I was at the 76rs game rivers hit a 3 made a layup and was fouled hitting 1/2 for 6 points in like 4 min and never played again. I understand house is the starter but he’s been garbage lately but he does have the size. Ben I don’t understand he’s worse On D can’t dribble or create like rivers and his shot is pure looking but he doesn’t actually make more threes than rivers. he’s had some hot shooting games but for the most part he’s had a ton of bad shooting games. I think rivers def needs to be playing more minutes than Ben and he can take a few mins from house also who’s been terrible shooting the ball like his shots arnt even close their straight clankers. I get that EG is back and he’s actually playing well but having rivers means we can play harden Russ and EG less not more. MDA needs to get him on the court he’s our 3rd best ball handlers and playmaker. I love EG but that’s not his strong suite scoring and shooting the ball is.
Ideally if EG is playing good Rivers shouldnt see the floor at all...i prefer a 3 guard rotation of Harden, Westbrook and EG but EG has to be killing it for it to work
minutes at each position... PG - Westbrook(30+/-)/Harden(5)/Clemons(10+/-) SG - Harden(10+/-)/Gordon(30+/-)/Rivers(5) SF - House(20+/-)/Harden(20+/-)/Rivers(15) PF - Tucker(30+/-)/House(5)/Clark(10+/-) C - Capela(30+/-)/Hartenstein(15+/-) Trade Ben and development our youth.
I think Rivers was a pretty good floor general last season with CP3 out. Maybe try to find a way to get him back to that level?
WORST COACH IN HISTORY. LOL. . here we go again -Best record in franchise history -Best NBA coaching record over last 3 years -Turned James Harden into a superstar MVP -Took 'greatest team ever assembled' to 7 games (and was up 3-2 in series before CP hammy. No other team had ever done that during the KD 'bandwagon' era) -Won Coach of the Year Yeah, TERRIBLE coach
Russell is the reason. With him Austin is unplayable due to his inconsinsent shooting. Whenever you put him next to Harden and Westbrook you have two options to double James. Whenever you put him next to Clint and WB you have THREE non-shooters which is deadly for James. So only option for Austin until he's out of his 3pt slump is non-WB-and-Clint lineups alongside Harden, so it's basically not a huge window of opportunity. Austin is still very valuable. His illness cost this team a game 1 win vs Warriors outside of refs, of course
He's down to 35% from 3 on catch-and-shoot attempts from last season 37. Once he'll be back to 37-40% range he'll eventually get more minutes
How good do you think we are? Your solution to expand to a 9 man rotation is to reduce the minutes of our best players. Harden goes down to 33 minutes, Tucker gets 30, and Westbrook gets 31. That will affect our ability to win games. We're in a three way tie for 2nd seed with Utah and Dallas breathing down our neck. If you don't care about seeding or having homecourt, then fine. I think we should be competing for a higher seed. I like Rivers a lot, but his role is superfluous with Westbrook here. I bet Rivers takes all of McLemore's minutes in the playoffs anyway.
maybe because Westbrook, Harden and Gordon are better and healthy. Rivers is our 4th guard on a minimum contract. He is there for depth. I dont see how its possible to want to watch Austin Rivers instead of our other 3 guards who are better players. Edit: Scratch all that. Answer to the thread Because hes not an idiot.
i think rivers is going to play more or less depending on the matchups...the nuggets and sixers have a lot of size so I think he goes with Ben over him...but when we play the clippers and we need him to guard lou will I think he will play more. its too early to tell on the minutes thingy. but his main thing is his defense against those guards.
That's something that confuses me. Harden seems to be more effective defensively when he's guarding bigs. So if Harden is playing, Rivers should still be useful defensively even if either Westbrook or Gordon are also on the floor. Maybe it is the shooting as others have said. With Harden and Tucker playing more minutes than desirable, it sure would be nice to compensate by having a competent vet like Rivers see more court time.
if you are not going to play him then you might as well trade him. I think he is our 2nd best playmaker but we have essentially have 4 playmakers. What is good about him is he can guard SF position like Kawhi or PG so he really is invaluable 6 guards 1 PF 4 centers 3 small forwards - 1 unplayable (Thabo) , Gerald injured but is he a guard too so Covington really makes sense
No you dont trade him because hes one injury away from being back into the rotation heavily... He was brought in for depth when we signed him and thats exactly what he is.
Clutchfans thought Harden & Westbrook will play less minutes after EG comes. MDA let Rivers play less minutes and keep Harden & Westbrook minutes same. Classic MDA move.
EG still working himself back into shape after long injury layoff. And no one knows if Rivers was nicked up or if it was due to match up. Automatically assuming that MDA is an idiot is panic hive mind at worst and ignorant at best.
He's probably made it on to MDA's shitlist somehow, and, as we've seen, once that happens to you, MDA will drown the rest of the shortened team in minutes before he gives any to you.
