They talked about this on the LFR pod and what Lowe is hearing coincides with what Trudell is hearing around the facility. But that's right now based on workouts before any camp battles play out. They brought up that two weeks ago before the Pat Bev trade, Walker was being penciled in a a starter.
Yeah theres still training camp and preseason to get through. TB or Jones starting is fine. TB is the better floor spacer but Jones gives us better athleticism right out the gate. Bev needs to start though. We need defense at the opposite guard spot to Russ. And he would provide the energy right from the start.
it's weird because the straight defense (vogel) model would be jones and bevs as the other starters, and the offense-first model would have bryant and nunn as the other starters, but we're hearing a mix-and-match strategy.
Looking at the roster, I suspect that we plan on going big a lot this campaign. I think Gabriel has a better shot at cracking the rotation, then some.
how? we have 96 minutes at pf/c. jones and bryant will probably play 20mpg each, with the other 8 center minutes going to AD. AD will play 24ish minutes at pf, and i'm guessing lebron and maybe JTA split the remaining pf minutes. i don't think gabriel can play the 3.
it's called trading 3 (4, really) rotation players for westbrook. i hope he's not using this as a condemnation of this summer's moves. unless he's going to publish his pre-registered offseason plan that could have occurred but didn't.
I think Gabriel could play more 4 with AD than Lebron or JTA, which will alleviate some of this size on the wings issue everyone keeps talking about. I've been rewatching a lot of our last 20 games or so this month. Gabriel can move, I don't know if he has the outside punch for 3, but I wouldn't say that he's overwhelmed by defending SF either.I think he could play some 3 in spots. We have some versatility here, James can swing from 1-5 offensively. JTA can play 3 or some 4 IMO. I'm not counting Wenyen out, Lebron, Austin, Wenyen, JTA and AD is a lineup I'd like to see at some point. There are multiple other ones. We might actually have more decent players than available minutes. There should be a high level of competition going on in camp for PT. JTA Is listed as a SF/SG btw. He's 6'6.https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/toscaju01.html
i said in another thread that this move makes nunn/walker a good december trade package. meanwhile, i think some competition is good. worst case, both nunn and beverley are entirely unreliable from an injury standpoint, so the depth here makes sense to me.
Our roster is interesting: Russ / Schroeder Nunn / Bev / Walker Lebron / Reaves / Brown Jr AD / JTA / Gabriel Bryant / Jones We have some decent point of attack defenders now in Schroeder and Nunn and some good wing defenders in Bev, Reaves and Brown (although Bev and Reaves might be a bit small for the largest ones). I wonder how Ham plans on using Russ and Lebron defensively. We saw last year Lebron was effective in the 5 role defensively. And we know Russ stays switched on better when he is on man. From a shooting point of view Nunn and Bev are good shooters at the SG, Lebron and Reaves should be above average at the SF. I wonder what kind of shooting we can get from AD, JTA and Bryant - that will be key in our 4 out offense.
Our roster is interesting. Just assuming everyone is going to come to play I like your line up. I think defensively when Russ is in he has to be on the ball as much as possible. He gets caught watching too much otherwise. To conserve Lebron put him on the weakest match up you can and let him cheat the passing lanes. Let that line up start but not go too long with it. We have lots of options and it will come down to who shows up to play. My two disappointments have been Russ and Schroeder bc I supported the moves getting them here. Hopefully this season they can make some type of atonement.
i think in crunch time, lebron and AD have to take the challenge and guard the big wing scorers on the other team. i'd have preferred we find a way to get a big wing stopper type, but they're expensive and uncommon.
I question how long a 34 year old, 6'1, Pat Bev is going to last out on the court guarding the opposing team's best wing player every game. Keep in mind he's only had 3 seasons where he's played more than 60 games.
I’m actually interested to see AD against Kawhi, Giannis and KD. Both Kawhi and KD play a lot slower than they use too and Giannis kind of goes at you. Not sure who else we have to worry about from a wing point of view? When it comes to Luka, you just make him beat you and take away the rest of the team… as long as Mark Cuban struggles to put a champion ship squad around him, he’ll be a second round exit. Agreed that Russ needs to be on ball. I hope we see Russ come out first and run that second unit a lot, so we can put the ball in his hand for 20 mins a game.
