The elephant in the room

[EricaLubarsky]

Before I start the rant: I know it's essentially preseason. We dropped to only three preseason games and Kidd, like Pops before him treats the early 1/3 of the season as preseason. We're far from a finished team so there is time to make tweaks.

Things I dont think are issues
1) DFS (32%) and Bullock (41%) - no. They have statistically come on strong when it matters and Bullock is already there.

DFS started last year shooting 19% from three. By April he was shooting 54%. In the playoffs, he shot 43%
Bullock started last year shooting 31%. In the playoffs he averaged 41% from three.

2) THJ - he's fine. I love him as a spark-plug that abuses the second unit.

The elephant in the room
Luka is good. We know that. We also know teams can throw relentless doubles at him and players like Simmons and Draymond have been able to shut him down. In the regular season, we only see it occasionally (Pels, etc.), but in the playoffs, we can't depend on Luka dropping 44 each game. We don't need a second or third star, but...

As good as Luka is and as good as Dirk was, they could not thrive until they could come up with some two-man game.

We eventually got Terry for Dirk and a defensive supporting cast (DeShawn/Marion were excellent 3/D). While McGee has been disappointing so far, we're good with 3/D guys (DFS, Bullock, Green)

What we're still lacking is Dirk's Terry (or Terry's Dirk). Every stat says that Wood should at least offensively be that guy who can finish plays when they are stifling Luka.

The good news? We already have someone who shoots over 40% from three assisted. We have someone who is an elite PNR and PnP player.

The bad news? Wood's defense has put him on the bench often and he's still not a significant recipient of passes from Luka. If we don't develop those two-man plays, we will repeat our last playoff performance (assuming we get there).

SD could be better and THJ could be a nice boost that mitigates the disaster of losing Brunson, but even if they match what Brunson brought, we still have the issue that we had last year.

Thoughts?