He can't dribble yet. Doesn't understand the pace of the game. Yesterday he tried to accelerate and penetrate and almost lost the ball. Amen is miles ahead of Cam in this department but there's an ocean between rookies and veterans when it comes to processing the game. Amen isn't going to be the answer this year as a Fred backup. Holiday is probably the better answer right now unless we trade for a Rubio or Conley or Rose.
I'm almost convinced Alpy has been sick but Udoka can't not play him. He hasn't been himself for like 4-5 games now.
It's mostly on Alp. Yes, i can see that Jalen spends no effort whatsoever tagging the big men after pick and rolls, and yes i can see that FVV and whoever was guarding Trae had tough time fighting against screens yesterday but as a big men you can't allow your matchup to have a million alley-oop dunks.
That matches the eye test. I've constantly harped on about how Jalen doesn't work effectively with Sengun. I also chuckle every time I hear someone say they've got great chemistry.
Amen is a much much better defender than Cam is and is at least a serviceable ball handler. Cam is rookie Shaedon Sharpe right now. He won't get playing time unless someone gets injured.
Green/Sengun/FVV/Brooks/Smith : +7.0 net Sengun/FVV/Brooks/Smith with no Green : +7.7 net Sengun/FVV/Brooks/Smith/Tari : -0.1 net Sample size warning The Tari for Green with the starters lineup has barely played together.
Don't care if Green is benched. But I still think Tari playing with the other four starters isn't going to work well.
why though? It has been the case, in the limited time they tried it, and it is interesting to understand why. Similarly brooks replaced by Tate has a horrible rating, again in limited time. I don’t really see the reason.
Two reasons. 1. Brooks is not a guard. You can't give him the ball and let him start the offense. You can't have him play PnR as the ball handler. So you are pretty much left with FVV as the only ball handler in the lineup. It would work for short stretches. But for a full time starting lineup, it's just too limited. 2. Tari is an energy guy. You throw him in to disrupt, not to stabilize. You want stability with the starting lineup. I like Tari a lot and would love to see him play more minutes. But I also think that his style is more suitable for coming off the bench. I am more confident I am right about point #1, not as sure for #2.
If anyone is interested in some serious cope, watching Sengun last night reminded me of watching Jokic against the Harden/Capela pnr like 6-7 years ago. We used to kick Denvers ass every single time and play him off the court. That's where my brain went while I was watching the game. On a more serious note, that was tough to watch. Just awful, and big time "can't play Kanter" vibes. I'm losing faith. Sengun please pull me back in.
The second point is meaningful as a general strategy but I am not looking at it from a who should start-who should come from the bench, rather how good those 5s are. It doesn't explain why tari for green lineup has a negative rating. As for the first point, that seems to be a problem but a similar lineup with green in has even worse performance: F. VanVleet - J. Green - J. Tate - A. Sengun - J. Smith Jr. has a -43.8 rating over 32 minutes in 10 games with Green still on the lineup. So it looks like something other than guard play is up.
32 total minutes is probably too small a sample size. Anyway, it is a fact that Green is playing poorly on offense. A lot of the negative +/- is due to that fact. My point is that replacing him with Eason in the lineup for long stretches will likely create other problems. If we are to bench Green, starting Holiday will probably be a better choice although defense might suffer. Another alternative is throw Amen in the water and let him swim. It won't win us more games but it can serve as Amen's development strategy.
I think Holiday for Green is an obvious improvement that Ime is aware of. Also statistically, Holiday with FVV has very good rating, 19.7 in 193 minutes compared to Green - fvv -0.7, Jalen essentially having a positive rating only with the starting 5. It is just a choice to develop and/or see where he is for future planning.
