If this happens, I think we should be annoyed with the JBs, not Martin. Bouk for not doing the work to earn minutes, Borrego for not allowing Bouk to get those minutes to progress.
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Generally agree (canāt hate on a guy for earning his minutes), but I wonāt necessarily fault Borrego if heās primary focus is to win basketball games. At this point, we have a significant investment in players. Development has to be secondary to winning at this point, though I certainly want to see Bouk play.
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Well of course Iād be annoyed with JB, as I was when the martins were getting too much run before.
I do think Martin is playing pretty well and he is staying in his lane. Furthermore, I think he is playing well because he is staying in his lane. Which is that 20 minute zone.
Iām mostly excited because I see a lot of individual components firing and working well, but think this team can really click when everyone is in sync. Super excited to see what happens when Terry shakes the rust off, Plumdog eases in, and Bouk gets some run.
Iām mostly happy with the role players, including Martin and Oubre.
It seems to me that JB has a pattern or a few sets of rules thatās been here since day 1.
- If you earned minutes, you keep minutes
- If he pulls you for someone else, they earned your minutes
- If you are more likely to get the minutes long term, heāll let the shorter term minuteers get theirs first all things being equal
To me, if you look through the prism of those, a guy like Martin will get minutes over Bouk and will not see them ceded to the youngster until either Martin loses them or Bouk earns them. If the latter, Martin wonāt get them back. I think thatās why rule three exists (e.g. heās got less faith the short term guy will keep mins than the long term guy will relinquish them so he lets the shorter term guy get his). This seems to explain why it took Melo a good while to start (necessity required it, his play kept him there), Monk took forever to get his shot (and earned it eventually only ceding it to injury), and even Graham over Terry two years ago.
Ah yes, the JB meritocracy. Trust the system.
Not sure I agree there
His effort is the same but he has matured as a heady bball player significantly
Nope. No revisionist history here. The deflections, the steals, the transition buckets, being a defensive menaceā¦none of that is new. He makes things happen when heās on the floor and that why he earned minutes as a rookie, which are obviously hard to come by with JB.
His ideal role is definitely as the hustle guy and I agree that the sweet spot for him is somewhere around 20 mpg, but the people who have appreciated what he brings to the table have been talking about all this same stuff for a while now.
Yeah, heās an all star
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I very much agree with you Founding. My sentiments exactly.
Nobodyās suggesting heās an all-star or more than he is. But people around here used to make comments like they hate looking at him on the court when he was a hard-playing guy on a team struggling with an identity. He and his brother got a lot of unnecessary hate.
Dudeās an okay baller and was an okay baller. Think he was a great second round pick.
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Well, it was easy to confuse the two twins, he was always better.
But (amd he okayed like a beast today vs Nets)
Butā¦ He had some incredibly ugly games man
If you watch the broadcast today, the female analyst said three times how much he is improved.
Just donāt think anybody needs to be beating their chest on this guy. But man what a incredible surprise. He is devkooong nicely.
If Deacon Is saying that the same ferocity and effort is there, I would agree with that, kid gives at all, always has
Admittedly, he had bad games, but I also think he got way more flame than he deserved, especially since he was a contributing second round pick who was just a blue collar dude. Part of that was the specter of Monk, as if Martin playing was responsible for Monkās woes.
I think what Deacon and I are both saying is that generally he was a high effort guy that did a lot of things pretty good. He was better than a lot of people treated him around here. Now with a solid role, heās shining.
Hope that Codyās play continues to do the real talking for him.
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Great summary dnbman. Thatās exactly what I was saying. Heās been a solid, albeit unspectacular contributor, largely due to his effort, and that didnāt just start this season.
No one is beating their chest or saying heās a star. Just pushing back against the notion that he just recently started contributing and also against the past hate thatās been directed towards him.
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I canāt help but think too that getting some distance from Caleb has helped Cody find his game. Each needs space to find their games without competing with one another.
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Agreed
That and the fact that Cody is not very good