I'd put in Dikembe, but the Rockets don't have a zone defense which would allow him to not man up on the power forward.
Padgett, despite his limted playing time, has been extraordinarily productive when on the floor the past two seasons - according to both raw and adjusted statistics. Certainly that would diminish over a greater sample - but it's been persistent enough in the stats for it to be worth exploring, consdiering the alternatives..
Mutumbo is 38 years old and getting slower by the minute. I can't see him starting, playing significant minutes against much quicker and more agile PF's, and being effective. Mutumbo looks good as Yao's backup, let's keep him there and try to fix the PF situation some other way.
Padgett is great and everything and I think he is a good back up PF because he would come in and score some 3's and get some hustle rebounds in the game but when yao and Tmac arent producing MoT is our best bet as a one on one player on offense. When he is on, there is no one who can stop him. Padgett gets a lot of open shots because he is underestimated. If he were to get solid minutes then other teams would look for him more and he wouldnt be as useful to us. I wouldnt mind trading the useless J Howard to get a better PF for this team and start whoever that PF is but untill then MoT is going to stay our starter. I do miss Mo coming off of the bench and dominating though................but thats when we had a more defensive minded C/PF to start over him. Bottom line is we NEED a tough PF who will fight for rebounds and score around the basket when yao cant and that isnt Padgett. I would love to see Padgett playing some SF though!!!
Agree totally with using Padgett at SF - if he is a "soft" PF then may be he is a more natural SF? With all of this using a zone defense to overcome the slowness and slow switching of this team can only help each of our overmatched individuals. So play the following combos: Play Yao about his current minutes but move his style back to the old Yao of his 1st year - which is a little less of the traditional Hakeem/Ewing postup. Increase Deke's and Spoon's minutes and tandem them and YAO at C/PF combos. Use both Deke and Spoon in the old Cato RB role. Play MoT about the same but some at the 3 and some at the 4. Play Padgett in more of a SF role and increase his minutes, same for Boki. Cut JJ's minutes - he cannot keep producing well at 41 mpg at his age. Perhaps his productivity and consistency will improve playing 30 mpg. Keep Tmac at current levels, use Boki/Sura to spell Tmac with Sura/AB to run the point. Lue is deep pine. I count 11 - who is the 12th man? JHow? Benchtime as well. Ward IR. Running a 10 man rotation - keep the old men fresh, keep fresh legs coming in all the time. Keep people fresh at the end of the season and ready for the playoffs. Lots of combinations, probably more games to get everyone working together, but definitely aimed at more uptempo and less fatigue. Haven't split the minutes in detail yet, but it could also be adjusted based on matchups. What a weird team! JVG will probably never buy it....
While I do think giving Padgett more minutes is a good idea, I don't think I'd start him over MoT. Not yet, anyway. Mo's been playing pretty well if you asked me. And I know some of you think Mo doesn't play well against the big name PFs of the West. If that's the case, how do you think Padgett would fare? Oh my.
Totally agree, lets see what kind of chemistry Mo has with Sura in the starting lineup before we make any big changes.
