Post by Portland on Jun 15, 2015 7:06:08 GMT -6
This is the Globetrotters' 4th season under the current gm. We're pretty happy with the year we're having and we're on a pace to sneak into the post-season, but the despised Titans have recently passed us in the playoff seedings and there are more hungry teams nipping at our heals, so there's a lot of uneasiness in Harlem these days.
This is our historic Sim Eight status:
2024 33-20, went on to win 56 games, lost in first round to Buenos Aires
2025 37-16, went on to win 59 games, lost in first round to Buenos Aires
2026 19-36, went on to win 34 games, missed playoffs
2027 33-21, our next win will tie us with last year's victory total
In theory it looks like we could again be a 50-win team as we were in 2024 since our record is so similar. But that DJ/Parish-led squad finished very strong and I'm not sure that's in the cards for us again. We got off to a hot start this season with a little help from a favorable early schedule but have been treading water recently. Our last eight losses have been to teams winning records at least, so we're beating the teams we should beat, but surprise wins are becoming rare: mid-January wins over the Spurs and BC Zalgiris were the last upsets we were able to manufacture.
What's the character of this year's Globetrotters? We still play good defense despite making a conscious shift away from our defensive slant this past off-season. Our defensive efficiency is 6th-best in the ABCA, and we're quite happy with that. We probably have the best defensive bench in the league with four of the top 34 DEff guys sitting on it. Our problem is that we don't rebound well at all; if we could come up with 2-3 more defensive rebounds per game I'm convinced we could improve our seed enough to be dangerous in the playoffs. We've had talks recently about landing the strongman we need inside (Terry Cummings, Wes Unseld, Bob McAdoo) but our salary structure has made these deals almost impossible. So we've been standing pat more-or-less and hoping our play in other areas would lift us. (Instead we've been slowly sinking.) We need to make a move.
The good, bad, and ugly of our season so far:
John Lucas - PG: To be blunt, John Lucas is a great floor general in our system. He has the 6th best TO-Assist ratio in the ABCA and throws it away less than John Stockton. He's having career-bests in PPG, FG%, and 3P% also. And we have him locked up cheap for two more seasons although he is 31 now. In terms of performance per dollar we made a good move sending DJ of town for this guy.
Rimas Kurtinaitis - SF: Rimas has bounced back nicely from an off-year and is unquestionably our best player. Until the past few sims he was having a career year but our shift to an inside focus hasn't been popular with Rimas, nor has the team done well in the W-L column, so next sim we'll go back to a balanced offense and we expect it to get this guy back on track. He’s a free agent in the off-season but we expect to bring him back.
Jim Paxson – SG: Paxson doesn’t get a lot of love around the ABCA but he’s done a good job for us in the year-plus he’s been on the roster. He’s posting career bests in ppg (19.1), rebounds, assists, steals, fg%, pps, and 3ps%. Not many seven-year vets can boast that much improvement in that many stat categories. His +/- is also the highest on the team showing how central he is to our game plan.
Joe Barry Carroll – C: We jumped at the chance to land JBC this past off-season, giving up defensive stalwart Tree Rollins but getting a player who would be very effective on the offensive end. Joe gives us 16 points a night and is our most efficient scorer on the season.
Hank Gathers – PF: Hank has matured into an offensive force during him time in Harlem and we hope we can retain his services this off-season. We have a logjam at PF so either he or Thurl Bailey – both testing free agency – will have to be let go (to make way for Shareef Adbur-Rahim.) His .600 field goal percentage has led him to a 1.35 pps performance this season; he’s the most explosive scorer we have. He doesn’t rebound enough to be considered in the elite at his position, but he sure works for us.
Thurl Bailey – PF/SF: Thurl is back in his best role of sixth man, but he’s not happy about it and has said so to management. We don’t expect to accommodate his trade demands but don’t want him to sour our younger guys on the organization either, so it’s a bad situation all around. Meanwhile Thurl continues to play good defense and fill in all over the court as a reserve.
Thurl you may recall joined Harlem a few years ago in the highly-controversial trade which sent the stupendously talented, greatest center in the history of the universe Dikembe Mutombo out of town. Their stats since that trade:
What’s ahead for the Globetrotters? We’ll keep trying to shore up our rebounding and fight for the seven seed in the American (vs. getting the pain and suffering that NYK will undoubted inflict on the 8-seed.) We don’t have our 2028 pick so there’s no way forward realistically other than to keep scratching and clawing for wins.
This is our historic Sim Eight status:
2024 33-20, went on to win 56 games, lost in first round to Buenos Aires
2025 37-16, went on to win 59 games, lost in first round to Buenos Aires
2026 19-36, went on to win 34 games, missed playoffs
2027 33-21, our next win will tie us with last year's victory total
In theory it looks like we could again be a 50-win team as we were in 2024 since our record is so similar. But that DJ/Parish-led squad finished very strong and I'm not sure that's in the cards for us again. We got off to a hot start this season with a little help from a favorable early schedule but have been treading water recently. Our last eight losses have been to teams winning records at least, so we're beating the teams we should beat, but surprise wins are becoming rare: mid-January wins over the Spurs and BC Zalgiris were the last upsets we were able to manufacture.
What's the character of this year's Globetrotters? We still play good defense despite making a conscious shift away from our defensive slant this past off-season. Our defensive efficiency is 6th-best in the ABCA, and we're quite happy with that. We probably have the best defensive bench in the league with four of the top 34 DEff guys sitting on it. Our problem is that we don't rebound well at all; if we could come up with 2-3 more defensive rebounds per game I'm convinced we could improve our seed enough to be dangerous in the playoffs. We've had talks recently about landing the strongman we need inside (Terry Cummings, Wes Unseld, Bob McAdoo) but our salary structure has made these deals almost impossible. So we've been standing pat more-or-less and hoping our play in other areas would lift us. (Instead we've been slowly sinking.) We need to make a move.
The good, bad, and ugly of our season so far:
John Lucas - PG: To be blunt, John Lucas is a great floor general in our system. He has the 6th best TO-Assist ratio in the ABCA and throws it away less than John Stockton. He's having career-bests in PPG, FG%, and 3P% also. And we have him locked up cheap for two more seasons although he is 31 now. In terms of performance per dollar we made a good move sending DJ of town for this guy.
Rimas Kurtinaitis - SF: Rimas has bounced back nicely from an off-year and is unquestionably our best player. Until the past few sims he was having a career year but our shift to an inside focus hasn't been popular with Rimas, nor has the team done well in the W-L column, so next sim we'll go back to a balanced offense and we expect it to get this guy back on track. He’s a free agent in the off-season but we expect to bring him back.
Jim Paxson – SG: Paxson doesn’t get a lot of love around the ABCA but he’s done a good job for us in the year-plus he’s been on the roster. He’s posting career bests in ppg (19.1), rebounds, assists, steals, fg%, pps, and 3ps%. Not many seven-year vets can boast that much improvement in that many stat categories. His +/- is also the highest on the team showing how central he is to our game plan.
Joe Barry Carroll – C: We jumped at the chance to land JBC this past off-season, giving up defensive stalwart Tree Rollins but getting a player who would be very effective on the offensive end. Joe gives us 16 points a night and is our most efficient scorer on the season.
Hank Gathers – PF: Hank has matured into an offensive force during him time in Harlem and we hope we can retain his services this off-season. We have a logjam at PF so either he or Thurl Bailey – both testing free agency – will have to be let go (to make way for Shareef Adbur-Rahim.) His .600 field goal percentage has led him to a 1.35 pps performance this season; he’s the most explosive scorer we have. He doesn’t rebound enough to be considered in the elite at his position, but he sure works for us.
Thurl Bailey – PF/SF: Thurl is back in his best role of sixth man, but he’s not happy about it and has said so to management. We don’t expect to accommodate his trade demands but don’t want him to sour our younger guys on the organization either, so it’s a bad situation all around. Meanwhile Thurl continues to play good defense and fill in all over the court as a reserve.
Thurl you may recall joined Harlem a few years ago in the highly-controversial trade which sent the stupendously talented, greatest center in the history of the universe Dikembe Mutombo out of town. Their stats since that trade:
| Category | Bailey | Mutombo |
| Points | 2,933 | 1,390 |
| Rebounds | 1,476 | 1,271 |
| Assists | 574 | 218 |
| Steals | 194 | 18 |
| Blocks | 297 | 332 |
| +/- | +276 | +2 |
What’s ahead for the Globetrotters? We’ll keep trying to shore up our rebounding and fight for the seven seed in the American (vs. getting the pain and suffering that NYK will undoubted inflict on the 8-seed.) We don’t have our 2028 pick so there’s no way forward realistically other than to keep scratching and clawing for wins.
