Just a week ago most of you were saying Jones or DMo. Casspi wasn't even among the choices besides as "other". How many of you have changed how you feel about our PF starter? Personally, I think it's Casspi starting at the 4 and Beverley starting at the 1.
Casspi has be great, but i believe McHale wants him to take Delfino's role last year which is coming off the bench i want McHale to start Smith so to give him a preview of Howard plus another big men without the range
Just to clarify for the smarties, I think Bev starts at PG and Casspi starts at PF. I think the primary 4/5 rotation will be Howard/Asik/Casspi. If we were to start the season today with Asik healthy I think Howard, Asik, Casspi chew up the 4/5 minutes. As long as Asik is not healthy, I think we go with DMo along with Casspi and Howard at the 4/5 spots. I think Jones and Greg Smith are out of the rotation. And I think it's going to be very difficult for them to break into the rotation at this point. Once Asik gets healthy I think his minutes take precedence over DMo's and if DMo doesn't get his 3-ball going big time, I think he goes back to the bench and the 4/5 rotation is Howard, Asik, Casspi. I would look for flexibility in the starting PF slot between Casspi and Asik depending on who we are playing and how we match up.
I don't think Casspi will start. I'm assuming McHale has just been alternating Motiejunas and Jones. Same with Lin and Beverley. Casspi will play minutes with the other starters, but he will come off the bench.
After the end of last season, I would have guessed Jones. DMo has been playing smart basketball and has been in the right position. I think DMo has a slight lead over Jones. I think Casspi plays about as much as the starter, but comes off the bench to pick on backup PFs.
Also to clarify, Motiejunas has been looking better than Jones in the preseason. So I think he will start when the season starts. Beverley and Lin are both playing well. But Lin will start. Beverley isn't clearly superior to Lin, so until he takes the spot where McHale has no choice but to start him, then it's Lin's spot to lose.
There are 5 games left in the preseason mind you, and we haven't see Asik/Howard and Casspi/Howard yet so its going to change. However, I think D-Mo played the best alongside Howard in game 1. He really showed improvement with his team defense, his passing was exceptional, and I like his potential better than Jones to keep the defense honest as a 3 point threat. That being said, Jones has started the past 2 games so if I was in Vegas and I had to bet I guess i'd go with Jones RIGHT NOW just as a continuation of what we've seen the past week. Still.... McHale is going to try new lineups the next two weeks, and opinions are surely to change based off that.
We have seen Casspi/Howard. For the game in Taiwan, the last 5 minutes of the 2nd quarter McHale had a lineup of: Howard Casspi Parsons Harden Lin
I would not read to much into Jones starting two straight. McHale is working on different PF-PG combos to go with Harden, Parsons, and Howard. 1st Game Lin DMO 2nd Game Bev Jones 3rd game Lin Jones 4th game Bev Dmo (my guess)
Also... I'm guessing Jones started the last game because McHale is alternating starting Lin and Beverley. McHale is also alternating Motiejunas and Jones. But if he kept alternating them each time, Motiejunas would always be playing with Lin and Jones would always be playing with Beverley. So game 1 McHale went with Motiejunas/Lin. Game 2 was Jones/Beverley. Game 3 was Jones/Lin. So I'm assuming game 4 tonight will be Motiejunas/Beverley. He will have seen all 4 combinations with the PF and PG.
Would the Timberwolves be interested in Terrence Jones, DMO, and Greg Smith for Derrick Williams? With Love back he will waste away in the bench he's a guy that got 6 reb and 12 point per in 25 min of play. I personally wouldn't mind him sandwiched between Parsons and Dwight.
I start Lin, Harden, Parsons, Jones and Howard when i play on nba2k14 online and really thats all that matters
Given the surplus of big men who have solid if not excellent trade value Omer Asik, Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas, Greg Smith), and the fact that there are only 96 total minutes per game for the PF and the C, as well as the fact that Dwight Howard will get at least 32 of those 96 minutes, and that Omri Casspi is looking like he'll likely get at least 16 of those 96 minutes... there will only be 48 total minutes between Asik, Jones, Motiejunas, and Smith. Seems logical to trade at least one of these guys within the next 10 days or so. Isn't the team arguably giving Jones and Motiejunas as many minutes as possible this preseason so as to audition them to potential trade partners and pump up their trade value? I think one of these two guys gets traded for a protected first round pick very soon (i.e., before final roster cuts must be made). Unless, of course, a more ambitious Asik trade materializes over the next ten days.
Also, it seems pretty obvious to me that whoever is not traded (between Jones and Motiejunas) starts, and Casspi inherits the Carlos Delfino role.
I wouldn't read much into anything right now. As I said, we still have 5 more preseason games and about 10 -15 practices for McHale to experiment so its going to change. My only thinking to Jones starting again tonight would be cause Omer is still out, and D-Mo is probably slightly better suited off the bench to match-up with other backup 5's. He's not a great defensive anchor or anything, but he can cover alot of ground in the paint as the plug in the middle. He actually did pretty well against Indiana's backups last week as the 5 man. When Omer comes back, we'll see how that changes things from that point on.
Please God No. Check out this- http://data.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/timberwolves.jsp and then check out this- http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/willide02.html This is a player who last season had a lower W/S than Marcus Morris & Patrick Patterson did when they were on the Rockets....and then tell me you still want to trade 3 good PF prospects on good value contracts for this guy at this salary. Derrick Williams is not a very good NBA basketball player any way you look at it, and is making 6.3 mil next year, and 8.2 mil the next year..... NO THANK YOU!!
