HiAndTight

Sometimes it is though. Lopez clearly can't defend Boston's bigs on the perimeter and it was a huge problem until they gave Ersan a lot of his minutes. Then their defense locked them down. You can't just say +/- always tells a story, but you can't say it never tells a story either. Lopez is a huge liability against them. There's a reason bigs like him have regularly been played off the floor in the playoffs for years, and it's only getting worse. He works against some teams, but not this one. There was nothing at all random about him having a -12 (don't know where I saw -17) in a game the Bucks lead by about 25 when they benched the starters. Pretty sure the original box score said -17. That's probably a little more subject to change after the fact than during the game. If he checks out while they're shooting rebounds, does he get -2 for that in real time? I honestly don't know. But it is obvious for all the great things he's done, this series in particular he is not a positive. The Celts play Horford, it's a bit mis-match. He's fine if they choose to go with Baynes on the floor with...lets say the flat Earther, Brown, Tatum or Heyward(hope it's more Tatum if he keeps playing like he has) and Morris. So maybe sit Lopez, when they yank Horford, bring him in for a stretch. But I agree, he's not providing much value. It should be a BIT better with Toronto against Ibaka who had his worst year shooting 3's, hitting just 29 pct, but he can still pull Lopez away from the basket and hit those mid-range shots, and he's got a history of being a competent shooter from deep, but then you've got Gasol, an elite passing big man who's hitting at about a .50 pct clip and hit 45 pct during the season. That's putting the cart before the hose, but the point is, with centers who don't posess Capela like athletic ability, which Lopez does not despite all of his other talents, sometimes they're just a liability due to matchup and this series is one of them. It's all good though. As long as Bledsoe keeps attacking and doesn't get out of control, I think the Bucks take this series in Boston in game 6. Split the next 2, win one at home and then close out in the most arrogant non-NY sports city in the world.

Worth noting that Joshua Jackson isn't listed here, and he'll certainly factor into the depth chart at one position or the other (or both). I'd imagine he'd be the favorite at nickel corner at this point. You mean the 2nd round pick from just a year ago? Yeah, he should probably be considered an option! I'd imagine he'd be the 3rd starter as well. I usually think of the Nickel and the Slot as synonymous, but he'd probably play outside along with King with Jaire playing inside..depending on matchup's. I think he's gonna take a nice step in year two. Iowa guys are like UW guys. They generally just seem to keep getting better and outplay their measurables. Demsond King has turned into a very nice corner for the Chargers and IIRC, he was talked about as a late 1st, 2nd round pick who went much later in the draft(round 5 maybe?) So now we have Jaire, Jackson, King and Tramon. Gotta hope we see something outta the 6th round pick...he has all the tools, but I'd still feel better if Breeland was back or if we picked up a vet. Heck, even House would be alright. I agree the pass rush is gonna make their jobs much easier, as is having vastly improved safety play.

Assuming we get to the next couple rounds...I'm not sure that he's going to be THAT much better in those rounds. Certainly vs Golden State he's likely to be a poor matchup if he's on Draymond. And Toronto, I don't know if I like him playing Ibaka 15-18 feet away from the basket, much less at the 3 point line. He helps rip protection a ton, but we CAN manage with Ersan, Mirotic, Giannis. Hell, everyone is pretty good at contesting shots at or near the rim. Side note, on 16 of Kyrie's 18 shots last night, they were contested. Now I know he can make a lot of those normally, but that's an exceptionally high number for a player as explosive and as good finishing at the rim as he is. Plus, he's had that little Jordan-esque turnaround going all playoffs long.

Which is why single game + - is not a useful metric. I don't particularly care about the +/-. Especially since it's different every time I look. He's now -12 last night and not 17 and I thought he was negative in the 1st game when I originally looked at the box score. But you just have to watch the game. He cannot guard Horford on the perimeter. I love what he's done for us this year...he's been a huge part of it. But sometimes, it's just a bad matchup. That was one of the reasons I thought the matchup between these two teams was gonna make life tougher on the Bucks. They seem to just not be a great matchup for us. Ersan I thought played really well. I don't have a box score in front of me, but he played hard, he was contesting shots, he had a few taps outs, so no rebounds, but kept the ball alive. Edit-I meant to say he doesn't get credit for those rebounds...when he fights and taps the ball out to a teammate, not that he had no rebounds.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/nick-anderson-is-improbably-excellent/ Huh...ok, so you're probably right, after reading this, it sounds like he's legit and his career started late because of legal troubles. An assault that he says was him coming to the defense of his friend. I have no opinion on him as a person based on that. Young, stupid guys get into bar fights. I'd like to know how bad he hurt the guy. But really, as long as it's not sexual, a violent beating, a women or kids, but rather just a couple idiots mixing it up, you can come back from that.

Ok, before we have to hear it, "there's no right-handed Josh Hader." I'm not 100 pct sure what that means or why you can't say that, but every time someone does, someone else says that. Also, lets see if we can make it without a single mention of any FA's from any teams, be them East Coast or rhyme with Haig Mimbrel. That'd be awesome. Now...as for the story on this guy....I don't know. But it sounds interesting. Maybe 32nd round pick, was hurt, doesn't get the attention other higher profile guys get, takes him a while to get healthy and he takes a circuitous route to the bigs? If this is his first run in the bigs, how much are you gonna try and get for him if you're the Marlins? Unless his stuff is that good, unless he's throwing in the upper 90's with some nasty breaking stuff..and even then. It'd kinda be like when Junior Guerra got out to a really nice start.

I read something predraft in the new York media about the shoulder injury and they indicated that he was someone the giants may pick at 6 or 17. I don't think a guy as talented as him was going to last much longer. I don't mind the Packers rolling the dice there at all, the chance to score a blue chip defensive player for the remaining Rodgers years was too good to pass up, especially with the extra 1st. Gutes first draft has been acclaimed after last year and not just by the Wisconsin media. With that start I think he gets the benefit of the doubt. Going back to this, you nailed it. And more importantly, these are kids basically, who are now Green Bay Packers. So even if this was a TT draft, I'd still be optimistic and hopeful. You're a FAN. You can be critical if a player is bad, but not before you have any clue. I mean...I guess you can be, it just seems nonsensical to me.

I read something predraft in the new York media about the shoulder injury and they indicated that he was someone the giants may pick at 6 or 17. I don't think a guy as talented as him was going to last much longer. I don't mind the Packers rolling the dice there at all, the chance to score a blue chip defensive player for the remaining Rodgers years was too good to pass up, especially with the extra 1st. Gutes first draft has been acclaimed after last year and not just by the Wisconsin media. With that start I think he gets the benefit of the doubt. Ehh....that right there sours me on Gary a bit. The team that drafted Daniel-inster Stephen A Smith's voice here whilst saying the name-Jones #6 overall, wanted to trade up and get Gary? The team that effectively traded OBJ, Landon Collins and Snacks Harrison AND Oliver Vernon to get back Daniel Jones, Kevin Zietler(who I love as I knew him and the family a bit when he was at Wisco), Jabril Peppers, and Dexter Lawrence. Now I'm the first to say we on this board who don't work for a scouting department are ignorant. But not THAT ignorant. Daniel Jones? I feel like saying Gary would have been available later is pure conjecture and likely not true, but the ONE guy I think everyone can agree was a massive, massive reach was Daniel Jones. So I now have TWO things I dislike about Rashan Gary. The Giants tried to trade up to 10 to take him, and he'll be wearing #52 so soon after Clay's gone. I'm obviously joking about these being serious....but also like 5 pct not joking. All Gettleman had to do was not do anything colossally stupid this off-season and he was firmly behind at least Gruden and Colbert who called the rest of the Steelers kids while praising Big Ben. He had a TON of ground to make up....and boy, like Usain Bolt coming down the stretch, he picked up steam and ran right by everyone. All starting with the mysterious decision to NOT franchise Collins and at least recoup something like the Hawks did with Clark or the Chiefs with Ford.

I think the Giants taking Jones screwed up a lot of the value of #12 for the Packers. If they had gone Allen like they probably should have, you'd have had the Giants at a minimum trying to trade up to 12 to get ahead of Miami and Washington to get 'their guy'. As it was, Washington correctly bet that they could stay put and get Haskins, and that was probably the major hope for Gute at that point if they wanted to trade out. This year was just a weird one for teams that needed QB's. If I was running the Redskins or the Dolphins or one of the teams that could have taken a QB, I'd MUCH-MUCH rather just be in all-out tank mode for the next year(actually, probably a 2-year tank and try to get Trevor Lawrence). The #2 QB in this class surprised people by going back to school in Herbert from Oregon(although, who knows, by now he could have been a 5th rounder the way these guys move up and down boards). But the next two years there appear to be franchise changing QB's in Tua and then Lawrence. This year you had Murray....who I wouldn't be real excited about, Lock who I would have loved in the middle to the late 2nd round and then a pretty good, safe bet in Haskins, but he's also not a guy that many believe has a huge ceiling. Honestly, the only problem I have with this draft at the moment...they gave Rashan Gary #52. C'mon....as Clay tweeted, the body isn't even cold yet!!! Clay wasn't Reggie, but he was a Packer great. It's stupid, but I just wish that you weren't giving that number to the 1st guy after him. I also bet it actually does bother Clay. I get it's a business, but that dude played his heart out in GB and despite the fact that his numbers dipped, he gave up a TON to move inside and help out the team, thereby hurting his sacks...[sarcasm]which as we've seen, no matter how good you are vs the run..even if you're an OLB'er that the team has playing inside and you have a 1st round grade as a run stuffer, but you only have 3.5 sacks, that's all anyone cares about![/sarcasm]

This is how I feel about the draft. I'm not angry as someone mentioned, just upset how it transpired. The first 5 picks look like they'll contribute this season. The RB maybe as well. The CB/LB picks I'll just assume as Special Teams help at best. I just said the value side in the draft wasn't there. If you take the trade value points it'd go something like this: Gary 1200-Even to -200 Savage 924- Even to -124 Jenkins 460- Even to -60 Sternberger 215- +50 to Even Kiki 31 +35 to Even -88 for 4th round loss. Riley Ridley went to the Bears after what would have been the Packers selection. He was a 3rd round type projection. All told thats -3 to -384 The equivalent of a late 2nd round pick to late 3rd round pick. Which is probably what the value you would have been looking at on trading down from 12 a few spots. Draft Grade C- I'm curious which teams were chomping at the bit to trade up a few spots to 12 or around 12. Because after Pittsburgh traded up to 10 nobody else traded up until... your Green Bay Packers traded up to 21. Logically, if the sweet spot in the draft fell around picks 15 through 18, and many posters here including myself were saying they wanted the Packers to trade back in real time when their 12 pick went on the clock, why under the sun would any team spend extra draft capital to trade up out of those spots? I won't state this as fact, because I can't find the actual link right now, but I thought Gute was asked about offers he had to trade down and he said he didn't get any calls. Now given the fact that he traded back last year, got the guy he wanted and added the additional 1st rounder many are complaining we used to trade back up and give up two 4th for a guy who's closest physical and pre-draft comp is Earl Thomas, don't you think that if these teams were clamoring to move up to grab Haskins or whomever, he'd have done it? So my conclusion, given that he'd traded back just last year in nearly the same situation, it's pretty easy to conclude that he either made any offers OR...he just really liked the guy that was available. The 2nd prospect is just as likely since he passed up on going to Clemson's pro-day in order to attend Michigan's in the first place. Finally, Brewcrewdude, were you the one who said you'd be livid if the Packers took a lineman with their 1st round pick and then also said you "weren't all that enamored with Aaron Donald?" Edit-Sorry, went back and looked. It wasn't you who made that comment, it was another poster. You seem to have been hoping for a trade back the entire time predicting that the Giants may trade back up to get Haskins(which is hardly a far fetched idea). But you had Burns as the guy you liked, a LB'er who doesn't really fit the Packers scheme...unless they want him to play inside. He's too soft and I don't believe he can set the edge. Which is probably why Carolina picked him. To use him in a Barr type role. An occasional pass rusher, but more of an off-ball LB'er. I suppose if you went into this with the idea that you wanted them to trade back and add more guys, it makes sense you don't like the draft. I personally thought they'd added enough players to this team(except at CB) that it was most important to get an impact edge early on. It remains to be seen if Gary will be that, but I have no reason to believe he won't be at this point in time. And Savage, well, I have no idea about him other than Combine numbers and a paragraph written on him that, as I said, reads very similar to Earl Thomas. One thing to keep in mind, we had Haha as our FS, roaming and covering the backend when we played single high. He was a 4.58 40 guy....so the same as Rashan Gary. Savage is a 4.36 guy. So hopefully he'll be able to cover more ground out there.

Here's a link to a report about Ridley and why he was likely to fall down draft boards...along with some others who were "mocked" far higher than they were picked.

This is how I feel about the draft. I'm not angry as someone mentioned, just upset how it transpired. The first 5 picks look like they'll contribute this season. The RB maybe as well. The CB/LB picks I'll just assume as Special Teams help at best. I just said the value side in the draft wasn't there. If you take the trade value points it'd go something like this: Gary 1200-Even to -200 Savage 924- Even to -124 Jenkins 460- Even to -60 Sternberger 215- +50 to Even Kiki 31 +35 to Even -88 for 4th round loss. Riley Ridley went to the Bears after what would have been the Packers selection. He was a 3rd round type projection. All told thats -3 to -384 The equivalent of a late 2nd round pick to late 3rd round pick. Which is probably what the value you would have been looking at on trading down from 12 a few spots. Draft Grade C- How exactly are you coming up with these numbers? -200 for Gary? -124 for Savage? Are these just mock drafts you've chosen to use or what? Please explain. Because I'd be curious how many points the team that picked Polite, a guy who was a top 10 pick in some mocks got for going in the 3rd round? Or Deionte Thompson, the S from Alabama who was also a top 15 prospect in a lot of mocks in the 5th round? And be honest, would you really even know of Riley Ridley if he wasn't Calvin Ridley's little brother? You talk about Rashan Gary, but Ridley tested in the bottom 15 pct among WR'ers(equal to or worse than the 6'4, 280 LB Gary who played inside in college, NOT WR'er). He also struggled with drop balls and never caught 6 passes or had 90 yards in a game, despite playing with great QBs at Georgia. Now when I saw he was available late in the 4th round, I was all on board with the Packers taking him. Because I'd seen lazy mock drafts that had him listed higher for some reason. Looking back, it clearly wasn't because of his actual production or because of his great athletic ability. Also, can we PLEASE acknowledge that there are about 100 players who are mentioned in somebody's mock draft as being a 1st round pick, and it just gets worse from there. Take all the mocks and there are about 3X as many players mocked to each round as there are picks. So I don't care what mocks had Ridley in them as a 2nd rounder. I didn't see any after his poor combine showing and I do believe if his name wasn't Ridley, nobody would even give him a seconds thought. But the biggest takeaway from this is you're again, stating something as fact, attributing negative "value points" to the selections of Gary and Savage(when we know now Savage would not have been available) and you're doing so using a 30 some year old OUTLINE for valuing draft picks used by Jimmy Johnson and you're trying to somehow make this a mathematical equation. You cannot possibly try to quantify Gary's "value" relative to Jimmy Johnson's system, and you especially can't do it if you're going to go with the lowest you saw the Packers players picked and then contrast that with the HIGHEST you saw a player we could have had if we'd kept our 4th round picks. I wonder if Mack Wilson would have been taken in the 4th round if you'd be using him as an example as he was rated much higher. Or Greedy Williams, another player who was once considered a top 10 pick and on eplayer unlikely to be available at the Packers pick.

Well, that's sports. Why predict the Brewers' record this year, or how any players will do? Just let it play out and then discuss. If someone believes, today, the Gary pick was horrible why is it silly to say so? Obviously as time goes on it will become more obvious what kind of player any of these guys will become. But following the draft in various sports and reacting to it is as old as the sport itself. Most predictions are stated as such ... predictions. I think what people are disagreeing with in this case is that the idea that Gary won't live up to the #12 draft position was being presented as a straight out fact. Yes, stating factually that Gary will not live up to the expectations of the 12th overall pick is absolutely silly. Not liking the pick and having an opinion is fine. I mean..I do think it's a little foolish because we really see such a microscopic amount of what goes into evaluating these players that no matter how many mocks we read, we're all pretty poorly informed, but as an opinion, that's fine. But someone just said that in their opinion they could have got Savage and Gary later or players equal to them. Of course even if the Ravens and Raiders say they had Savage as their pick inbetween 30 and 21, we don't KNOW that they would have pulled the trigger(the Raiders a bit more likely given they went with a safety). But a GM's job isn't to get guys who have similar grades on draft day. It's to look at players he thinks are going to be big time impact players and pick them. Taylor Mays was a 6-3 freak at safety who played for Pete Carroll, Earl Thomas, the player I along with many have long believed was the best player on those great Seattle teams ended up going 14th when both had very similar grades. If you believe for one reason or another, this player is going to be great and the other just good....isn't it incumbent upon the GM to make that move? And incidentally, the similarities beween the written reports and the phsyical traits of Thomas and Savage are remarkable.

NBA games can definitely turn around very quickly. What was troubling about this one was save for a 3-4 minute period when the Bucks went on a 15-0 run, this did look like one of the worst blowouts I've seen. At least from a Bucks team that was competitive. I'm too young to recall the 80's, so perhaps in one of the many times they were playing in that stacked East this happened(I know only 4 times has a team lost game 1 by 20 points or more and come back to win the series and one of those teams was the Sixers when the Bucks beat them by 20 in game 1). It's really the fact that they only stretch that made this game look competitive was when Giannis was out..that's when they went on their 15-0 run. I believe Giannis was out for the entire thing. I don't particularly care if Giannis only scores 15 tonight, if he's penetrating and hitting open shoooters, we should be fine. If he's stonewalled by the Celts bigs again, they don't stand much chance. Really hope we get some other guys to step up though, because this is a tough matchup for Giannis no matter what. Bledsoe needs to play much better.

He's lost at the plate, but I don't think it's anything like Thames from last year. His strikeouts are DOWN. It's rare that a guy like him is making more contact and struggling this badly. Without looking, I would just assume his exit velocity is way down, he's popping a lot more balls up or rolling over a lot more balls. His BABIP is .167, so he's probably better than his stats suggest, but I wouldn't expect him to have a high BABIP with how he's been hitting the ball. And this is the most confounding thing to me. He's got such a simple, smooth stroke, he can shorten up and still hit for power...he just doesn't seem like a guy who when he's staying within himself and not trying to hit everything out, would go through these sustained slumps. I'm gonna predict from May-End of the year he hits .280 with a OPS in the upper .800's. I just think he's too talented as a hitter to be this bad. I know I'm in the vast minority here. I just hope he's given time though... Should have said from here on. Lost out on a 3 hit game! Hopefully the start of something though.

Moose offers a bit more positional versatility - handling 2b pretty well this year, plays third base, and has some experience at first. Thames is really a 1B/DH who can play a corner OF spot in theory... Honestly, I'd exercise Moose's option, and have him learn to play LF/RF in spring training 2020. That just does not make sense. He's not a good enough hitter to warrant a corner OF spot before you take into account that he'd likely be awful defensively out there. And while I know you have....lets just say unique opinions on where we should play people, preventing runs is pretty important. I see no reason to put a .300 OBP bat out in LF or RF. I'd feel more confident pocketing 10-12 million and going with Corey Ray or Tyrone Taylor as Braun's backup or as the starter and then if necessary finding someone in the season to play there. That's not difficult. Corner OF's are probably just about the easiest part of your team to acquire.

I think you nailed it. If the Bucks lost a back and forth game, Kyrie hit a big shot and the Bucks lost by 4-5, that'd be different, but they looked like they were playing the 60 win dominant team. And that was a concern with a team as talented as Boston is. They have the talent. I believe someone said at this point in the season "you are what you are," but that's not really the case in basketball. We see teams who are able to put it together and hit another gear come playoff time. The Bucks are more than capable of matching that, but they didn't come close in game 1 and that's more concerning than just simply being down 1-0.

First off, you do need to settle down like OSS said. You're coming off as the guy who said the sky is going to fall and then angrily says "I told you so" after an ordinary thunderstorm. This is the same Bucks team that lost to the Suns twice and they lay a few eggs. On to Tuesday. And yes, the Bucks came out completely flat. Giannis was terrible. Horford is a decent guy to have against him, but Horford was a better player last year, Giannis was not as good as he is now, and Giannis still averaged over 26 ppg on 58% ts in just 28 mpg in last year's playoffs despite having much worse floor spacing from his teammates. They also made a lot of unforced turnovers and missed wide open 3's. They played awful and would have lost to just about any team in the playoffs today except maybe Detroit. And Boston probably played the best they've played all year. Philly and Toronto lost game 1 against much worse teams in the first round. Basketball happened today. The Bucks threw away their margin of error but they did not do anything they're not perfectly capable of correcting. You still can't just give Boston a little credit? I don't believe that they'd have lost to any team by 20+ tonight. I think Boston played well, the Bucks played poorly, but you're pretty much saying that it's just the Bucks and not a result of a really talented Boston team with the same coach everyone was calling one of the best couple coaches in the NBA this year. The Piston's are a bad team, but they have a good big who is a good rim protector and Giannis made him look like a fool. Horford took Giannis' lunch money today, and Morris and company took what was left over. If not for Middleton and Mirotic having a hot stretch, the Celts likely would have had Kyrie and Heyward on the bench in the 4th quarter of a 30 point blowout. We'll see how good of a coach Bud is when they come back on Tuesday. Not being able to play Lopez much in this series may really end up hurting us(though I don't know how much he'll be able to play the rest of the way either given the matchup's). But they talked before the game about the Celts giving the appearance of helping...they did and outstanding job of waiting to see what Giannis was going to do, if he was going to beat Horford before completely leaving the 3 point shooters and Giannis for the first time had zero answers and looked as bad as he's looked in a couple years. Though he did knock down a couple 3's. Just...get game 2, get Brogdon back and HOPEFULLY get some calls on the guys defending Giannis. Whoever pointed out that they didn't want to complain about the refs because we shot more FT's, we were attacking all game long, Giannis in particular. If they call Horford for a few foulds, now you have Morris in there, he can't go up and meet Giannis...though he's a respectable defender, that changes the game. It's also tough when Gordon plays the way he did. You know Kyrie is going to get his. You can't let Jaylen Brown and Gordon Heyward to had big games as well. I'd comment on what Bledsoe did, but I don't have any clue. Is Rozier REALLY in that dude's head that much? He's an ELITE PG who was just out of control...and with him, it wasn't really forced. Yeah, Tatum and Brown and the team is long, but he was dribbing in circles before either turning it over or making some errant pass.

Wait a second, I remember you just bashing Segura because he was great early and then struggled as a young player, yet with Thames you ignore the fact that he got off to a ridiculously hot start for the Brewers and use his full-season numbers, dismiss last years numbers and advocate picking up his extension when? Doesn't seem consistent.

If I am not mistaken it can't be super long. He starts his clock to return when he makes his first AAA start. The Brewers must feel he is close or they would have waited They can just put him back on the DL and start it over again. And it's 30 days. So...I think the fact that he's starting in AAA means he's likely well on his way back, but I think they could sidestep that time crunch if they wanted to.

Yeah, I don't want to speculate too much, but TT's speech and ability to convey information to the media on the rare-rare occasions that he did fits with some of the things said about him in articles. The guy is in his 60's and was a 10 year vet at MLB'er. I don't know if that's why, but his later drafts and last, in particular, did not look good.

I really hope not. I'm sure if the Brewers wanted to offer a multi year deal, given what he's been through the last couple years, he'd jump on it, but he's a very bad defensive 2nd basemen and he's not a great hitter. He's a ~.300 OBP type guy who hits for a low avg and some power. I don't think he was or is a magic bullet for us. He's just another guy and with Hirura hitting .330 with a OPS over 1.000 in AAA, I can't imagine the Brewers being interested in multiple years of Moose.

Yeah, that may be projection...or at BEST if it was in an actual "report," which are sadly now just tweets, it was likely someone else just guessing, "hey, if Jeffress fails, they'll really try and sign Kimbrel." There's almost no chance that Stearns has actually come out and stated this.

You really think that's what the problem was? Yes!!!!! From the second he found out he was traded. Devastating to go from one of the worst teams in baseball to the contending crew. Rather be comfortable with his friends on a losing team. I'm waiting for the edit and the blue font that doesn't seem to come. I didn't see any lack of effort. I saw him struggle and then get booed and then press and then struggle more. A problem for a streaky strikeout prone power hitter to begin with. I saw nothing to indicate he didn't care.

Nobody is a righty Hader......... What was Rollie Fingers? Haders good, but he hasn't revolutionized the game of baseball.