was either resign Harden or leave money unspent.

I had a lot of faith in the Mitch/ Garland/ Mobley/ Allen core developing into a contender a few years ago, I fear they’ve locked themselves into eternal 2nd round exits with the occasional ECF until they blow everything up.

Adelman needs to stop fucking around and give Hopkins and Brazile at least 20 minutes each every game. Hopkins got a DNP in the past 2 games I believe. Even better if Adelman plays him with Brazile to get that synergy on defense. Even better if those 2 played with Braun also.

I’d take Hopkins over Spencer at this point although Spence isn’t unusable. I don’t know if it’s just me but Hopkins seems to have a higher offensive potential than Spence and Braz. Hopkins’ drives to the basket seem stronger and more confident. Hopkins is 220 lbs at 6’7”, same weight as Braz who is 6’10”.

Defense is Brazile’s advantage over Watson. He’s more driven to block shots and get rebounds. His POA defense isn’t bad either. Watson’s self-creation is much better.

CB also has Jokic while Watson is playing with an undersized shooting guard and Harden who is on his last legs lol

Healthy CB was always clearly better than P Wat. Not sure why that became such a debate.

just wait till you pull out the on/off stats

cb cumulative +/- +34, +22.1 on/off (leads nuggets in both)

pwat cumulative +/- -28 -16.8 on/off (bottom +/- on cavs)

While playing All D level defense

Eating my words on this one. He’s been great on defense and doing exactly what we need on offense too.

could you kindly answer the question youve been presented with?

you do realize defense is equally if not more important for this Cavs team, right?

He is the 4th option on a team that is set up to contend. Cleveland looked dogshit without him vs the scraps of OKC.

yall paid through the nose for kessler but hey he’s really doing some work rn

Not one Laker fan this summer was saying Kessler or Watson. It was #1/2/3 Kessler and if we can’t get him hopefully Watson as a contingency.

I think JJ Redick would have done a good job rehabbing Kum’s game like what the Wolves coach is doing right now. JJ is a good coach.

Right sitting out of spite for not getting his contract, rather than managing an injury

No.

Which are you?

I liked p wat, but he did hold out longer than usual because of the upcoming contract as his team got clobbered in the playoffs with no D. He did what’s best for him and got paid that’s great, but he also could have helped us and taken a few mill less per year and stayed

you’re getting downvoted but I also side eyed the mudiay flair lmao

Denver’s fanbase on reddit called embiid embitch, pussy, coward, disgrace for “ducking jokic” with an injury. Probably the most toxic fan moment I’ve ever seen on here

Not even to mention “Dictator Don” appears to have an ego and can’t be told his shit doesn’t stink

Yeah but the point is who is buying into a 6 game sample. You’re obviously a Denver fan who was hurt by the move and have been praying on his demise

He was hitting a lot of difficult shots.

With their hands over their eyes too

Sir the victory laps had already started after the first game of the season

Didn’t we settle it with 4 weeks last season? Now 2~ weeks is unreasonable?

To say nothing of their prior years.

This was the biggest talking point of the offseason in the Nuggets fandom so this also a critic to some Nuggets fans too.