I've mentioned before how I like the versatility created by a 9-man rotation with 5 guys who basically fit the traditional positional designations, and 4 other guys who are more tweeners. Trying to look at it that way, makes me think I'd like to balance our roster a bit better. Sullinger and Smart in place of Meyers and Plumlee would be great to me. Don't see it happening, but a guy can hope, right? 1 - Dame 1/2 - CJ 2 - 2/3 - Turner 3 - Harkless 3/4 - Aminu 4 4/5 - Davis, Plumlee 5 - Ezeli, MyLe
If we lose Crabbe and retain Harkless and Leonard, I think we'd have 9 players in the rotation. Playing Aminu at PF sort of leaves us thin at SF. We'd have 5 4/5s and only 4 1/2/3. 3 deep at guard: Dame/Turner/CJ 1 deep at SF with Harkless 2 deep at PF Aminu, Leonard 3 Deep at C Ezeli, Davis, Plumlee I think Portland may want to look at trading one of their front court players for a SF.
Turner will play just as much SF as SG imo. He will probably play the Pippen role of point from the SF position even. And Leonard may play PF on offense but certainly shouldn't on D. I think Plumlee would play C on O but PF on D.
Not sure if that will work. If CJ, Dame and Turner are playing a 3 man rotation at guard, that would take an average of 32 minutes for each. So if CJ and Dame play 36 minutes that would leave about 8 minutes of time for Turner to play SF. But then that leaves Harkless to play 40 minutes per game, which they would not do. So that would mean Aminu would have to play some SF. I think Portland wants to have at least 2 good ball handlers on the court at all times, so they'd do a 3 man rotation with turner/cj/dame.
You forgot Vonleh at PF, and both Davis and Plumlee could play PF too, so theoretically you could spare Aminu at SF if needed.
Well...I don't think Vonleh deserves a spot in the rotation as of now. Don't see where he'd get any minutes anyway.
Well if you are saying we are only 1 deep at SF and 2 deep at PF.......I see a lot of opportunity for minutes (especially if Aminu plays some 3)
Harkless, Layman, Montero and Connaughton....all can play stretch 3 and 3 of them can play the two guard
I forgot Aminu but honestly, don't think we really need him. Harkless plays the same role of undersized PF and I don't think we need both of them. At SF I'd rather go with a more skilled player like Turner or Montero and we have enough bigs as it is
My top 9, right now would be Dame CJ Turner Aminu Ezeli Plumlee Crabbe Davis Harkless That's who should play 95% of the minutes Pat Vonleh Montero Napier Layman Leonar_ That's 15, and 10-15 should be in strict mop up duty and injury fill in
I think Crabbe might be gone as well unless Olshey has a trade in his back pocket here pretty soon. It also seems there might be a big man on the move as well. Davis and Vonleh get no minutes in that rotation and Meyers has proven over and over again he can not guard '4's. Davis (before Ezeli) was the most rugged, shot blocking center Portland had and Vonleh was the most versatile 'big' defender as he had length inside but could rotate out on smaller players and hedge well against the PnR. There just isn't room for Festus, Plums, Meyers, Davis and Vonleh especially with Aminu starting at the '4' which has been indicated in the last two press conferences. Taking a guesstimate of how each player ranks on Offense, Defense, Rebounding, Passing, shot blocking and ball handling, this is what I came up with. Defense and Blocks came out the same but left both in because those two areas seem to be of the greatest need to it is weighted a bit more towards that part of the assessment. I also ranked them on ability and not necessarily what they have shown from a production standpoint. For example, Vonleh is #2 in offense. Part of that is because that is a big weakness of most of the other centers and his versatility in that area gives him a bump. I just don't see room for 5 players at one position and think it's possible either Davis or Plumlee gets moved or Portland doesn't match on Leonard if he gets a huge offer.
Lillard, CJ, Turner, Aminu, Ezeli as starters Turner b/u to Lillard Crabbe b/u to CJ, some Turner also Harkless b/u to Turner Davis and Vonleh b/u to Aminu Plumlee and Leonard (?) b/u to Ezeli I don't expect to see Napier, Connaughton, Montero, Layman see the court.
This is what I see as well. Although if we don't match Crabbe, I imagine we'll probably see some Project Pat.
If we don't match crabbe they'll need to find a proven scorer/shooter somehow. That's our sixth man gone. Doubt they just hand the keys over to someone like Connaughton, but we'll see. PS I'm pretty confident Olshey will match.
Yeah. It has really thrown a wrench into the rotation and game plan. I have no idea what happens, but until proven otherwise, I'll let Olshey do his thing and trust that it will be prudent.
I was one of the first to argue for CJ as a starter, however I also said I did not care one way or the other as long as he got his 30 minutes. So....if we lose Crabbe maybe CJ becomes our 6th man. A Dame, ET, Harkless trio would not be bad starting. Although you could also start CJ and use ET as our 6th man. Either way one of them could give us a lift off the bench. And they will all get their minutes.
