1. Thompson cannot guard swingmen. Period. I wish people would stop putting him as a 3 so we can have a 7' avg frontline, or whatever the reason is these days. If he's averaging 12 minutes at the 3, why even start him there?
2. No way Salmons and Garcia gets 15 minutes a game. You have Greene, who is not even playing, getting more than the starting 3 and supposed 6th man.
You have to read the statement I made before I stated my suggestion:
" I suggest the following starting crew/rotation/minutes to accelerate the development of our young Kids : "
I am just being realistic here and out of desperation getting bold.
Maybe we can put some sort of innovation in our rebuilding process?
Do not forget that our main goal in this rebuilding is to build an elite/championship team.
REALITY :
Without Hawes, Thompson, and Greene in the current roster - the team does not even have a glimpse of hope of becoming an elite team. Yes, they are untested and you can say they are not ready, but the fact remains that we have at least more chance on them in attaining our goal of forming an elite team than on our less-than-starter veterans ( Moore, Salmons, and Garcia. )
Do you honestly believe Moore, Salmons, and Garcia can still be developed into key starter players ( in their respective positions right now ) capable of matching the starters of another elite team?
DESPERATION :
Having concluded that Moore, Salmons, and Garcia are less than starter players in their current positions now, and that we can not count on them as becoming starter pieces in building an elite team, I felt it as an exercise in futility to continue playing them more minutes at the expense of our promising players.
I would rather experiment now on Hawes, Thompson, and Greene when there is much to gain ( high draft pick ) if we fail, and much more to gain if we succeed.
The veterans mentioned above do not have "IT" and we know that. The young ones "might" have "IT".
BOLD MOVE :
Have Hawes and Thompson start now, eventhough not on their natural positions just to let them learn early the ropes of being starters. Hawes had shown he has talents of a power forward. Thompson is sometimes being used in small minutes as a small forward.
Why not continue that experiment with Miller as center even on small minutes and maybe they would learn more and become more
versatile?
Didn't you notice I suggested only 12 minutes for them to start on those controversial positions, and more of their playing time on their natural positions with Hawes playing center, and Thompson playing power forward?
BTW, we don't know yet if Thompson definitely cannot guard a swingman, so don't put a period on that. Also, maybe a traditional swingman cannot guard Thompson? So, for the purpose of developing advantageous match-ups in favor of us it would still be wise to experiment on partly developing Thompson on #3.