George Hill probably starts at PG for the first month of the season at least. I don't think we have the depth at the position to send Fox down to the G-League for a few weeks where he can play big minutes, but he'll be eased into the starting job when he's ready. I think everyone's on the same page with that strategy and Frank Mason gets mop up minutes unless there's an injury.
I think the starting SG spot is Buddy Hield's to lose right now. If he's terrible in pre-season he could play himself onto the bench but I think everyone on the coaching staff and in the front office want him to solidify the starting role so he'll be given plenty of chances to stick there. It's tough to say where Bogdanovic fits right now because he's technically a rookie, but I would pencil him into the backup SG role with the understanding that he's a bigger wing so he'll split minutes between SG and SF depending on where he's most needed.
At SF is where things get interesting. I really don't see 41 year old Vince Carter holding down the starting spot for very long if at all. It's been almost 6 years now since he was a full-time starter and we don't have a ton of depth at the position but we have some. Justin Jackson is a rookie so he's going to have to earn his minutes the hard way. That leaves Garrett Temple as the most likely option to start at SF or potentially Bogdanovic if he's ready from day one. Malachi Richardson is really the forgotten man at this point. At some point next season there'll be an opportunity for him to step in and play a good chunks of minutes though so it's up to him really to seize that opportunity when it comes.
Will Zach start over Skal? I'd put the odds at 50/50 right now. He's got history with Coach Joerger and obviously commands respect because of his track record but then Skal has been here for a year already learning the system and Randolph will have to catch up there. Also Zach came off the bench for Memphis all last season and we're not competing for anything this year so the smart move is probably to keep him in that role but I think this will also come down to pre-season. Skal will get the benefit of the doubt but if he doesn't look great in pre-season and Zach does, it'll be easy to give him a smaller role starting out and coast on ZBo's experience.
At C it's a two man race between Kosta and Willie since Harry Giles and PapaG are both miles away from being ready. It seems like Willie solidified his starting spot this season but I get this weird feeling he's going to get Jason Thompson'ed anyway and be forced to re-earn his spot again next season. No particular reason why other than he's the type of high-energy big who's hard to quantify in terms of what exactly he's going to bring you every game and that makes coaches nervous. Kosta is steady but unspectacular and maybe that's all it takes to get 3 weeks of starts before common sense takes over and the better player gets the spot. I also wonder sometimes if coaches deliberately start the season with sub-optimal lineups so they can "make adjustments" as the season goes on and it looks like they're being pro-active. Just a suspicion I have.
If I had to bet, I would say the opening day lineup (barring injury of course) is:
George Hill, Buddy Hield, Garrett Temple, Skal Labissiere, Kosta Koufos
I'm being optimistic and predicting that Buddy and Skal both have a great pre-season of course.