What held back the 2023 team?

[Birdman]

Inexperience brought in Holiday to change that

[Roy H.]

You all are honestly so ungrateful pointing to Smart as the main problem. Look it up, he actually was really good in the playoffs, while some of our main pieces were terrible (looking at you game 7 Brown). Brogdon, TL, and Tatum being hurt didn?t help and Joe was still super wet behind the ears. Completely different coach last year and our playoff path was finally an easy one.

I?m not going to get into it with you guys about Smart. There?s no way you can explain it that I won?t think you are completely wrong. It really is jaw dropping stuff. He helped build the culture that this team became and always left it all out on the floor. The team overachieved for years with him as their 3rd best player.

To be fair you?re probably right?both the 22 and 23 team probably win the title with last years path?it was simply there year last season

Was the 2023 team's path that hard?  We got the #8 seed without two rotation players.

I think that if the 2024 team played 2023's playoff schedule they would have cruised into the Finals.

I think losing in 2023 to an inferior opponent helped galvanize the team.  I also think Brad seconding out a core piece (Smart) and a likable guy we developed (Timelord) sent a message.

[Big333223]

Isn't this an easy one?

Coaching upheaval. Udoka out at the last minute who had brought in several of his own guys, replaced by Mazzulla who was not a Udoka guy (who many view as not ready), already down 1 key assistant (Hardy), lost another mid year (Stoudamire), leaving Mazzulla to lead a bunch of Udoka guys who were probably not at all happy about the situation. The easy surface answer is Mazzulla wasn't ready, but I think really it's a lot deeper and more complicated than that (because even if he was ready, that's just a terrible situation to step into).

Injuries. Rob Williams was not Rob Williams of 2022 (really his only healthy season). Brogdon got injured (Game 2 against the Heat I think), went from averaging 15.6 and being +90 in the playoffs, to averaging 0.5 and was a -36 over final 5 games (sitting out 1 completely) shooting 1-16. And then Tatum sprains his ankle like 1 minute into Game 7.

Also I suspect now that Brogdon (despite winning 6MOY) was a little more disgruntled than he let on. Add to this the contract situation of others in '23: Brown, Pritchard had extensions coming up, Grant Williams was a free agent. All this impacts team chemistry.

Despite what went wrong, maybe a Tatum or Brogdon injury away from the Finals.

And some of what went right the next year is positive growth from Tatum/Brown (trading Smart and to a lesser extent Rob was probably a wake up call that this is a business, and helped force them to step up). They weren't the first young team to get to the Finals in and not return the following year ('86 Rockets w/ Hakeem/Sampson, '95 Magic w/ Shaq/Penny, '99 Spurs w/ Duncan, '01 Sixers w/ Iverson, '06 Heat w/ Wade, '07 Cavs w/ LeBron, '12 Thunder w/ Durant/Westbrook/Harden/Ibaka, etc. and we see other more-in-their-prime superstars like Duncan, Dirk, Giannis, Jokic) unable to make it back in consecutive years). And just a better fit with Holiday/Porzingis (vets happy with their role) and other growth (Pritchard/Hauser), and a full, prepared coaching staff.

Agreed.

Yep. This is it.

I think it's been under-discussed that Mazzulla was put in position to be in charge of a group of coaches that he leap-frogged to get the job, all of whom wanted to be working for Udoka and probably had feelings about his departure and how it went down.

[Goldstar88]

You all are honestly so ungrateful pointing to Smart as the main problem. Look it up, he actually was really good in the playoffs, while some of our main pieces were terrible (looking at you game 7 Brown). Brogdon, TL, and Tatum being hurt didn?t help and Joe was still super wet behind the ears. Completely different coach last year and our playoff path was finally an easy one.

I?m not going to get into it with you guys about Smart. There?s no way you can explain it that I won?t think you are completely wrong. It really is jaw dropping stuff. He helped build the culture that this team became and always left it all out on the floor. The team overachieved for years with him as their 3rd best player.

Jrue is a significant upgrade over Smart. Holiday?s shooting splits in the postseason for the C?s were 50/40/95. Marcus can?t give you that. Jrue rarely makes bad decisions on either end of the floor. I don?t know about you, but I never felt good about Smart having the ball in crunch time.