Hey Brick,
What do you think the starting lineup should be?
That is the question isn't it?
now my earlier posts were suggesting this: we didn not give our lunkhead unbalanced Reke/Thronton backcourt enough time to see what he had, let alone develop any chemistry. To me its obviously unbalanced -- I pioneered the argument around here that Reke/KMart could not work because you don't pair 20pt scorers in the backcourt. BUT, its still true that Smart didn't give it a fair chance. He took over, there were no practices. Hayes got hurt, Hickson sucked, we had three different starting PFs in the 22 game tryout. Thornton got hurt, only played in half those games, and was limited when he did (deep thigh bruise). Cousins got sick in the middle of it and is a noticeably better player now. And because management screwed up nd wanted to cover its *** John Frickin' Salmons was there stopping the ball and inflicting worst in the league pain on that lineup every single game as the starting SF. On top of which we played 2/3 of the games on the road, against good teams almost every night. And after one month, we said, ok, no mas. A month! it takes years for top teams to get their chemistry down. We gave up after a month of contstant chaos. It was not given any sort of fair chance. And we STILL won more games over that span than we have won since we abandoned it.
And so, you go away from that. And hey, you know what? If you go away from that, install Rajon Rondo as your PG, and start kicking butt, I don't miss it. The Reke/Thronton lineup looks unbalanced to me. But we didn't. We went away from it to instill utter chaos. 13 man rotations. Hordes of tiny chucking guards out for themselves and who couldn't defend me. Now we have a choice of running and scoring and losing, or walking and defending and losing. We scare nobody. And so you know what? We are worse off, FAR worse off, now than when we were lunkheading it. When we lunkheaded it we were dangerous. We beat some top teams. On any given night we had three guys in the linuep who could go big. And they might not. Did not always. But it was a lineup that was dangerous. And more than a lineup, a philopshy that was dangeorus. Our best guys had the ball every night, and while they weren't ripping up the league, all three of them were putting up numbers, were dangeorus. And still very young with a chance to make it work. Now instead we have a random mediocre NBA talent of the game thing going on. Our 2nd best guy is totally frozen out. Our 3rd best guy is coming off the bench fighting for the ball with the little chuckers. And you're trying to convince me this is better? Bull hookie its better.
Does that mean you go back to it? Maybe. Actually yes, unless you can quickly prove there is something not just a little better, but MUCH better we can do with the lineup. If we could no better than just be the same level as we were with the lunkhead, then I go lunkhead, becauseIi am going to win and lose with my best guys, not random roster filler (not to mention btw our guys had far more trade value featured in the lunkhead -- nwo not only isn't it working, but we've ruined the ability to trade them for significant replacemnts). In the short term James Johnson is just killing us offensively out there, and tongiht we are playing the Hawks who have nobody he needs to guard. So if IT is still out tonight I might actually go Reke/Jimmer/Salmons/JT/Cousins. The Hawks are starting Stevensen and Korver at the 2/3. We can hide Jimmer on Stevensen -- which is the constant problem with starting him -- and Salmons can check Korver (his constant problem is that he can't guard big SFs). For one night we have shooting and ballhandling and a two star focus in Reke/Cousins. And Thornton still off the bench getting minutes in our lunkhead arrangement. But that's not an everyday lineup.
The Nets come in the next game, and they have Deron, and Johnson and maybe Wallace if he's back. Jimmer can't be on the floor against them. Neither can Salmons handle their power wings. So JJ has to come back at SF. But Reke has always done well against Deron. So I still want him at PG. And then the SG needs to be somewhat fullsized to be able to handle Johnson. So boom, there is your lunkhead. with Reke/Thornotn/JJ at the 1/2/3. And you just have to pray Thornton can shoot for the team. Meanwhile Petrie's army of midget gunners overflows on the bench, and Smart probably runs a Thomas/Brooks/Jimmer 1/2/3 resrve unit.
The right starting linuep is vexing for this team. A chunk of that is Johnson's faiulure to be even reasonable on the offensive end. A chunk of it is a bunch of minature gunning guards. Either way, I have a hard tim contructing a lineup I think actually works wihtout the lunkhead. And if I can't I default to playing my best players, giving them the ball, and telling them to make it work. This random everybody has a greenligt, everybody gets 20 minutes, nonsense is jsut embarrassing.
