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I appreciate the can do attitude! Roche and Lemons are gonna have to play out of their minds. Richards is gonna have to be right there with them. And then you'll need a guard to produce. Three of those four things are not happening tonight.

Win if you can. Survive if I let you.

Take good care of Juan! His salary will likely see a nice bump next season, but he should be a solid player for seasons to come.

Oh believe me, we will. We've been waiting for someone with his specific talents and youth to be available.

It shouldn't be too long before he is the best all around defensive player on the team (I doubt Walt Pasman and Joy Beko take that laying down), and I expect he'll eventually be the best all around offensive player on the team as well. I'm eager to see how he fits in with the team tonight. He's the upgrade I was looking to land when I sold Cafer Enfes. I had a number of plan B's, but Juan was always plan A when I got to look at him.

Happy Ourer: I’m here with Linndale GM Roberto Gurgone before the final regular season game against the Andersonville Alligators. Roberto, there’s been some significant changes over the last week or so. Can you give us some insight on why those moves were made?

Roberto Gurgone: Well, Happy, we felt it was time to move Uzek and we wanted to give Carlson a chance to play. Both youngsters deserved playing time to develop and that wasn’t coming here. Enfes was a different situation. We really hated to move him, but we felt to get the upgrade we needed, we had to. With Corro, we just felt we weren’t getting the production we wanted from him. He flashed at times, but we got better production from others and that made it an easy decision to move him.

HO: Tell us about the newcomers.

RG: Davide Spada replaces Corro. He younger, a bit taller, and has a chance to be very special. He’s a two way defender and a gifted rebounder. Offensively, he’s a work in progress, but has a chance to be very special. Juan Onrubia replaces Enfes. He’s younger, a gifted defender, a dangerous offensive player, and we believe both players add offensive upside while improving our defense and rebounding.

HO: Will we see either of them starting tonight?

RG: I’ve already cleared answering this with Pio Reina; I don’t tell him how to use the players. To answer your question, yes. You will see Onrubia in the starting lineup. The coaches felt the best and fastest way to get him integrated is to throw him out there. Given that the playoffs are right around the corner, I certainly wouldn’t argue.

HO: You said that you needed to move Enfes to upgrade his spot. How does Onrubia upgrade the position?

RG: Onrubia is better defensively on the perimeter. He has better handles, attacks the rim more forcefully, is a better passer, and matches his inside game and rebounding while being 4 years younger and less expensive. The areas he lacks compared to Enfes he will improve on in time. I have no qualms in saying Onrubia is better than Enfes, and we really liked Enfes.

HO: At this point, I have to ask: are there any other upgrades on the way? And if not, what areas are you looking to upgrade in the future?

RG: Well Happy, there are no upgrades coming before the playoffs. We’ll see what becomes available in the meantime and see if it’s cost effective. The upgrade we seek we just might already have, but if something better comes along, we’re open to it.

HO: Thank you for your time, Roberto, and we’ll talk to you soon.

RG: Thanks for having me, Happy.

I like what you did with the lineup. Fun 1st quarter. Just curious. Did you do anything with the defensive assignments?

Day 22 (Saturday 7 December 2024) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Anchorage Allstars. 178 - brooklyn knicks 52
The Dachshunds 127 - GloryBoyz 120
AZ Sunburn 125 - Defenseless Babies 147
Fondy Cardinals 110 - Las Vegas Red Pandas 131
Eternityz Rostah 124 - K8be4L 101
Nanooks of the North 122 - Cleveland Heat Lakers 134
Linndale 128 - Andersonville Alligators 116
Organization XIII 126 - Duke Devilz 110

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 178 : Anchorage Allstars.
Rebounds : 72 : Anchorage Allstars.
Assists : 54 : Anchorage Allstars.
Steals : 26 : Anchorage Allstars.
Block Shots : 12 : Anchorage Allstars.

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 44 : R. Landherr (K8be4L)
Rebounds : 23 : J. Pastorell (Organization XIII)
Assists : 12 : M. Álvarez (Eternityz Rostah), L. Salisbury (Cleveland Heat Lakers), J. Campos (Duke Devilz)
Steals : 6 : D. Moisset (Anchorage Allstars.), G. Cihaner (Las Vegas Red Pandas)
Block Shots : 5 : J. Pastorell (Organization XIII)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : P. Posey (The Dachshunds) (42 Points, 6 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 39
Shooting Guard : R. Stapley (Anchorage Allstars.) (28 Points, 8 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 3 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 39
Small Forward : C. Frias (Linndale) (38 Points, 8 Rebounds, 8 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 47
Power Forward : J. Pastorell (Organization XIII) (31 Points, 23 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Steals, 5 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 51
Center : J. Schindl (Anchorage Allstars.) (13 Points, 12 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots), C. Colón (Duke Devilz) (21 Points, 16 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 0 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 29

MVP of the evening
J. Pastorell (Organization XIII) (31 Points, 23 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 2 Steals, 5 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 51

The bad performance of the evening
F. Gürdogan (brooklyn knicks) (0 Points, 1 Rebounds, 3 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -6

Triple-Double of the evening
M. Álvarez (Eternityz Rostah) (21 Points, 11 Rebounds, 12 Assists, 2 Steals, 3 Block Shots)

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : D. Aliferovich (Fondy Cardinals) : 9 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : A. Carter (AZ Sunburn), C. Malu (Las Vegas Red Pandas) : 6 Personnal Fouls

The iron-man : M. Gatard (Nanooks of the North) : 45 Minutes

The shooter : R. Landherr (K8be4L), R. Lian (Duke Devilz) : 8 Three points

The best performer : L. Salisbury (Cleveland Heat Lakers) : Rating : 18.0

The worst performer : M. Linet (brooklyn knicks) : Rating : 1.5

Good luck in the playoffs everyone! If I’m correct Defenseless Babies finished 8th in D.III for best record, so the league champion may be the only opportunity for promotion this season.

I knew we had to concede rebounding and sell out to cause turnovers and get steals. We did those things.
I knew we had to have an advantage at the free throw line. We did that.
I knew we had to make shots. We did not do that at all.

Also, every starter had a negative plus minus for us while the bench had positive numbers. Did not see that coming...

1 playoff gaame should be worth more than 3 relehation games. This should not even be a question.

I think I can call this a successful season. Made the playoffs, made some upgrades, found the PG to move Carlos Frias off the ball, improved rebounding (even if it doesn’t look like it yet), beat the Duke themed team twice, surprisingly got a win over Eternityz Rostah, improved the defense (again, even if it doesn’t look like it yet), and did so while getting younger.

Now to get to work.

We can’t shoot (consistently). We still turn the ball over too much. (I think it’s a testament to the quality of defenders in this league, but we’ll see.) We don’t attack and finish at the rim nearly enough. We don’t shoot nearly as well from the outside as we think we can. We don’t block shots. We don’t rebound like we want (yet). We don’t have that one established scorer that you have to game plan for… yet. (We think we have those guys on the roster though.) Our inside game isn’t what we want, yet.

Yet… That word keeps appearing at the most inopportune times.

Linndale basketball has always been adaptable to the circumstances of our roster, but three things have always stood firm. We play defense, we rebound, and we hate turnovers. We don’t care if we win ugly games. We just want to win. That’s what we’re going to do.

The Great 8 is going to lose 4 teams. Andersonville and Duke will be better; we don’t know if that means the bottom of the conference will be better or worse. We simply don’t think it matters to us. We'll be better; we both expect and demand it form ourselves. 14 wins, 3rd place, and a first round elimination isn’t good enough. We want more.

We’re going to take it. Oh, and some Big 8 meat… We’re going to beat a Big 8 team in the top 4 next season. That’s another goal…

We now return to our plotting and planning, while we continue with the ongoing execution of our plan...

Last edited by Speedtraps at 12/21/2024 10:00:32 PM