Cavs look great

And regarding Brook Lopez, not sure how much that move helps them.

He's an offensive player and has been known as a bit of a defensive liability at times during his career.

I don't see their offense changing significantly if he was to be added to their roster because KD and Westbrook will continue to take 40-50% of their shots per game.

What they need is a big that can protect the rim defensively while doing a lot of garbage work on the boards and getting easy buckets - basically a better version of Steven Adams. I'd like Robin Lopez on their team more than Brook Lopez.

RoadDawg55 said:

Tequilla said:

And regarding Brook Lopez, not sure how much that move helps them.

He's an offensive player and has been known as a bit of a defensive liability at times during his career.

I don't see their offense changing significantly if he was to be added to their roster because KD and Westbrook will continue to take 40-50% of their shots per game.

What they need is a big that can protect the rim defensively while doing a lot of garbage work on the boards and getting easy buckets - basically a better version of Steven Adams. I'd like Robin Lopez on their team more than Brook Lopez.

OKC is a top defensive team. Third worst offense in the West so far. Obviously there is an asterisk besides that with Durant and Westbrook missing time. They have Ibaka to protect the rim. They have never had a good finisher at the rim. It helps. You're off base with that one.

Part of the reason why they have good to great defensive stats so far throughout the season was because when KD and Westbrook were out of the lineup, the only way that they could be a good team was to focus on defense.

Not saying that they aren't a relatively strong defensive team because they are definitely an upper half of the West defensive team, but last year 9 of the 15 teams in the West gave up between 99 and 103 points per game. In the grand scheme of things, there's not THAT big of a difference between the two.

If you think that OKC needs more scoring on their roster when they have arguably 2 of the top 5 scorers in the game on your roster, then you are in more denial about OKC than I have given you credit for. They need better role players that fit the roles that they need filled. Ibaka is the right kind of role player for them as their 3rd option (strong defender, doesn't demand the ball, able to hit mid-range shots). They need more spot up shooters that can space the court (obviously they aren't going to get Kyle Korver, but players like that) and strong players on the wing and the guard position that can let KD and Westbrook not have to always play strong defensive minutes that can come at the expense of their offensive game.

When I watch OKC play, way too often they remind me of some of Dr. J's early teams in Philadelphia where whoever had the ball was going to take the shot. Same thing with the Cavs right now. There's a lot of "the disease of me" on both of those teams at the moment.

RoadDawg55 said:

They have been good on defense every year. The criticism is their offense (especially halfcourt) sucks considering they have Durant and Westbrook.

The reason that their halfcourt offense sucks is because the ball sticks in the hands of Durant and Westbrook.

Now, you can put some blame on Scott Brooks for that because he doesn't do a good job of demanding ball movement and holding KD and Westbrook accountable for when they just start jacking up shots (more of a Westbrook issue IMO).

But if you can't see that Durant and in particular Westbrook play a lot of 1 on 1 ball, then I don't know what to tell you. Westbrook is averaging 31 minutes per game so far on the season and he's shooting the ball on average 20 times per game.

Durant's the best pure scorer in the game, but until he cleans up some major weaknesses in his offensive game, he'll never reach the high levels that he COULD reach as being the most influential offensive player in the game.