This is what I'm hoping for. When I think about lineups and rotations I tend to think about which players should/shouldn't be paired together, rather than what 5-man lineup covers all of our bases. For example, I think DLo should be paired with Reaves in the backcourt as much as possible. Reaves is a great "connector" on offense; he'll make the extra pass, attack closeouts to draw defenders and hit the open shots. Defensively, I think he can take on the point of attack duties in certain matchups where DLO will get torched. Reaves is great at filling in the gaps in any given lineup, so I like him starting. As for the Rui vs. Vanderbilt decision, I like the Rui/AD and Vanderbilt/Bamba pairings more than vice versa. Vanderbilt is everything defensively that Bamba lacks; versatile, high-effort and consistent. Offensively, Vanderbilt is not a great fit with AD given his lackluster shooting. He's started taking some corner threes but the defense doesn't react to him. The DLo/Reaves/LeBron/Rui/AD starting lineup has good all-around size and slots well together. LeBron and DLo are the primary and secondary ballhandlers with Reaves serving in that "connector" rule and Rui mostly taking corner threes and exploiting physical mismatches. When AD is off the court, I like a LeBron + bench lineup of Schroeder/Beasley/LeBron/Vanderbilt/Bamba that can play 5-out with Vanderbilt being the only non-shooter, giving Schroeder/LeBron plenty of room to penetrate and kick. I also like using Beasley in the LeBron on/AD off minutes to generate some easy offense with off-screen and pin-down actions. When LeBron is off the court, I like an AD + bench lineup of Schroeder/Beasley/Brown Jr./Rui/AD that has plenty of spacing and some opportunities for Rui to work in isolation if things bog down. Overall, I'm really excited at this new rotation. All of these lineups being thrown out have legit NBA size and all of these guys are legit NBA pieces. Can't wait for tomorrow night.
Agree with your starting and bench lineups for all the reasons you state. Makes really good sense. Until Darvin Ham looks at the possibilities and conversely comes up with the most (thanks to someone else here a couple days ago) “counter-intuitive” rotations imaginable. I just thought when we got this guy, coming from a winning organization with all the plays being spotted by Twitter genius Cranjis the we were also going to be treated to “wonderful” rotations since we have even before these trades a much deeper, younger and better roster, plus Russ buying in …. than the garbage they gave Vogel last year defensively, plus a much worse version of Russ, and him getting beat up for his rotations trying to make it all work. But nooooo … the guy inexplicably gives Lakers fans everywhere that have at least a clue about basketball …. the finger and starts trotting out all the midget rotations and benching already proven useful players once Schroder arrives and pairing him with BevMo and insult added to injury, ménage a trois-ing him with Russ in the mix too in crunch time. Haven’t been this bitter since Byron Scott and his fox holes and fist fights.
Here's what I hope to see: AD/Bamba Rui/Vanderbilt/Gabriel Bron/Brown Beasley/Reaves/Walker DLO/DS Slotted for success. I'm over having starting groups next to Bron and AD who can't score a combined 15 points. This surrounds them with scorers who can shoot and really make life easier on our big 2. The defense can't swarm them. I'd like for the young guys to carry the offense and let Bron and AD focus on D, easy buckets and the leadership of working the puzzle out...getting this team to gel during this final push. First guard off the bench: DS First non guard: Vanderbilt 8th man: Reaves I think we'll see some non center groups against smaller teams that feature Bron, Rui, and Vanderbilt with Beasley and DLO. But I think the standard plan will be to get Bamba 14-15 minutes a night. From what Larsuel said on a pod yesterday, it doesn't sound like we should expect Bamba and AD to share the court together. That's not the plan.
I’d feel better if you and Toklat were making the decisions here …. we just might have enough time to make the play in games. Ham not so much.
Bron focusing on defense? C'mon mate, that's a pipe dream. And I would argue with it's efficiency. Agree with most of the rest. Understand the argument on giving more offense options to the starting lineup, don't totally agree with it but it's a fair opinion. I think based on our roster, Rui should play close to all non-AD or non-Lebron minutes. I think our bench lacks a bucket getter. Schroder and Reaves can make some, but I still think Rui thrives better having the freedom to do his iso game than in the court with AD, LeBron, Beasley and DLo, who will all have plus 10FGA a game. On the other hand, in our bench probably none of them will reach those 10FGA, so I think that fits better the type of unit Rui needs to play to his strengths. It tells a lot about or roster that we are probably starting 2 or 3 of the guys who came from Minnesota and Utah
As a free safety, communicator (he's really the only voice left), organizer, and even as a help defender...absolutely. I don't expect him to take man defense seriously until the 4th Q of playoff games. I start Rui because we're going to pay him this summer like a starter and we need to be sure that's what we want to do (also like the idea of a defensive 2nd unit with Mo and Vanderbilt). I'm curious how Rui and Vanderbilt lineups look, each could play a few positions and I want to see how Ham deploys them (hoping he doesn't f*** that up). If we played all 5 backups at the same time, I agree there's not a true bucket getter; but we're rarely going to see hockey subs. DS can be that guy when he wants, but isn't consistent in that role. Maybe if we give him a clear bench role he leans into that if he's the #1 scoring option off the pine.
I wish we had a full season with this team, it could become very dangerous but with only 20+ games and a rookie head coach, thats a tough expectation. Personally: Bamba, AD, Lebron, Reaves, DAR (Theres plenty of defense and plenty of spacing. Big fan of Reaves as a glue guy.) Ideally: AD, Vanderbilt, Lebron, Beasley, DAR (Switching capability on defense between the 3 bigs. Vanderbilt is not great on offense but Beasley and DAR are snipers) Probably: AD, Rui, Lebron, DAR, Schroder (Schroder is to Ham as Bradley was to Vogel. Also less time needed to integrate between AD, Rui and Lebron.)
Dennis Schroder D’Angelo Russell Troy Brown Jr. Rui Hachimura Anthony Davis So Lebron will slide in for Brown Jr. I knew Ham would still start Dennis lol
Yeah that can’t continue, needs to be DLo, Beasley, LeBron, Rui, AD. We don’t have a backup PG now, backup lineup needs to be Dennis, Reaves, Walker or Brown, Vanderbilt, Bamba.
This is so stupid, we have 4 decent shooting guards in Reaves/Beasley/Walker/Christie and we start none of them.
Makes too much sense. That rotation has so much balance but instead we are gonna have three ball-handlers in our starting lineup and have Dennis, a weak 3pt shooter spotting up, when he can attack on ball with the 2nd unit. Ham might need to be fired if it continues..
1Q 12:00-6:02 DLo/Schroeder/Brown/Rui/AD 5:58 -1 6:02-4:22 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Rui/AD 1:40 -3 4:22-3:11 DLo/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/AD 1:11 -2 3:11-0:00 Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel 3:11 +5 2Q 12:00-8:08 Schroder/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel 3:52 -7 8:08-5:44 DLo/Schroder/Walker/Rui/AD 2:24 +5 5:44-3:41 DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Rui/AD 2:03 +2 3:41-0:00 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Rui/AD 3:41 -1 3Q 12:00-6:50 DLo/Schroeder/Brown/Rui/AD 5:10 +2 6:50-5:37 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Rui/AD 1:13 +1 5:37-5:00 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Vando/AD 0:37 -3 5:00-3:49 DLo/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/AD 1:11 +2 3:49-0:07 Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel 3:42 +4 0:07-0:01 DLo/Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando 0:06 +1 0:01-0:00 Walker/Beasley/Vando/Rui/Gabriel 0:01 +1 4Q 12:00-10:36 Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel 1:24 -6 10:36-9:58 Schroder/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/AD 0:38 -1 9:58-8:57 DLo/Schroder/Beasley/Vando/AD 1:01 +1 8:57-5:38 DLo/Schroder/Brown/Rui/AD 3:19 +1 5:38-0:00 DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Rui/AD 5:38 +5
Thx. Some notes: Like many, I didn't like the idea of starting DLo & Schroder together, I'd rather stagger them w Schroder off the bench. But it worked well last night, with the DLo/Schroder/X/Rui/AD lineup going +15 as the most used lineup playing 24:32 minutes. +7 of that was when X=Reaves, which happened for 7:41 minutes, including the closing 5:38 going +5 and sealing the win. As noted by others elsewhere, using Reaves as backup PG worked well also, going +3 over 8:17 minutes. All of those minutes featured the same bench mob lineup of Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel. That unit did particularly well at the end of the 1st & 3rd quarters, going +9 for 6:53 minutes before having a short bad stretch at the beginning of the 4th quarter, going -6 in just 1:24. The DLo/Reaves combo without Schroder didn't do very well this game, going -5 over 9:39 minutes. As noted above, they did well when playing together with Schroder, so this may just be variance or something to keep an eye on. Schroder without another ball handler out there didn't do well either, with the lineup of Schroder/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel going -7 over 3:52 minutes. For bigs: Rui played almost exclusively with AD, doing very well with the Rui/AD combo going +11 in 31:06 minutes. The Vando/AD combo was a mixed bag, going -3 over 4:38 minutes. The Vando/Gabriel combo did well with Reaves running it, going +3 over 8:17 minutes, but not so well with Schroder running it, going -7 over 3:52 minutes. One game without LeBron shouldn't be overanalyzed too much, but it will be interesting to see if these trends continue as far as which combos work together better than others. All in all, a lot of encouraging signs.
Knew it. Called it. Unfortunate. Dennis needs to lead the bench unit. That's the role he's best suited for and it makes no sense to have Beasley off the bench when we could use his shooting with the first unit. Walker and Beasley are the same type of player and play the same position. This is silly.
2/13 vs Blazers I didn't really want to review this game, but I did it anyway, just to see if there was anything to take away from it. 1Q 12:00-5:08 DLo/Schroeder/Brown/Rui/AD 6:52 +3 5:08-4:27 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Vando/AD 0:41 -3 4:27-3:20 DLo/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/AD 1:07 -3 3:20-0:00 Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel 3:20 -12 2Q 12:00-9:31 Schroder/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel 2:29 -3 9:31-7:21 Schroder/Walker/Beasley/Vando/AD 2:10 +2 7:21-6:05 DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Vando/AD 1:16 -3 6:05-3:28 DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Rui/AD 2:37 +2 3:28-0:00 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Rui/AD 3:28 -2 3Q 12:00-7:31 DLo/Schroder/Brown/Rui/AD 4:29 -3 7:31-5:44 DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Brown/AD 1:47 +3 5:44-2:42 DLo/Reaves/Brown/Vando/AD 3:02 -2 2:42-2:31 Schroder/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/AD 0:11 +1 2:31-0:00 Schroder/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/Rui 2:31 -2 4Q 12:00-10:06 Schroder/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/Rui 1:54 +0 10:06-9:16 Schroder/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/AD 0:50 -3 9:16-6:42 DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Vando/AD 2:34 -1 6:42-0:00 Christie/Reed/Walker/Beasley/Gabriel 6:42 +14 What a horrible game. The Reaves/Walker/Beasley/Vando/Gabriel bench mob that worked so well in the Warriors game was terrible in this game, going -12 in 3:20 minutes, and the Lakers never recovered from that. The main reason was simply that the Blazers got hot and made 5 out of 6 threes during this stretch while the Lakers made 1 out of 3 shots. Most other lineups were -1 to -3 with an occasional +1 to +3 here and there. For all of our complaining about the DLo/Schroder starting combo (myself included), it was fine, going +1 in 19:35 minutes, with small +'s and -'s at a time. DLo/Reaves combos were not good, going -10 over 8:17 minutes. Schroder/Reaves combos were not good either, going -4 over 5:26 minutes. Schroder/Walker combos were fine, going -1 over 4:39 minutes. Rui/AD combos were fine, going +0 over 17:27 minutes. Vando/AD combos were terrible, going -12 over 11:51 minutes. The smallest lineups used were DLo/Schroder/Reaves/Brown/AD going +3 over 1:47, Schroder/Reaves/Beasley/Vando/Rui going -2 over 4:25, and Christie/Reed/Walker/Beasley/Gabriel going +14 over 6:42, although this was garbage time down by 26 in the 4th. That being said, the small lineups were fine, even though we gripe about them. The main takeaway I have is that the starting lineup was fine and even small lineups were fine. It was mainly one hot Blazers stretch that killed us, and no other lineups could make enough of a comeback. It's only been 2 games, but possible trends to keep an eye on: 1) Rui/AD works well together and Vando/AD does not. I would really like to see Vando at the 3 instead of the 4, in a Vando/Bron/AD or Vando/Rui/AD lineup, but I'm not sure if Ham has that in his bag. 2) DLo/Schroder actually does work well together, and DLo/Reaves does not. Schroder/Reaves hasn't worked yet. I'd like to see DLo/Beasley and Schroder/Beasley combos out there with 3 other players 6'6" and above, but that hasn't happened yet either.
Thanks a lot for the breakdown, super useful. Great job! I do think we need to put it into perspective any small sample. Just like that bench mob worked against GSW, the small lineup working better last game doesn't mean we should stop complaining about them or that it is a rotation to continue rolling. In this case, Portland were without Nurkic and Grant and they're only big was Eubanks. They then played Sharpe, Little, Watford, Reddish and Thybulle as wings. So our short sized lineup wasn't bullied like it happens in other games. We should breakdown how Portland got hot. They were just finding open shots at ease. We just couldn't hold Dame and never recovered
So glad that Ham saw reason and switched it up with Schroder off the bench. Last night was a perfect starting lineup up for the opponent, and he had excellent substitutions from there. As a result we had a fairly comfortable win with Lebron and AD playing no more than 30 minutes each. More of this please. It’s a recipe for success.
