Russell Westbrook / Dennis Schroder / Kendrick Nunn Patrick Beverley / Lonnie Walker IV / Max Christie Lebron James / Austin Reaves / Troy Brown Jr Anthony Davis / Juan Tuscano Anderson / Wenyen Gabriel Thomas Bryant / Damien Jones (Cole Swider and Pippen Jr) I'll be more comfortable with the roster adding a "Marcus Morris" type 4/5 and then dropping Pippen Jr for Huff. We have 3 guards under 6'1 expected to play heavy mins. To counter that we need to play with size in the front court so AD should be playing most of his mins at the 4. Center rotation is fine but TB has been injury prone, insert ____ and Huff as insurance. The forward rotation behind Lebron and AD is disheartnening. Both Reaves and JTA are being asked to play up a position. Troy Brown peaks my interest early on. And not expecting a huge jump from Gabriel tbh. That Stanley Johnson throw in hurts here... sigh /rambling
What 3 guards do we have all under 6'1? We only have two that are 6'1. Gabriel is a better look at 4 than JTA, he's more of a guard/small forward than PF. I'd move Reaves to Christie slot and replace Reaves with JTA. Problem solved.
Fine, we have 3 undersized guards, happy? Last season JTA played almost all of his mins at forward. Wenyen is a 3rd stringer who played most of his mins at C. Reaves needs to play. There's barely any guard mins available and he's one of the few that can play up into SF.
Wenyen isn't going to play much. What forward position did KTA play more SF or PF? Generally curious. And I should hopefully have more data on wing defenders on this team after Cranjis records his podcast.
This small guard stuff is being overblown. We had Rondo 6'1, Bradley 6'2, won a chip. Toronto won a chip the year previously with Lowry 6'0, Vanvleet 6'1. Phoenix went to the Finals with CP3 5'10 and Cam Payne 6'1 Steph Curry is 6'2. I think this small guard stuff is getting too much traction around here. A NBA "wing" is considered to be a 2 or 3, we have Walker 6'4, Reaves, Brown, JTA all 6'6, Lebron 6'9..that's not " small" . AD at 4 makes us able to field one of the "biggest " lineups in the NBA.
I don't know about Golden State..I mean Green is their PF at 6'7..they are different. With what we have, I'd rather play Gabriel at 4 than JTA. He's a guard type of dude. Just rewatching our games against them, I just don't see why he is a better fit at that spot than Wenyen.
re JTA: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/t/toscaju01.html#pbp 6% - SG 60% - SF 33% - PF 2% - C
hmmm...i didn't watch a ton of gs games, but i swore he played more 4 than 3 in the games i saw. whatevs. i just know JTA murdered folks with smart hustle plays. will be like having another reaves in that regard, imo.
It's not. Also had Green, KCP, Kuz, Kostas (in what should be Gabriel's role), Dudz, Morris, and JR. Rondo wasn't our wing defender. We weren't slotting him up TWO POSITIONS. They had Kawhi freaking Leonard! Also are usually one of the biggest teams on the perimeter in the league...OG is 6-7, Boucher 6-9, Lorenzo Brown a 6-5 PG, Danny Green 6-6, McCaw 6-7, CJ Miles 6-6, Malcolm Miller 6-7, Malachi Richardson 6-6, and Delon Wright 6-5 at point guard. You can have a couple small guard when they're surrounded by size at all times and don't have to slot up and take on the best defensive assignment. Also helps when you have a DPOY candidate on the wing when Kawhi is healthy. Booker 6-5, Bridges 6-6, Craig 6-7, Jae 6-6, Cam Johnson 6-8. High usage bigger players helps cover. Surrounded by big players. Green has historically been a DPOY caliber player and Klay was elite defensive before his injury. Rest of their guys...Baldwin 6-9 rook, Ja. Green 6-8, Wiggins 6-7, Moody 6-6, Kuminga 6-8. You CAN have small players IF you surround them with size and some wings that can defend. We've failed miserably at obtaining perimeter size and defense. You made the point for me with those examples and I just can't figure how to make it any clearer than crystal.
I like him at SF next to AD and Lebron more. That way Austin and Russ gives us a nice sized backcourt. That's one version of our small ball. We have several options available going small too.
It's about having size elsewhere. We had Green, Kuz, Morris, McGee, Dwight Raptors had Siakim, OG, Marc, Ibaka, JVal, Green, Kawhi I can go on but you wouldn't get the point
NO Dude. I made no such point for you at all....we have Reaves, Brown, JTA 6'6 Lebron 6'9 AD 6'10, Jones 6'10 Bryant 6'11 that's 7 guys. Russ is 6'3 Walker 6-4. We still have Gabriel 6'9, Swider 6'9, Huff 7'0, Christie 6'6 That isn't lacking anything compared to what you justed listed man. I don't know for a fact, who wont play and who will outside the top 6. That's a hell of a lot of PT available. What you did was just list a bunch of guy's heights in Toronto. Some of those guys you listed when Kawhi was there, didn't actuall play much either. Who did play a lot was Vanvleet and Lowry, Norman Powell 6'3 and Jeremy Lin 6'3 played more than a lot of those guys. They curiously played bigs too. Gasol, Ibaka They were actually built a lot like this team is. Besides Green and Kawhi...every guy I just listed, played more than the ones you did that season.
3 years is still only 3 years..maybe he just needs to find a role? 10 minutes here isn't out of the question. I think Lebron is going to get those PF minutes when AD is at 5. But the bigs will play a lot.
What's so much different now? Bigs we have Jones and Bryant, We got 3 guys the same size as Green. Russ is bigger than Rondo or Bradley. We still have 2 other guys 6'9 besides Lebron, and another 7 footer to boot. This isn't some compelling argument that you are presenting on this subject to me. I get that you have decided that some of these kids won't play. That hasn't been decided yet IMO.
Teams go small to force bigs off the floor all the time in the NBA. Small ball is a real thing, this somehow has been overlooked today. We are well equipped to go small and big, because we have AD and Lebron.
