With our lack of any real movement aside from the Posey-Piatkowski swap, our lineup looks like this: Yao Cato Taylor Griffin Badiane Rice Nachbar Piatkowski Cuttino Francis Moochie I think that this will also be the starting lineup. I think the beauty of this lineup is the flexibility with all players having amazing range (except for Taylor out to 3-pt). I had Cuttino come off the bench because I feel that would allow him to control the ball more when Yao-Steve were out or after they have been playing for a while. A secondary unit of Cato-Griffin-Nachbar-Cuttino-Moochie would need Cuttino to do most of the playmaking and allow him to focus on his strength instead of playing within a system of Yao-Taylor-Steve and pass outs to Rice/Piatkowski. The starting lineup should be a killer with the outside shooting of Pike and Rice. Yao/Taylor/Francis can all break defenses with their posting up or driving ability and double teams will get rocked with 3-bombs. I like the Taylor playing with Yao better because even last year they had a strong on-the-court chemistry with some great dishes inside the lane to each other. Yao would clear back to let MoTaylor post up when his hook was falling. I really do see a turnaround year for Taylor. He was working his ass off and then tore his Achilles. Though its worse in the short run than tearing an ACL, in the long run its better and heals better than the knee. There were times (example: the Washington Game) in which he was unstoppable. I truly see him as having the size power and fluidity in his shot to be a true threat from inside and from the mid-range. Imagine Yao posting up on the low block. You have Rice on the clear opposite side, Pike on the right side. Stevie's defender staying with him for fear of him slashing into the lane waiting for the Yao feed. Mo is waiting in the wings with a mid-range jumper or a cut to get open. Uuhh...Salivating!
I agree with alot of what you are saying although I would rather see EG with Yao and have his focus switched to rebounding, put backs, and scoring on dishes from Yao. I would like to see MoT running pick and rolls with Moochie and Cat, as well as posting up.
I'm pretty sure JVG left before zones became legal. Do you see him running a lot of 3-2 and 1-3-1 zones to funnel all penetration to Yao and occaisionally Eddie Griffin? I'm not familiar with his defensice schemes.
No way Pike pushes Cat to the bench. Although a nice offensive threat, having both Pike and Rice on the floor at the same time is a defensive liability.
Just like the sucky chinese national team. All shooters and no lick of defense. Sad. I cant imagine if theres ever been a worse defensive team in the history of the league with a starting lineup of 32 old Piak, 36 Rice, Taylor,Steve. Man JVG is going to have a heart attack. I'll make that my sig once the Stephen Jackson ball riding is over for some of you.
