The rotation is going to be hard for Joerger this year. He had 6 rotation players under 20 minutes today and it was a game where Cousins only logged 25 min and Collison was out. I can only imagine what that will do to the rotation with an extra 35 min going to Cousins & Collison.
I'm thinking we could roll with this rotation when we're at full strength...
PG - Collison (22 min) / Lawson (26 min)
SG - Afflalo (26 min) / Temple (18 min) / Collison (4 min) / McLemore / Richardson
SF - Gay (32 min) / Barnes (12 min) / Temple (4 min) / Casspi
PF - Tolliver (20 min) / Cauley-Stein (14 min) / Barnes (14 min) / Labissiere
C - Cousins (36 min) / Cauley-Stein (12 min) / Koufos / Papagiannis
Cousins - 36 min
Gay - 32 min
Collison - 26 min
Lawson - 26 min
Afflalo - 26 min
Barnes - 26 min
Cauley-Stein - 26 min
Temple - 22 min
Tolliver - 20 min
That leaves McLemore, Casspi, & Koufos as the odd men out. I'd rather prioritize the defensive roleplayers (Temple, Barnes, & Cauley-Stein) in the rotation as I think we would have enough firepower with Collison, Lawson, Afflalo, Gay, & Cousins on offense. As long as we have two of those guys out there at all times, I think we will be okay on offense.
It's hard to bench McLemore after his hot shooting start, but the fact remains that we have Afflalo, Temple, Gay, & Barnes who will also be getting minutes at SG/SF. Not to mention, we'll probably play one of our PGs at SG for a handful of minutes each game. One of Afflalo, Temple, Gay, Barnes, & McLemore is going to going to be the odd man out. Gay is out of the question, Afflalo's too talented (with his defense looking resurrected), Barnes is a Joerger guy and looks like he'll help this team a lot this year. It comes down to Temple (the proven defender, ball handler, & passer who's a consistent, steady vet) or McLemore (the inconsistent player who is an athlete with a better shot from range). I'm going to let the next 7 games decide which one I'd prefer to get these minutes as I've come to learn not to trust McLemore's glimpses. They seem to be far and few between. Here's to hoping that changes, but for now, I'm going to prioritize the superb defender who we know will give us consistent minutes.
I hate to freeze out Casspi, but I think in the end, Barnes is going to help us win more this year.
I also did not like how the team looked with Cousins & Koufos next to each other. I don't think that's a very good fit and will prove to be an ineffective pairing this year. Koufos doesn't really provide anything different than what Cousins gives us on defense. I'd rather see those minutes go to Cauley-Stein (who looked pretty strong in the post holding his own against Len) who's athleticism gives us a change of pace and ability to matchup across different teams.
In the starting lineup, I'd rather go with a low usage, savvy, 3pt shooting, decent defender in Tolliver next to Cousins who will hopefully help limit Cousins on the perimeter defending while providing even more spacing for Cousins on the opposite end (Collison, Afflalo, Gay, & Tolliver would be great spacing). If Cauley-Stein's jumper continues to progress, you have to throw him in the starting lineup, but with how Joerger has us playing team defense, I would tend to think Tolliver's spacing is a little more valuable to us in that starting unit.
In addition Watson had his guys purposefully hard fouling the Kings All Star and Olympian. The Refs need to protect the Kings Star Player and punish such play with multiple flagrant fouls. The Young Suns Players need to understand the Kings Vets dominated them and they will lose every game when they face the Kings. No mercy in the association.
