I think this is a good reasonable take. Reverse engineering that she definitely isn’t dumb, she has adapted and improved things.
***Official Caitlin/Fever/Kate/Meg Games Mega Thread***
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I think this is a good reasonable take. Reverse engineering that she definitely isn’t dumb, she has adapted and improved things.
Watch this replay. Caitlin is staring down Reeves while she is gesturing to the crowd. I fvcking love it.
She's coming after them at the All-Star game.
Minnesota is a very physical and good defensive team, even without Collier. It’s what they hang their hat on. Yes, it’s huge them missing Collier but they still hung around down 7 going into the 4th quarter. And a road win is a road win. You can’t shoot great every game. Grinder game today that Boston kept us in the game and then CC and Mitchell made some key plays in the 4th. I know Mitchell doesn’t pass but they need another key scorer. That’s her role.
Team looks like it's bonding
Winning solves a lot of problems
Winning solves a lot of problems
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I also think she's pretty bad. Sure, she's finally figured out that Caitlin is the Fever's Jamie Tartt (for Ted Lasso fans..."You gotta stop going to me and start playing through me"). She started letting the offense flow through CC. It shouldn't have taken anywhere near as long as it did for her to figure that out, but she did. Yet, she still bizarrely decides at times to stop doing that and to have CC park herself in a corner and wait for a pass. The 4th quarter of the Phoenix game was like that at times. I'm sure she's learning as she goes some, but she appears to be a pretty slow learner for a head coach handed someone like CC.
CC22 fakes a defender to the bench
Couple takes here…not picking on you but I hate that “not athletic” enough comment. I think it’s lazy and cliched. Often used to describe a team that has a lot of white players. Peyton Sandfort isnt very quick laterally, but he could still play a shit ton better defense than he does. More often than not it’s scheme and want to. Position defense is just that.
For example I’ve had this conversation with a number of people from multiple angles, including the “haters” mad because they think CC camps out down low to “steal rebounds” but that is clearly where they have decided they want her to play, the quicker they can get the ball in her hands the quicker they can start the break, and there was another reason. They do still struggle rebounding sometimes, especially early in the season. She has helped shore that up.
However, schematically it is the number one reason why she is often time late getting to the perimeter. So it’s a pick your poison thing. Keep her down low give her the ability to slap at the ball come up with some steals, which she does, get the rebound herself or have it thrown to her quickly and up the court they go, but there are holes in that philosophy.
So following up on that note with my last point, her defense off ball has steadily improved, (and she has the stats to prove it) but quite frankly on ball is getting better and better and better but in that scheme, she is going to be rotating out late on a three-point shooter, more often than not.
Scheme… If Sides has only done one thing well (more actually) she has figured out how to get them to buy into playing better defense.
Yes, quick, long athletic players have a leg up, but defense is always all about scheme position awareness, and want to!
2 things, first if you read all the way through his post, he said she’s improved a lot and could become a pretty good coach..
And second, the team/players have some culpability in this as well. They played awful in that Phoenix game and although I saw the same thing you did, where they more or less seemed to have taken CC out of the game she does play a part in it too. She isn’t infallible!
And I think many of us have a tendency to think she’d step on the court and everyone was gonna say oh hey CCs here let’s do everything her way, there always has to be buy in & I think it took several teammates a while to get on the same page.
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Yeah, you don't know what you're talking about. Compare their stats and get back to me.
Well I’ve watched them play a lot, when she goes to the rack, she goes to the rack & more often than not she shoots 12 to 18 foot jumpers, but she does give the ball back up, she is not an assist machine, but she knows how to reverse it out. Once Mitchell has the ball. She has the ball, including dribbling around in circles inside the lane sometimes 2wice. It’s the craziest shit I’ve ever seen and although we, including me, often times call her selfish. I’ve noticed more often than not. She just doesn’t see the floor that well. She has tunnel vision and I don’t think her basketball IQ is very high.
Just my .5 cents..
Furthermore, the physicality, toughness and defense are light years different. I don’t dislike Kelsey Mitchell, but in my humble opinion, although she has been significant in the last month of the season, she is not the player this team needs.
Incidentally, outside of three-point, shooting her steals, assist, rebounds, turnovers, and PIE are all better than Mitchells
You nailed Mitchell’s two issues. Tunnel vision and bad basketball IQ. She’s quick though. My other complaint with her is something she can’t fix, her small hands can’t handle the Caitlin fireball passes.
Most of the time, coaches teach players how to fit into their system. IMHO, and as an armchair coach/GM, wouldn't it be wiser to for Sides to teach her players how to play according to what Clark brings to the table on offense, and develop her game plans accordingly. And, by all means, don't put a ball and chain on Clark by not utilizing her abilities to the highest extent possible. Pretty generic take, but good grief.
Hmmm, interesting take, but that does help explain some stuff, she also has difficulty handling anything but a chest pass, and if you saw her a couple games back, looking back down the court to CC she did that back to her a couple times, but the other thing is, she just has her head up her ass. Sometimes she completely whiffs on the basketball. Again today, it’s like she thought it was going to Katie Lou and until the ball was on her. She wasn’t paying any attention and it was right there. Hell all she had to do was reach her hands out and catch it🤷♂️.
Everyone else on the team, including the girl they just brought back that has been injured for a couple years, and only plays spot Minutes, but everyone fits. They may not be ideal, but they fit… Mitchell is the square trying to fit into a circle.
You think I didn't read all the way through his post? I quoted the part that I wanted to talk about. Simple as that.
Nobody said CC is infallible. I've been critical of her myself, particularly with some of her team relationship skills and tendencies to do things that aren't likely to make her teammates want to go to battle with her.
I guarantee you that CC didn't just decide to give up control of the offense in the 4th quarter. That was a coaching move plain and simple. If it wasn't, then it would be the coach's job to sub out the players that weren't sticking with the offense the coach wanted. I never disagreed that there are other players with egos that made them resistant to letting the offense flow through CC, but after a short stint that is also a coaching issue. Everyone seems to be on board with it now and having fun, so when things revert to what wasn't working and it doesn't get corrected damn quick, that is a coaching problem. Some of the comments Sides has made that seem to be about CC have also been a problem.
It was known that the Fever were going to draft CC for the entire 2023-2024 NCAA season. I wouldn't call it good coaching to not have a pretty good handle on who CC is, who she is not, and how to utilize her in an offense. Yet, Sides didn't seem to have a handle on it at all. She's learned, later than she should have, and yet she still reverts to things that don't work. At the end of a tight game, she tends to draw up plays that don't even have CC touch the ball at times, or that don't have any effort to get CC open for the shot. I don't think she's good with the X's and O's, I don't think she's good coaching fundamentals (like how to set a damn pick), and I don't think she's good at managing the personalities. That is my opinion.
Agreed. Maybe CC wasn't the right pick for whatever Side's system was, but the Fever knew they were drafting her and it is pretty obvious what they were getting IMO.
I actually think that’s what she ultimately is doing now. But remember many on here were fairly convinced a number of these players were trying to sabotage CC and the team. I think Sides had a major, major uphill battle trying to get these girls all on the same page.
I think she deserves some credit for that, and again I’m not saying she’s a good coach, I’m not even saying she’s an average coach, but you can’t deny they are a much different team now than they were in every aspect of the game.
And I suppose we could all give CC credit for all that, but no way in hell was a 22-year-old rookie with all this fanfare going to come in and take over a team of professional women and everyone go oh yeah cool that’s great. Let’s do that. 🤷♂️
CC had things to learn herself, for one she had to get serious about playing defense. Second of all, I know a lot of Iowa fans wanted her to shoot 20+ times a game, but that really wasn’t practical, and they have defended the hell out of her and it’s a challenge sometimes for her to get a shot up. They were going to have to rely on her ability to orchestrate a game and that was going to take a team concept.
That takes & took time.
Besides, as I’ve mentioned a couple times today and others on here I believe know and have probably read some of the same things I have, this has not historically been a Guard league.
Again many on here thought it was going to be a pop into the league and take over kind of thing, and the whole entire league isn’t even set up that way. It honestly makes what CC & Sides & her teammates have actually done, all that more impressive.
Quite frankly, for me, the largest blame belongs with the fact that the front office and the GM in particular & Sides to a degree were woefully, unprepared personnel wise, methodology wise, preparation wise, implementation wise and psychologically
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Honestly, if I was the Fever GM I would blow this team up at the end of the season. Keep Boston and Caitlin and replace everyone else. Surround those two with Hannah Stulke like forwards and 3 point snipers. Basically level up the Iowa model Bluder had. I believe that team with CC and Boston would be a strong team. Once better players see the appeal of playing with CC, you can add some more star power and boom it’s a championship squad.
I addressed much of this in another post so I will just say this you are 100% correct there should’ve been a timeout called five minutes before there was one…
That Phoenix run was a slow moving train wreck.
Second of all Sides is indeed the coach, but the personnel/preparation problem started way above her head again she’s a second year Coach in what I believe has been a poor organization.
Finally, although I mostly only watch the Fever play. They’ve now played most every team in the league and I have watched some other isolated games and there’s a lot of bizarre shit that goes on in this league, from player substitution, to missed layups, to poor screens, etc that I don’t understand at all…🤷♂️
I don’t believe, this league is set up structurally for mass trades/free agents signings. And we’ve all noted. These are supposedly 144 of the very best basketball players in the world and there are a lot of them that don’t even play.
Again of the things I’ve learned this last couple months these European girls and other continents, they get drafted and don’t come play, that girl Leonie Fiebich or something like that from the New York liberty, I believe she got drafted three or four years ago and just now showed up. There were three girls taken in the first round this year that stayed home to prepare for their home country Olympic teams. I’ve watched their highlights. They are good.
These ARENT the top 150 players in the world, they are many of them, but there is Talent elsewhere.
I agree with this. Have to keep the pick and roll rolling along. I'm not sure about replacing all of the others though. Smith has the potential to be much better offensively, along with Lexi Hull (and I adore Hull's tenacity on defense, and that's where I'm headed next).
Shore up the defensive side of the ball. Get creative with switching, and do a much better job at boxing out, and teach players when not to go under screens.
Not sure how much communication on D there is, but encourage more of that.
Also, Wheeler gives you some good defense, but she's a liability offensively.
Well, from what I can tell, I think she’s been a pretty good offensive player and has some length, I don’t, however think she’s a great defender.
As far as the Fever go, Dontas, to me needs to start getting more minutes, maybe she’s not fully in game shape yet and she’s not super quick per se, but she can knock down an open shot.
Speaking of which I believe she’s from Brazil and I’m not gonna bother to look it up again but historically Brazil has played some pretty sensational women’s basketball. There’s a couple women from the late 70s throughout the 80s one being magic Paula I know that much that you guys should watch some highlights of, they were sensational. The other one I think might’ve been Maria something.
One other thing, I haven’t been over to cyclone fanatic for sometime, NCAA tournament time actually, but a number of them have supreme Clark hostility, I’ve been banned three times in the last year for a week for hardly saying much of anything other than disagreeing with the premise and pointing out Some statistics and basic facts that somebody clearly didn’t like 🤷♂️
nice product placement of the Gatorade towel
I wouldn't have banned you. I might ignore you, but...
J/K.She had a good block in the game, and had a second one taken away when another girl fouled Clark from the side. She certainly looked silly with broken ankles on the one play with Clark, but other than that was impressed by her defense, even when she had some 1v1 with Clark. She also had 7 rebounds.
Meh, Im not big on the over emphasis on somebody falling down trying to play hard defense, I’m not picking on her at all and as a team they play good defense and that’s a staple of Reeves as a coach so I’m don’t doubt she plays some, but she’s not an extremely fluid athlete but I think almost 6-2 & has very long arms
That's the thing though, what do you consider a "sniper" for this league? There are 19 players in the whole league that are shooting 35 percent or better (at present of course, a good or bad game can change that) from 3 and two of them are Mitchell and Samuelson (barely, she's 19th). Mitchell is a free agent after the year so she could choose to leave on her own although I'd doubt she will having been there her whole career and finally having a better team around her. Half the others are just bigs that can shoot it well which would help the half court but slow down the running game, a net negative for the Fever style IMO. Kelsey Plum and Diana Taurasi are free agents but doubt either would leave their teams. Sophie Cunningham is a good spot shooter but doesn't bring much else (probably could make it work though). But then Phoenix could need her back if Taurasi retires. But it's not like there are 50 people shooting 40 percent from 3 and lots of options to choose from where you can just pick up a specialist to plug and play. Not sure how often they do trades, but Katie Lou's sister is a top 15 shooter and better athlete than KL too, maybe they'd want to play together at some point. Drafting the best shooter available is probably their best bet for next year though. I've seen mock drafts with them taking Sonia Citron from Notre Dame, and she hits 37 plus percent in her college career (and playing close by never hurts either), so someone like that might fit well. I'm sure Caitlin will be able to raise her average next year with a full offseason to get her legs back under her too.
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I think this is pretty much what has happened, whether by design or just a series of trial and error trying to figure out what works. The reason Iowa fans get upset, and what angry twitter can't figure out, is that we KNOW what works with Caitlin because we watched her play for 4 years at Iowa and it is infuriating to watch them do something different and suck at it.
Of course, angry twitter will never admit that we do in fact know what we are talking about and no, we didn't need to watch every WNBA game since 1997 to be a legitimate commentator about women's basketball. Er, wait...I think that's a different topic.
She'd look great raining 3's from the wing or corner for the Fever
I like Mitchell. She plays her role well, IMO. And that is to put the ball in the basket.
