Dame/CJ/Nurk - Untouchables Crabbe/ET/Vonleh - Rotational pieces Collins/Harkless/Swanigan - Developing/solid role players Aminu/Davis - If we need minutes.. Everyone else except Napier - waste of time Reasoning - Ideal starting lineup for me is; Dame/CJ/Crabbe/Vonleh/Nurk, while the jury is out on Swanigan/Collins. ET slots in nicely off the bench as backup for CJ/Damian, allowing either of them to play off the ball also as well as playing w/Crabbe or for Crabbe. Collins *potentially* could fill the void at the 4 we've been looking at, but for now has *potential* as a 4/5 hybrid, given his game translates and he stays out of foul trouble. I might be undervaluing Swanigan here also; there is very real potential that he could be a great above-average role player, ala Wes Matthews. I don't think Harkless fits as well as Crabbe with our starters, given Nurk pans out. I think Crabbe's passivity would at least be somewhat remedied because he would get a lot more uncontested shots playing in the starting lineup. Aminu/Davis are known quantities with known limitations. I'm not trying to get them too many minutes, they'v had plenty of time.
Vonleh will get his starting role taken by one of the rookies within the first 20 games. That's my prediction.
Harkless needs to start. Look at who's the main beneficiary of Nurk's passing because he is the best on the team at slashing and finishing. A 3rd of his assists are to Harkless. 12/14 of them are on cuts to the basket. Crabbe had 2....
He had six assists to Crabbe in that video; undoubtedly not as many as he had to Harkless or Vonleh but a couple were from cuts and a couple were jumpers ala what my original point was. I think Nurk and Vonleh pair extremely well together because Vonleh excels at crashing the boards and weakside rebounding and cutting - as evidenced in the video. I think Crabbe pairs better because he is more effective at stretching the floor. Don't need Harkless and Vonleh cutting. I need to see more development defensively from Crabbe; alternatively Harkless could start shooting 40% from 3 and I'd be happy. It's also a lot harder to double our guards (or Nurk) off of Crabbe until Harkless becomes a knock down 3 shooter. This is also subject to Noah being able to stay on the floor with Nurk. I think Swanigan & Collins might show some things and if they can stretch the floor in some capacity, I would agree with leaving Harkless where he is. I would be curious to see how many minutes Nurk played with Crabbe vs Hark.
I think we need Craabe's shooting paired with Turner off the bench, although they didn't seem to play very efficiently off each other. Harkless or Turner make much more sense at the starting 3 due to their defense, which Crabbe seems to float way too much.
Imagine how much better his passing will work when they actually run more plays through him and his teammates have training camp to get used to him passing. It's amazing how much chemistry is shown on the video with very little time to get used to each other.
Starting: Dame/CJ/Aminu/Collins/Nurk Bench: Turner/Harkless/Swanigan Seems to me that's likely to be our rotation for much of the season. You need Aminu to start for his defense. Simple as that. I think you go with Collins right away--all the guys who are returning have had ample opportunity to seize the starting PF spot for years now, and they've consistently failed. We desperately need a difference-maker here, and we might as well roll the dice on the new guy. He can't be much worse than what we had last year. Vonleh got two years of starting at PF without really earning it--now it's Collins' turn. Swanigan is going to be a beast rebounding (it's one skill that always seems to transfer from the college game, and he lead the NCAA last year), and his perimeter shot is going to be too tempting for Stotts to pass up on off the bench. Vonleh has had a free pass for a couple years now and hasn't shown much progress. Pretty much everybody but Turner and Nurk can hit a three pointer in this rotation, which Stotts obviously loves. Those two give you the passing and post play that opens everything up. When you want to go 9 men in the rotation, you sub in Crab, Davis or Vonleh situationally. If Nurk goes down, you use Davis. If a guard is injured Crabbe gets minutes, and if a PF goes down it's Vonleh. At least that's how I hope it goes. If Collins and Swanigan aren't part of the rotation I'm going to be pretty depressed. I just don't see us winning a playoff series without serious contributions from at least one of them.
I predict a lot of juggling of lineups outside of Dame, CJ, and Nurk, trying to find find consistency at three and four -- preferably generating enough offense to not be a liability and provide enough defense to cover for the shortcomings of the backcourt. The rookies are going to take time to develop, so don't expect much in year one. Everybody else has limitations or have questions of fit, so "deserve" ain't got nuthin' to do with getting a guaranteed spot in the rotation. Other Prediction: an up and down year with 46 to 48 wins and a still just an eighth or ninth seed in the conference.
I've never understood the concept of a "consolidation trade". In my opinion you want to get as many good players as possible.
In the playoffs, it's star players that win games. If you can consolidate those role players to a single star (or more), it will improve our chance in the playoffs.
The only way I want to see Allen Crabbe starting is if we are playing horse, where you get to shoot standing still, with no one guarding you, no dribbling necessary and you don't have to guard anyone. I'd seriously take any of Harkless, Aminu or Turner starting at the 3 over Crabbe. All three are MUCH better at guarding opposing small forwards than Crabbe. Can you just see Crabbe trying to guard the Durants, LeBrons and Paul Georges of the world? Gives me nightmares even thinking about it. BNM
Frankly, I don't see minutes for him as a rotation player any more, let alone starter. Last year when Aminu played a lot of PF it created the opening for him at the wing. I think that experiment is pretty much over now with Collins/Swanigan/Davis, so it's just really hard to see us devoting a lot of minutes to a one-dimensional player. Especially if there are about 5 other guys who have that dimension covered.
I could be wrong, but I just don't see it. It just feels to me like there are some pretty obvious roles our new guys can fill. Our bench was really shitty last year, so why would you bother wasting a lot of time experimenting on the old failures when you have some shiny new toys to experiment with? The one real question in my mind is Aminu vs Harkless at starting SF. Will Stotts favor defense/experience of Aminu, or go with the upside/better scoring of Harkless? That's one that I can see Stotts experimenting with.
Can you just imagine how bad our perimeter defense would be with Dame, C.J. and Crabbe all starting? All three undersized and all three poor defenders. Gag. BNM
I think Harkless is pretty easily the better option. Aminu, when he isn't canning threes like he did in his outlier season of 2015-16, is basically a zero on the offensive end. If Harkless were an awful defender, this would be a tough call, but he isn't. I'd say Harkless is about an average shooter and an average defender which makes him one of the team's few two-way players. I think he should get the lion's share of the small forward minutes.
Well, I think that's a good point. Hmm. I was thinking about it purely from an on-court perspective. Crabbe is pretty much a sunk cost. Could you get something in trade for him if you played him more? I wonder if he would actually be more valuable to other teams if he didn't play. His one dimension is pretty attractive from afar....
