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Post by capri22 on Sept 20, 2010 15:05:36 GMT -5
Angle, Izzy, Erika and Sancho are our core group. And I agree with everybody else that this goup must not be touched. Teams that win championships keep the core group together and build around them. And we have one hell of a core group.
B. Raven- I love her energy on the beanch. She cheers her heart out for her team and when she comes in she gives her all. I think she will come back after playing overseas with more confidence. She will be a better player when she gets back. In time she will be pretty good. So I say keep B-Rav.
CoCo and Kelly- Love their story and the way they play the game. But do we need both of them? They are so much alike. So I say keep one (but who) and send one packing. CoCo showed us she still has game.
Bales and Yelana.- This is a hard one for me. Bales did well when Sancho went down. But she is slow as Christmas. Yelana... I just don't know at times I look at her and think she could be good, then at times I'm like omg what the hell is she doing? So I would say keep one and rid of the other (but who) and only if you find somebody better that stands 6'5" or above.
Shalee and Armintie- Shalee is a true point guard. She can get the ball in the right places and she can control tempo. She is not a scorer that is not her 1st mind. I love Armintie. No she can't shoot worth the d**n but I love how fearless she is when drinving the lane. She is a spark off the bench. To tell the truth I want both of them to stay. I do think that Coach Armintie and Coach Shalee need to give up coaching and go overseas. Coaching is not going anywhere. They can coach after their playing days are over. That is what I was told back when I wanted to start coaching. They both make solid back ups.
So if we get rid of a back-up post and a Miller twin that would open up two spots. Now I don't know what the money looks like so I don't know who would be good to go after. Braxton would be a great back- up post. And what should we do about our point guard ? Should CoCo or Kelly start? Should Shalee get another chance? what do you think. Hey it was fun playing GM!
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Post by ljohnverrell on Sept 20, 2010 18:09:10 GMT -5
B-Rav? I like that. LOL! So you think she should stay backup shooting guard? ok. I so agree that Shalee is a true point guard. Man, if she would just get a shot or go to a shot doctor or something instead of coaching. If she had Arminite's speed then that would override the shooting, but its like we have 2 players to make up 1 player at that position. I really don't think our starting point is on the team yet. jmo.
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Post by jaye on Sept 20, 2010 19:31:09 GMT -5
shalee lost her position and was placed deep on the bench in the playoffs... in the playoffs.... and this was done by a coach that had defied all reason and virtually loved her.... i think that just about says it all.... it was like mm just finally gave up.... she's got more problems out there than just not being able to shoot... jmo....
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Post by thepitbull on Sept 21, 2010 10:25:24 GMT -5
Hopefully, there will be some major announcements coming from the WNBA office about the next season that could prove beneficial to the DREAM. I'm hoping that the roster would expand to 12 players (I would prefer 14, but I know that's not gonna happen). With all the good talent that didn't play this season, mostly due to waivers, I would hope to see another franchise be born. The Dream could benefit from such a move because there were some solid players (mostly from the U of Oklahoma) that the team could pick up. But I do think that how Atlanta drafts next year will show their plans for the 2011 season.
I also think that next season will be tougher than this season. Chicago is changing coaches, and Nolan Richardson will revamp the Tulsa roster to his liking, so that would mean he's going after speedy players just like MM got with the Dream. A healthy Lauren Jackson has shown how far a team can go. A healthy Candace Parker will show how competitive the league will become. With Maya Moore coming into the league, you can see all 12 teams fighting very hard in virtually every game. My wish for the Dream, therefore, is that they can keep the team together as is and get better perimeter shooting with 1 good draft pick.
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Post by lea87 on Sept 21, 2010 12:19:17 GMT -5
I really like Candace Parker, but her Sparks even struggled with Lisa Leslie the year before. I don't think she can carry that team, with the players she has left. We will be fine, we just need to add a PG that can score. And a 3 pt shooter.
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Post by ljohnverrell on Sept 21, 2010 12:52:00 GMT -5
Add the New York Liberty to that mixed of changes. They need a coach AND a GM now too. What pick do we have in the draft? I imagine it will be slim pickings by then of the elite college talent and I think we'll just take whomever is available.
A point guard and a 3 point shooter is definitely tops, but from the draft? Thats means another rookie to train into the league and system and that could take years. What about a WNBA veteran with some playoff or championship experience? Still pointing to Tweety...lol. I also wish we could have got Whalen! *snap!
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Post by jaye on Sept 21, 2010 14:01:00 GMT -5
the league's not going to change that much... moore isn't overrated... but her projected impact is.... candace is as good a player as a team could hope to get... and even her team struggled when she was added.... moore isn't going to change the balance much... nolan's system doesn't work.... not in this league.... the players he's looking for don't exist... he had a good team... and traded it away for virtually nothing.... i do think chi and ny will be tougher tho.... not sure tweety would want to come here... tweety just got married.... not sure she'll uproot... be nice if she did tho.... and not sure how the chemistry would fare... tweety's pretty old school as far as basics and attitude goes....she's used to structured play.... and not sure how her patience with the young impulsive players we have would be.... our players tend to moan about every single call... regardless of how obvious... a lot of veteran players get irritated over that... teammates or not.... lots of times you can see vets looking at the youngsters with an irritated look saying "just play ball" whalen has regressed... she had a bad year.... and badly needs to get into shape.... i really wish we could get kara lawson.... montgomery is the pg of the future for conn... and kara is slated to be just backup.... she'd fit in good with us... give us stability... outside shooting and good d.... there's a lot our young players could learn from her.... and we'd have a player that the rest would respect due to her cred.... out of all the players i see league wide... she's the one that i think would help us the most... and that it might be possible to get without mortgaging the front line.... jmo
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Post by ljohnverrell on Sept 21, 2010 19:26:56 GMT -5
Yeah that why I hope Tweety would come if we could get her. She would bring the discipline that our young players, (and Angel), need. I'd compare her to Claw in that regard. Nothing says "hey listen to me" like a player thats been to the WNBA championship and won it! Not to mention that fact that she can play both 1 and 2 and has an outside shot. Not necessarily a 3-but an outside shot!
Also, I hope she misses playing in Georgia as a whole and would want to bring herself and the new wifey here. Still, its Tulsa hold on her--core free agent.
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Post by dream06 on Sept 22, 2010 6:04:55 GMT -5
Kara Lawson "TO ME" would not fit into the system. Kara is disciplined and keeps calm but we need a running point guard and leader (again to me). Claw and Lawson are both slow and get tired quick. One of the FEW things I didnt like about Claw (and there was not many because she is a great player) is she slowed down our game. YES, I know...sometimes you have to learn how to play half court, thats fine. BUT Claw was trying to run half court alot last year, it wasnt until Castro just begging for the ball on fast break that they got the concept of...GIVE HER THE BALL. AGAIN, I know you have to have some half court game but we are a "first RUN and GUN" and then 2nd IF made half court team (we need to work on this one though). I think Kara would do the same thing...slow down our game. Some times that is good IF MADE but if we can lets run.
Lets get a PG that runs and knows how to control the game...I dont know who though, lets just not pick up a slower guard...jmo
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Post by jaye on Sept 22, 2010 7:59:22 GMT -5
being a running team doesn't meat that you just run down court on every possession.... you pick your times to run.... we're a running team by virtue of angel... izi and sancho being able to get out on the attack off of the defensive board.... angel.... sancho and izi usually get out on the run themselves after receiving an outlet pass.... a guard hauling azz down court by themselves wouldn't serve much purpose.... and a huge numbers of possession in a game are of the "take the ball out" after a made basket variety.... there's also no sense in running full bore when the other team is downcourt waiting for you...
we were able to run even with shalee in the game because regardless of how fast you are.... a pass moves faster.... not sure where you got the idea that claw and lawson are slow and get tired fast... claw played 30 mins a game this season and had almost 2 steals a game....and she ran just fine with sa.... if you're going by the claw that played with us.... that was a claw with just one leg....
and lawson plays with the us team which playes geno's offense... which is a run oriented offense.... it's alright to run... but you've got to run in control.... our success in the playoffs has made some of us forget our season.... we lost 6 of our last 7.... and a lot of our success in the playoffs had to do with who we played... and their weaknesses.... we didn't beat these teams because we ran them to death... we beat them because we murdered them on the boards..... and for the record... seattle can play either game.... run or setup.... they elected to play our game.... and beat us at it.... and ftr.... nobody would ever describe sue bird as fast....
suffice to say that i don't agree with you... i think lawson is just what we need.... if she can run geno's game... she can certainly run ours....
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Post by ljohnverrell on Sept 22, 2010 10:52:30 GMT -5
Geno actually chose to cut Lawson, (along with Augustus), from the US roster yesterday. I'm not sure about her contract but I think she may be available come January as well.
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Post by jaye on Sept 22, 2010 13:05:44 GMT -5
yeah.... i saw that... he had some hard choices to make.... and had to leave off some quality players.... i don't think augustus is yet healthy.... why have they insisted on putting appell on every elite team that forms??....
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Post by dream06 on Sept 22, 2010 14:23:01 GMT -5
EXACTLY....Geno style is run oriented...and thats why she is not on it! Whalen didnt have a good season this year and she still made it...you know why? Because Whalen is lethal in the open floor during a fast break. I never said Lawson was not good, you can be good and not good for every team. Angel is not good for every team, Castro is not good for every team. I know that you have to have a half court game to, I said that in my first post. EVERYONE knows you have to have some half court game...its basketball. My point is we are a better fast break team and we look to run first and if thats not available then we set up (or try to...lol). Our biggest different in the post season was that we went with speed...We switch the PG position and we placed Angel at a 4 to make the lineup faster...THATS WHY WE WON...NOT BECAUSE OF THE TEAMS WE PLAYED. We played the best teams in the WNBA (NYC, Washington, and Seattle). The only team we were missing was Indiana and we would have beaten them too. Seattle is a great team, they beat us BUT had to work at it, so please keep that theory silent.
We work off of chaos...(in the post season we did alot), meaning we play hard defense, gets steals and get easy bucket...or make them shoot something really hard and get easy buckets (thats the biggest difference between ATL and Phoniex, granted we couldnt do that with Erica starting because we were to slow). Izzi, Angel, and Miller all took the ball up coast to coast plenty of times, its not just lobbing the ball. How many times have angel and Izzi received and ones are went to the foul line bc teams put a trailer back court and they still managed to score.
I say Lawson and Claw is to slow for ATL, its kind of like saying Kara Braxton is fast enough for Phoneix...lol. If Kara was on a slower team, she would do some damage! I mean she did good this year, dont get me wrong...but her game is half court. There is nothing wrong with a half court game...every now and then a half court person can run, cool but its not there first option.
Coco did exactly what we needed her to do...she pushed the ball up the court and made people have to defend her. She was tough on defense and really brought energy. I honestly think we dont need another PG...I think the Miller twins work fine. We went 6 for 7 to me because the team was in dissarray (and YES with a more experienced player on the field, they could have possibly handled that but the biggest problem to me is that I think the players were frustrated at the starting line up). I think our end of the season would have been a little different if Miller would of started instead of Shalee (jmo). Its funny how they change the line-up and things started to flow now...and guess what...it happened without a vet on the team.
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Post by jaye on Sept 22, 2010 19:52:04 GMT -5
you do realize that altho angel started at the 4.... that's not where she spent most of her time.... and that the team you call the run team wasn't the unit that spent the most of the time on the floor... defense won the playoff games we won for us... we held both teams to shooting in the 30's... and we killed them on the boards.... suffice to say that i don't agree with much of what you're saying... and i'll leave it at that...
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Post by dream06 on Sept 23, 2010 7:24:42 GMT -5
This is why I LOVE that you can go back and look at stats...Angel played MOST of her time as a 4 in the playoffs (just look at the archived games box score...its states the minutes of each player). All you did was repeat what I said as far as us playing good Defense because we was faster...and changeed the lineup (So I guess we do agree on something! lol). The only game Angel really got to play a 3 most of the game was game 3 of the Finals (and thats because Price was not putting in many minutes because of her injury). We won most of our games because of the starting lineup playing most of the game (again PLEASE look at the minutes...Shalee barely played in most of the games, Erica averaged like 15 minutes, and we all know UNLESS there was foul trouble Bales and Luechinka barely got in). I do agree that part of our running style comes from rebound (you have to rebound in order to run) but as we BOTH stated, we play defense as well. One stat that you forgot to say was the fast break points...we beat MOST of our teams in fast break points (fast break = running game). So it was the combination of Running, defense, and rebounding that won...NOT because of the teams we played (as you stated earlier) and NOT simply because of our defense (as you stated earlier). If we were lacking one of those elements (defense, rebounding, and running game), the results may have been different. For proof go to MOST of the post game speeches by the opponents after they lost to us in the post season, most of them actually say "Atlanta has really good rebounding, fast break, and can play passing lanes and thats what they tried to slow down."
I guess we will just have to agree to disagree...either way, they won the games without a "vet" leader on the team. All we need "TO ME" is to get our team together that won in the post season and try to get them use to playing with each other more and develop their skills (Price needs a shooting coach, Angel could use one too for her 3 pointers, Raven just needs more experience because I think she is good already, Coco needs a little more help in PG play, and Erica needs to get in better shape to run the floor better). jmo
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