The Story of a Young Head Coach - Coach Griff

[trekfan]

DeRozan is a major get -- the Lakers had to give up a ton for him, but he's a mega-move and might be the perfect two-guard to thrive in an offense with Lonzo running point and Ingram spotting up from deep -- that leaves the mid-range game all for DeRozan.

Lakers gotta make the playoffs next year to really justify such a move, though.

[Jordigriffin]

[Jordigriffin]

Quote: Originally Posted by trekfan

DeRozan is a major get -- the Lakers had to give up a ton for him, but he's a mega-move and might be the perfect two-guard to thrive in an offense with Lonzo running point and Ingram spotting up from deep -- that leaves the mid-range game all for DeRozan. Lakers gotta make the playoffs next year to really justify such a move, though.

Yea honoustly as a coach im happy that we got help to get to the playoffs, But the pressure , unlike last year, is real now. if we got like a year more to really grow in the young guys, we could contend. Max two years.

[Jordigriffin]

Chapter 15
Opening night

Opening night was coming up and i couldnt be more excited, we were travelling to Play Dallas away.

The line-up was simple, our main starting five would be: Ball, DeRozan, Ingram, Randle, Zubac. With Mills, Burks, Anunoby, Green and O'Quinn coming off the bench. But in the fourth i wanted to run our 5 out line-up that consisted off: Ball, DeRozan, Anunoby, Ingram and Randle.

The Game was about to start and everyone in the organization knew that the opening night game was crucial, we made a gamble on trading for DeMar, and if it wasnt going to pay off people were going to be furious. At me, Magic, and the hole damn franchise. Especially against a weird team like the Mavericks. Dirk had just retired, they have a bit off talent and a bit off veteranship, but no superstars in the making. On the other hand they were too good to tank, because players like Barnes, Noel, Hernangomez and Matthews were still very good players in the NBA.

The game started rough for us, It was very clear that Ivica didnt fit into our offense. Either he was standing in the post making it easy for them to play help-defense, or he was being useless on the three point line.

The mavericks took a fast lead, but we took it back with an 8-0 run. Thats when the fourth quarter had two minutes left, we went mostly through DeRozan, But being two down with 6 seconds on the clock, While running a screen for DeRozan, Lonzo found a lane towards the basket and made the layup while it being contested. Putting us tied and going into overtime.

I wish i could tell you overtime was fun, but it wasnt even close, we were too good for them eventually putting the nail in the coffin with a DeMar and one.
Winning the game 111-101.

I mean i loved DeMar, at the start of the game he struggled to fit in, but he adapted really quickly to our offense and played his heart out on defense. I think we could be really good this year because we won without even shooting very well from the field and especially from three.

Also some fun news, we are ranked first on the 2K leaderboard. Marc Spears and NBA.COM both have us as fourth. The favorites for the title are: Cavaliers, Warriors , Clippers, Pelicans, Rockets and Us.

After the game i had a talk with Magic, we both decided we wanted to run the small ball line-up through the whole game, with Randle at center. This meant Ivica had to leave, and be traded for a back-up Small Forward, because he would be replaced by one of my favorite players, O.G. Anunoby, who at this point was basicly one of the better defenders in the league. He was ranked 10th in the league behind Klay Thompson and Russell Westbrook.

Two days later Magic notified us he was in trade talks with the Warriors about Iguodala.

To be honoust if we would manage to get him, he would start over Anunoby, at this point Iguodala was getting on. He was 34 years old, on a one year 8 million dollar contract with a team option for next year. He was still a lockdown defender, his athleticism had declined a bit but was still there and he still had a good jumper. Now the warriors werent really using him anymore, as he was playing about 8 minutes a game and they were really in need for a good defensive center (Zubac).

We would only take on his salary for a year, maybe two, and just in time to release the contract once our Youngsters needed to get paid, and we really didnt want to give Zubac a big contract after this year.

Magic managed to pull the trade off straight up, Iguodala for Zubac.

And go figure who we would face in the next game. The Golden State Warriors at home.

Box Score vs Mavericks

Spoiler