NBA players have never had any real jobs in their lives. Tracy McGrady has never had a job. What do they know about workplace ethics? They don't. Definitely need some operations structure, but I dont think the office analogy is always fitting either.
WHo gives a **** about "spark off the bench?" It is idiotic to keep Landry, Chase, and Lowry on the bench while the only offensive options in the starting lineup are Aaron and Luis makes ZERO sense.
If I were Coach, I'd start Chase at one wing, and split minutes between "defensive specialists" Battier and Ariza at the other. For the life of me, I can't understand why Coach plays Ariza so much. It's as painful to watch Ariza as it is to listen to Clyde's color commentary. Combining those two sensory experiences makes me wish I'd never quit acid. Watching Chase play, on the other hand, is often a pleasure, especially on offense, but he's doing an adequate job on D most nights. I wonder how JT did during these last few practices. Couldn't Coach give him 3-4 minutes per? I'd like to see AB, KL, CB, and a little bit of JT-- and no one else on this current roster-- get all the PT at the 1 and 2 positions.
BECAUSE OUR FIRST UNIT SUCKS ON OFFENSE AND WE ARE ALWAYS BEHIND !!! Why not get off to fast starts? DD
In my opinion it's become obvious that defense is our biggest problem. We've come out of the gates swinging and built double digit leads in the first quarter many times only to give that lead up by the second half. Players are getting either career highs or season highs against us on a near nightly basis. I don't even think it's entirely the fault of not having a true big man (though it certainly hurts) as we're getting killed at all points of the floor, not just under the basket. It's all about playing smarter while we play harder. And for jesus sakes BOX OUT.
Trevor has clearly been a disaster as a player this year. How he maintains his minutes, much less his starter spot, is beyond me. Obviously promises were made to him to get him to sign here. We can only hope he was only promised a signifigant role this year and we can go back to what works next year. If he cant be sat, and this trully is a development year, it would be better to sit Battier for balance purpose, even though he is far and away the best of the three. Its a shame Brent Barry retired because he would be perfect for what we are doing this year in the SG slot. If Memphis is trully not committed to resigning Gay for max money, we could offer up Ariza+Hayes at the deadline and use the last half of the season to evaluate if he is still a knucklehead or whether good coaching can fix his mental mistakes.
When the opposing team only has to give a half-ass effort to guard Hayes, Ariza and Battier, they can expend max energy on penetration to score against Hayes, Scola, Ariza, Battier and Brooks.
the spark off the bench should be von wafer. start cbud at sf, put battier at sg, bring taylor and wafer off bench for spark plugs ariza? who's that? oh you mean the guy that got traded for a bag of tropical starbursts and large orange fanta?
If the first unit switches with the second unit, then we'll get off to fast starts, and then lose big leads. It's a lot worse for morale to lose a big lead than to come back from a slow start. The point is, who starts is really meaningless.
I said no to starting Bud, But I think RA will continue to increase his minutes. Bud need to work a little on his offensive consistancy & a lot on his defense, but he's improving!
This poll is not about switching the first unit with the 2nd unit. It's about replacing 1 out of the 5 players with Budinger. You were 20% right and that's still better than 0%.
It does matter who starts, because teams generally start their best 5 players...... There is no benefit to ceeding a lead, that is stupid, why not put 5 guys on the floor from the jump that can keep up? I am tired of being behind by double digits in the first 6 minutes of every game. DD
Is our second unit really good enough to consistently beat opposing teams' starting lineups? Personally, I wouldn't bet on it. Right now the strategy seems to be for our starters to try to stay even or at least not fall behind by too much, and then have our bench come in and outscore their counterparts. It's the reality of having a subpar starting lineup and a superior bench. Loading our starting lineup with our best scorers could actually decrease our chance of winning.
It will be interesting to watch the game tonight and to see which Trevor shows up...I doubt there will be any change to the lineup by tonight and we may be in for some more pain... I agree we can't keep start with 10pt deficits. They're hard to overcome and we make the bench come in and have to work harder to cover up for the lack of chemistry that the starters have... It's nice that we've shown that we can overcome 10pt deficits but it doesn't mean we should repeat the same scenario over and over...wonder if tonight will be deja vu...?
