This whole point guard situation got me thinking. It seems to be the concensus that the point guard position on this team will be fairly free of heavy responsibilities. Most people agree the position only needs to provide good defense, reliable spot shooting, decent passing, and the ability to bring the ball up the court and dump it off to one of our playmakers. Because of this, many people have brought up the idea of Charley Ward as our starter, and platooning him with Lue and Gaines. This sounds completely workable, given our requirements. There's only one player on our team that is both capable and needed to play 40 minutes a night, and that's T-Mac. So, this brings me to the following question: How affective is platooning? We obviously saw problems doing it with the PF position last year, but I think that this is a different issue. While both Ward, Lue and Gaines would bring different strengths to the table, they can ALL fulfill the basic requirements we have for point guard. This was not the case with Cato and MoT. So what are the strengths and weaknesses of platoons? Would it be appropriate in our situation? How many championship teams have platooned the PG position successfully?
when you do not have a true full time player at a position and use 2 or more to fill that slot. ex. Francis 40 mins a game, Mark Jackonson only 8 mins NOT PLATOONING ex. Ward 20 mins a game, Lue 20 mins, Wilks 8 mins PLATOONING Hope this helps
Gotcha, thanks! That would definately give us more flexibility working against different PGs. I would also imagine having fresh legs constanly harrassing the opponents PG would be beneficial, plus not shelling out big bucks for a star.
platooning helps to cover up a hole at a weak position. hopefully we won't have a position weak enough to deserve a platoon. yao and anyone will be good. JH and mo will get all the minutes at 4. jj-tmac-boki have the 2/3 locked up. hopefully we sign a "starting" PG who can play 30 minutes - lue can have the rest.
Yeah, I think you're right in line with what I'm thinking. I'm just trying to figure out the negatives. I mean, I could understand wanting a starter for rythm and playbook familiarity, but we're not really a team thats going to need a "quarterback" style point. There have to be disadvantages that I'm not seeing.
i don't see any disadvantages with platooning the PG position either AS LONG AS the group of players makes smart decisions and shoot and hit the open shot on occassions. the one issue about platooning at the PG position might be on the defensive end.
I'm guessing you mean it would hurt defense by forcing us to play a weaker player so many minutes against a starter. But we'd have fresh legs and be able to mix things up to take advantage of matchups.
