What would your projected lineup be for now? Mine: Starters: Johan Petro - 15 mpg Nick Collison - 30 mpg Rashard Lewis - 35 mpg Ray Allen - 30 mpg Luke Ridnour - 25 mpg Bench: Vladimir Radmanovic - 25 mpg Ronald Murray - 29 mpg Reggie Evans - 21 mpg Damien Wilkins - 15 mpg Danny Fortson - 15 mpg The biggest change in this lineup would be taking responsibility away from Ray and giving it to Flip when it comes to scoring, as well as demoting Luke to second-string starter. No, Flip's not much of a pure point guard, but it doesn't really matter when the offense calls for passing to Ray or Rashard and watching them do something. Reggie and Danny would also be playing primarily center, which puts the Sonics at a big disadvantage in height but wouldn't be much, if any, of a dropoff from having Vitaly in the rotation. The biggest problem is inconsistency. You never know when one of Petro, Collison, Evans, or Fortson are going to rack up three fouls in a row. If Vladimir doesn't give any effort, it would be pretty easy to give him less playing time in favor of Wilkins and Evans/Fortson. It's definitely not an easy job trying to figure out who to play on this team, but this is what I would do...until it fails horribly for three games and the pressure forces me to mess up the rotation every game until I get fired.
Here is the line up that I've been hopeful that this team would use all season. Luke Ridnour 15 (have him start the 1st and 3rd quarters and then sit) Ray Allen 37 Rashard Lewis 39 Nick Collison 30 Vitaly Potapenko 18 Ron Murray 30 Damien Wilkins 20 Reggie Evans 18 Danny Fortson 18 Vlad Radmanovic 12 Clinton Moore 5-10 We do not need to be experimenting with Johan or Swift right now b/c neither one of them have proved that they do anything well. The biggest change that I'd make would be to substantially cut Luke's minutes--but still allowing him to start and get the other players into their offensive rhythm. If you can't score or defend you don't need to be playing starter's minutes. Nick Collison should be the center piece of our front line. Reggie Evans is playing exceptionally well this season but I would not want to give him any of Collison minutes. They can play well together. Danny Fortson probably wouldn't be able to even get 18 minutes with his foul difficulty but we all know that he is a game changer when he is in the game. Damien Wilkins is too good to be rotting on the bench and Vlad hasn't shown the ability to bring anything to the table other than a occasional hot night from the three point line. Why play him at the four when he isn't a effective rebounder or someone capable of shutting down the opposition post player. His minutes would come almost exclusively as a sub for Rashard Lewis. Clinton Moore was signed to offset BGJ departure but yet he hasn't gotten a chance to prove his worth. Give him the minutes that you would have given to Johan Petro and see if he could block a shot or two. You know that he'll play hard. Ron Murray is a scoring threat that will keep the defense off balance. He has to improve his defense and decision making but his presence on the court is vital for us to remain one of the league's top scoring teams. Damien and he could split time at lead guard so that we would play backcourt by committee. I would rather see Cleaves get minutes over Brunson when he gets healthy--but neither one of them would figure big into my plans unless there was an injury. The biggest difference that I would have is that I would give Collison extensive playing time, limit Ridnour's minutes, and give Murray and Wilkins more of a role coming off of the bench (and not Radmanovic). I would try to get the most I could out of Clinton Moore so that his signing wasn't a complete waste of money. This team would utilize their depth so that Ray and Rashard would never have to play over 40 minutes for us to be competitive.
Looks like Vlad is splitting minutes with Nick so far tonight, and I don't really need to say who has been more effective. Johan has been quietly effective as well.
