Mr. Stone needs to step in by trading Brooks for a power forward. Open the roster and press Smith before he gets paid or traded. Take coach out of his comfort zone and play some of the talent.
Amen is a better player than Brooks I get it but you guys have to understand we were 20th offense (very bad) and 10th defense (very good). You win a championship with a top 10 defense and top 10 offense. It's obvious we have to prioritize our offense and I'm pretty sure we'll improve on last seasons defense just with experience and new additions. We are the at the absolute limit of having poor shooters on the floor. Sengun and Green are both shaky shooters, they need to be surrounded with 2-3 great shooters. At least the best ones we have. All teams are packing the paint against us. We need more than FVV as a zone-busting 3PT shooter. We need Brooks to improve on last season a tiny bit and Jabari to improve a lot. If Eason shoots better than Brooks on % and volume this season, I hope we insert him into the starting lineup. This matters because we can't start the guy who's only weakness is that he is the worst shooter on the team. It's only because we are severely lacking in spacing that this matters so much. Yes I know Amen can score other ways but Sengun and Green definitely need better spacing than average and it would certainly help Amen too. If after 20-30 games Amen is shooting above 33% from 3 we can talk. Till then I would much rather he lead the second unit as a primary/secondary ball handler. It's not a demotion at all, he is a top 5 player on this team. It's purely for tactical and developmental reasons. We don't need defense or rebounding more than we need SPACING. Another way Amen can get into the starting lineup is if Sengun and Green are shooting fairly well after 20-30 games. That's the ideal outcome. Feel like those 3 would be so explosive playing together with the right spacing.
Geez man, people are so sensitive here about Green and Sengun. They both have positives and negatives. They have good nights and bad nights. Is it a crime to vent if they have a bad game? Or the idea to trade one, if not both for something better?
Bari has played fine other than his 3 not being there and his boneheaded shots at the end of the last game. That two pointer, down one after he had just missed the 3 (IIRC) really ticked me off. I still think next to Sengun, he is going to be an ideal fit in the future when he gets to peak strength. Also, we need his 4 inches. If you know what I mean.
I thought we should do this, but (small sample size), Amen has been bad this season. Worst player who has gotten more than 15 minutes per game.
Need to build trade value. Jabari is my trade piece for whomever we target. His shot is too flat.....hits what he aims at [ FRONT RIM ] Doesn't dribble well enough. Bring me 20 points per game Jerami Grant
That turnaround he hit late in the 4th quarter was a thing of beauty. That was a broken possession till the late PnR. Fred threw it to a spot that only someone with Amen's bounce could go get, and he immediately flowed into a move and knocked it down.
We don’t need to make any changes to our starting lineup. It’s doing great. We just need to play Tari and Amen more minutes, at least 25+.
We need Jabari’s rebounding, defense, and outside threat. He has definitely gotten stronger and I believe he has more room to add strength. I would not trade Jabari for Grant, but I do think he would probably be in a package for Giannis. We should be making that call right now. It looks like Jalen is going to be for real. Amen, Jalen, Tari (or Cam), Giannis, and Sengun is an absolute defensive and transitional juggernaut. Jalen, Amen, and Sengun are more than capable of initiating the offense in the half court. We shot 25% from 3 last night and still beat the Mavs on the road because of our defense and that is with playing FVV 37 mins. If we can’t get Giannis, we should just stand pat and let Jabari continue to progress. He has improved every year he’s been in the league and I expect he will improve again this year.
The Rocket's starting lineup is one of the best net rating lineup, the Dallas game the only starter in the negative was VanVleet Before this game, Amen was playing way worse than Jabari, I dunno what you're watching. He killed them even more than Jabari in the Spurs game. Tari has the best case to start probably, he's up to like 20+ PER and 60 TS%. Ime absolutely need to get his minutes up to at least 25, but given that he's coming back from injury and starting from a relatively lower pedigree, starting him over Jabari is a little tricky politically. Ideally you can replacing Dillon with Amen or Tari, though it's hard to say Dillon is playing poorly right now, and his skill set may not work as well in a bench role.
