what we didn't have this year - power forwards

Nope. What's relative is having a cohesive 5-man unit where each player components to other to make up for their individual weaknesses and to build on their strengths.

Obviously, a team with all 6ft Pgs isn't gong to be a good 5-man unit. You need balance. But positional labels? Nah. They're not relevant. They're helpful when determining roles and the assortment of players on the court, but when it comes to building a lineup, they're not relevant.

 

Yeah I don’t think the three point shot is that necessary. If you can make it up by having insane inside game, good defense and great rebounding skills, you can get away with not being a good shooter at power forward.

Favors has had a successful year and he can barely shoot either. He has worked on his corner three but it’s still far from reliable. I think, though, if you have someone like that as your main power forward it’s good to have a stretch four on the bench to be able to give your team another dimension. Utah for example solved Favors lack of shooting by having a complete opposite of him, Jerebko, coming off the bench.

 

This is very true as long as you can guard the 3 pt line. That is the bigger issue for the more traditional slower PFs. In the playoffs the better teams like GS and Houston will eventually force them off the court if they can't keep up.

 

Depends on what you expect out of the position. Our PFs provided excellent defense, with Aminu as the starter and Collins as the back up (with Vonleh getting minutes early in the season when Aminu was injured). Our PFs were 5th in the league in rebounding. So, in the traditional PF sense we got what you expect to get from the position (rebounding and defense).

Where our PFs were lacking was the scoring department. Part of that is with Dame, C.J. and Nurk, there are only so many shots left over to divide between the two forward positions. That combined with poor shooting (last in FG%, 20th in 3FG%) meant our PFs were 29th in the league in scoring.

I've been saying for a couple years now, that for a team built around Dame and C.J. to be successful, we need 2-way players at the forward positions that are at least average on both sides of the ball - ideally above average both ways, but average offensively with above average defense would also work.

We hope to see Collins grow into that type of player. He's already very solid defensively, which is impressive for a 20-year old rookie big man. His offense clearly needs some work. He shows flashes, but he needs to become a consistent threat at the offensive end of the floor.

Harkless, post all star game/pre injury was also giving us that kind of 2-way play at the SF position. The question is, can he deliver that on a consistent level over the course of an entire season + play offs. He's teased us with this potential in the past only to pout and disappear for months at a time. Hopefully, he has finally matured and can be more consistent moving forward.

Who we draft or acquire using our trade exceptions will tell us who the organization believes in more - Collins or Harkless. They seem very high on Collins, given his youth, attitude and upside. Going forward, I'm more concerned about the SF position that I am PF.

BNM

 

Karl Malone would have no trouble scoring in this NBA.

 

Yes, but could he define in thus NBA? He wasn't slow, but he wasn't the speediest forward in the league either. I didn't say he couldn't score. I just am not sure he would be as successful.

 

Meh, one of those pointy elbows to the face of today's smaller, lighter stretch 4s would render the point moot. A Malone elbow was capable of taking down a plodding brontosaurus like Joe Klein. Imagine what it would do to today's svelte 6'9" 220 lb. gazelle-like "power" forwards.

BNM

 

Either would Barkley or Kevin McHale.

 

We have more bigs this season than I can remember in ages......Jared Jeffries used to be our center...JJ Hickson used to be our center....Chief is our starting PF and Collins is our backup...what we don't have are a lot of true vets on the bench...young team...Swanigan is our development 4 guy in my book for a couple of years down the road....Karl Malone was a rare, rare talent...a true ironman...guy was in Lebron shape if not better...Derrick Coleman came close to Karl as a force but now everybody is playing small ball...Draymond Green is the new standard for PF....he shoots the 3 and is undersized for a 4 like Barkley was....when Zach Collins puts on 35 lbs of muscle he'll be playing more 5.....Ed is a PF by nature...just more like Buck Williams than Lamarcus Aldridge

 

In their last game, GS's frontcourt was
Iggy (listed as SF)
Durant (listed as SF)
Green (listed as PF)

who all played the lion's share minutes. My guess is that Iggy played SF, Durant played PF, Green played C.

So, which "real pf" do you want guarding Durant?

My Answer: none, I want Aminu guarding him.... who we have as our starting PF.

 

Yes but you can't beat the Warriors by playing the same game. That's their system, not necessarily ours, and Green is maybe the best PF in the game. They sometimes go small ball but they can also play bigger. I think we played with no real threat at PF the entire season

 

Zach has the potential to become a fantastic PF. He just needs to build his body up and continue to develop his game. I think the Blazers will be fine at PF going forward.

 

Oh, hell yes.

 

We beat them twice in February

 

I’m not trying to claim those were bad wins or they didn’t count or anything like that, so please bare that in mind.
I don’t think GS cared that much about the regular season and it showed all year, they were sloppy, didn’t play championship level defense, whenever anyone got hurt they would miss more games than it seemed necessary. It seemed like the 73 win season showed those guys that the regular season is a chance to work on some thing and by talent alone they won a lot of games. I just think GS at this point is one of those teams that’s had enough success that they don’t care all to much about regular season success
I’m gonna pretty surprised if GS loses 3 times to the Rockets, I mean it’s possible obviously, but GS knows they are judged by rings, and anything short of a ring is a failure.

 

Positions were invented so layman can follow the game.