The starters are likely to change over the course of the season. How is the "winner" chosen? Starter at the beginning of the season, at the end, or total starts over 82 games?
Stotts said he is going to use our vote for the first preseason game. After that its on the players to perform and Stotts will make any necessary adjustments.
I want Vonleh and Leonard to start. Throw them into the fire. I like CJ off the bench as the third guard. That's gonna be his eventual role on our team when we get back to the playoffs. Let him build his skills there.
I don't know why people sell Ed Davis short. 8/8 in 23 minutes and he shot .601. Super efficient as it is, and here he'd get more scoring opportunities. Already a 20 PER guy, we haven't seen his upside yet. It could be the best PF and C combo on the team is Davis and Plumlee.
my thought is defensive 2 and 3 to start defensive 4 and 5 off the bench making the other team have to constantly adjust how they are playing the game could play to our advantage.
Can't play those two together because of court spacing. Maybe spot minutes against backups but there is no way we can build a good offense with them going against opponents first team defenses. I agree he's in the mix instead of Plumlee, just not alongside him. I actually voted for him and Meyers. He could be our second best player after Dame. You can pair Ed with Meyers, Vonleh, Kaman or Aminu up front.
Let's have a little fun with this. If I pick my starters based on PER from last year, I get - Starters: Damian Lillard. PER=20.7, WS/30.5=0.110. Gerald Henderson. PER=13.2, WS/30.5=0.047. Al-Farouq Aminu. PER=14.4, WS/30.5=0.071. Ed Davis. PER=20.0, WS/30.5=0.103. Mason Plumlee. PER=18.0, WS/30.5=0.084. Bench: Phil Pressey. PER=11.8, WS/17.5=0.020. CJ McCollum. PER=13.1, WS/17.5=0.032. Allen Crabbe. PER=8.7, WS/17.5=0.033. Meyers Leonard. PER=14.8, WS/17.5=0.058. Chris Kaman. PER=17.3, WS/17.5=0.041. Others: Maurice Markless. PER=8.4. Noah Vonleh. PER=13.2. Tim Frazier. PER=8.1. Pat Connaughton. Rookie. Luis Montero. Rookie Cliff Alexander. Rookie Having a little fun with the number, if we assume that the starters play 30.5 minutes, and the bench plays 17.5 minutes (approximate averages from last year), we can then use Win-Shares to approximate the number of wins this line up could achieve. Totaling up the numbers above for this line up (multiply each WS by 82) gives us 49 wins. Yep, no way that is happening. Of course Win-Shares is very dependent upon who else they are playing with. Virtually all of these players are in a different structure this year and will see drastic changes to their stats. I agree that playing Davis and Plumlee at the same time could definitely cause some problems. That's why I'd prefer to see Leonard start to help spread the floor a bit. But how do you bench Davis or Plumlee that have PERs over 18?
Easy. If Plums starts, you tell Davis, "Vonleh is going to be backing Leonard up at the 4, so we need a strong veteran presence coming off the bench alongside him to help keep things steady while he develops and learns the ropes." If Davis, you tell Plumlee, "You and Leonard are going to be platooning at center, and we need your defense to complement the holes in CJ and Vonleh's games." Or, you simply tell them, "This is what is best for the team as a whole," and expect them to accept it and put forth their best effort whenever they're on the floor.
So--We're now through 5 pre-season games. Have your opinions on the prospective starting lineup changed? This thread is basically 3 months old, and the poll came up with Dame/Hendo/'Rouq/Nards/Plums. Wonder what would happen if we re-did it (or if people went in and changed their votes). Personally, I think Davis has surpassed Plumlee on the depth chart at center, but do we really want to break up the VonDavis frontcourt combo?
