There's been a fair bit of negativity around the moves this off-season. There's been a whole lot more apathy as to whether or not we improved over last year's team. I've been fairly vocal about my belief that the moves made this off-season make us a far better team in the short term and long but I just wanted to pay out the 3 reasons why we've improved from arguably the second best team in the East to a real threat to the Cavs and beyond.
1. We have a higher floor. Last year's team achieved as much as could be expected but at times looked outclassed against teams with inferior records. The Bulls legitimately looked liked they could've swept us. The Wizards outclassed us every single road game. The Cavs just plain destroyed us.
I don't see any of that happening this year.
This team is far more built to compete in the playoffs largely because we loaded up on counters to guys that we had no answer for last year. Robin Lopez(or maybe Dwight this year) isn't going to be able to push around Aaron Baynes/Ante Zizic like he did Amir/Horford/Olynyk. Markief Morris separated the Wizards in every game we lost and we go out trade for his identical twin brother. The Cavs defense had no trouble slamming the door shut on a hobbled, overworked, Isaiah Thomas but let's see them try that this year with Gordon Hayward finding all the seams left open by the constant IT4 traps.
I'm not saying we're better than the Cavs but I think we separated from the rest of the Eastern Conference which should allow us to hold our head higher on the national scene. No more #fake1seed
2. We're legitimately tougher. Watching Jae Crowder's mental breakdowns last year reminded me of the old Dave Chappelle's Mad Real World sketch. When you put one hard nosed guys on a team with mostly mild mannered personalities (Avery, Kelly, Horford, Etc) they're going to look crazy by comparison.
You can argue all you want about what makes toughness and whether a player may or may not be about that life, but one thing is for sure... when Isaiah gets leveled by a hard screen it isn't going to be Jae Crowder alone on an island losing his mind, this new roster should be more apt to stand up for each other and our skill level will be high enough to balance things out when the games inevitably gets more physical.
3. Jayson Tatum It just doesn't happen. Teams as good as ours don't get rookies as polished as Jayson Tatum. In recent memory you can really look at situations like Kawhi to the Spurs, and Draymond to the Warriors to find examples of teams on the cusp of title contention ending up with a high impact player on a rookie scale contract. Tatum may never amount to those two but from everything we've seen so far I see no reason to bet against him becoming an upper echelon shot creator sooner rather than later
We can fantasize about the monsters in the 2018 draft but let's also take a step back and remember that in a world where we're trading buckets against the Warriors in the waning minutes of the 2020 finals it would probably going to be Jayson Tatum taking a bulk of those shots. Let's hope at that time were remembering 2017 as his coming out party.
Happy Off-season everyone. Cant wait for October.
Topic: Offseason Musings: 3 reasons to be excited for 2017/2018 (Read 1162 times)