Thats not really a good argument. Boston was just better than San Antonio. It has nothing to do with them benching Ginobli or boston not benching Allen or Pierce. I just don't really see the reason to start Artest when you have a guy who is capable of starting. Boston can't do what San Antonio did because they don't have a starter quality guy to start so that Ray Allen or Pierce can come off the bench. San Antonio had Finley/Bowen and we have Battier. It just doesn't make sense to me to have the big 3 all starting. You hope to find about 6-8 minutes each of rest for each player for each half which is going to be hard because you also want the big 3 to finish the halves (which is just as important as starting the halves, if not more so. So lets say you dont sub until 5 minutes into the 1st/3rd and you want everyone playing the last 5 minutes of the halves. That gives you a 14 minute span in which to rest your three stars for a combined 18-24 mintues. If you do the math, that means you will be forced to play with only 1 star for a good chunk of the half. Sure, if you start Artest you will get to play with all 3 stars for roughly 10 minutes to start and end each half, but you will also be forced to send out just 1 of the stars for 4-10 minutes each half. I'd rather always have 2 stars on the court with the exception of maybe 1-2 minutes a half (depending on how much you want to rest the players), and yet still have all 3 finishing each half. I'm not going to lose any sleep if Artest starts, but this just seems smarter to me.
55. barring something extraordinary, play the cards we know are winners. let Artest prove he's a plus to the starting unit. our starting 5 was pretty impressive last year, apart from situational adjustments why fix what ain't broke? if Artest proves irresistible in training camp, scratch the above. echoing prior posts, the starting label serves total minutes, serves crunch time minutes.
i think it's all about matchups, matchups, and matchups. depending on what team we're facing should determine our starting lineup. imo our conventional starting lineup would be rafer tmac battier scola and yao since artest is like a combination of battier and tmac (without tmacs passing abilities) and can spell either one if they were to get into foul trouble or experience fatigue. but the opposing teams lineup should determine who we start. if we play vs: celts (pierce allen) nuggets (melo AI) magic (lewis hedo) etc. we should probably start artest and battier and bench scola. lakers cavs or other one dimensional superstar swingman teams, we should start battier and then let artest spell him to keep the pressure on them. utah minnesota or ny, we should start artest because shane's efforts will be useless since they lack an explosive swingman
Yes, but instead of having say Tmac AND Artest to play with the second unit, you will just have Tmac OR Artest, thats the difference. You start with only 2 guys, but you will always have 2 stars at least playing in the 2nd unit. The difference is starting 3 stars and subbing out stars for role players untill you only have 1 out then putting all 3 back in to finish the half, vs starting 2, subbing stars for stars the whole half, and then putting all 3 in to finish each half.
I'm not going to call anyone's idea dumb, but I have to seriously questioned anyone who thinks artest shouldn't start. I mean we're talking about a guy whom many consider a top 10 wing in the entire league. You probably can make the case of top 7, yet people want a dime a dozen role player like Battier to start? Gimme a break and 55 wins mean nothing when u get knocked out of the playoffs. I guess since the rox won 70% of their games without yao, he shouldn't start. I guess the 95 rox should have brought clyde off the bench too? C'mon people, u start ur best players, period. Another thing that's bothering me is this whole notion of fitting guys around Yao. Who cares? Put good players on the team and they will adapt to each other. Haven't the rox tried to put these so called spacing players on the team enough? If yao gets position, hold his man, he will get the ball with room. If he doesn't, there are always rebounds he can go get to get points. Stop trying to build every aspect around yao. It should be obvious that he's a good piece, but just that, a piece. This isn't shaq 2, dream, or any great player that u build the entire deal around. Just get good players and roll. The attention Artest garners outweigh shane standing in the corner by a ton. You think teams will leave Artest to double Yao with the threat of artest going to the basket? Teams would close out on shane out of control because he can't beat abyone off the dribble. Not only that, Artest is a very good post player that can give Yao time out of the pivot when he's tired of banging down low. Anyway, those wanting Battier starting are just battier fans because it makes no logical sense to have a guy of artest talent on the bench behind a guy like battier. You can spin it any way u want and u can bring up manu, but manu isn't the caliber of Artest either. Shane is a bench player on a title contender, plain and simple.
What i would love to see is shane start. keep the chemistry intact. ron will still get his 34 minutes off the bench, but more importantly, ron gives the luxtuary of instant offense and defense off the bench. with tracy and yao, rons shots will be somewhat limited, but when he has the offense ran through him as the leader of the 2nd unit, he'll be very effective. it also means we wont fall behind or lose a big lead like we allways do once tracy or yao sits. Battier just brings nothing off the bench.
Some people seem to think that when you take out one starter the other starter must come out with them, ie: when Yao comes out Artest must come out too. Or vice versa. That is not true. This is the whole point of having the most versatile line up out there you can in a league where it's all about match ups. I see the reasoning in bringing Artest off the bench to take the scoring load off of Mcgrady and Yao. But that is more theoretical than real life basketball. Mcgrady and Yao are not ALWAYS going to have HOT games. They will be cold some nights and that's when having the third scorer comes to your advantage. Also having three capable scorers out there keeps the defense on edge and should make the game easier for everybody. Meanwhile, we can still keep two of our big 3 on the floor throughout the game while using this strategy. I see no reason why Tmac-Artest-Yao can't all start the game and midway through the 1st quarter Yao takes a break and we go small with Scola at center. Depending on our match-ups, we can throw any combination of offensive or defensive weapons at them. I agree we should always have TWO of our stars out there at any given point in the game, but we should start the game with all THREE of our stars.
The difference between Yao/Tmac from Duncan/Parker and KG/Allen/Pierce is that our superstars have a major history with injuries. With San Antonio, Parker can play most of the game due to his youth and very few injuries, therefore they can afford to bring Ginobili in off the bench. Duncan for the last 4 years has been able to play under 33 mpg. But he's ALWAYS there for the finish. Yao may have to start doing the same thing if he's ever going to stay relatively healthy. If Yao does rest this way, then Ron Artest off the bench would be a great option. The same thing can be said for the Celtics. The usually had 2 of the big 3 on the court. Rarely was KG on the court without either Pierce or Allen. If anything Pierce would be left out there with the bench, since he can be a playmaker and a scorer. Tmac could do this same role, but with his injuries, you would like for him to get his rest so he'll be fresh throughout the year. If Yao, Tmac, and Artest all start, then there would be stretches of a close game where all 3 may be on the bench, because they all have a history with injuries and Yao gets called for a lot of bad fouls. Its better to balance the team. We can compare Battier's role with Bowen's on the Spurs. Bowen is limited offensively. He is worse than Battier on the offense, but they both are deadly from the corner 3. The reason being...a post up player who draws double teams (Yao and Tim Duncan). If Ginobili (who you can compare to thier Artest) was starting over Bowen, then Bowen's game is useless, because Duncan doesn't play 15-18 minutes of the game, thus leaving only 30 minutes or so for them to play together, most of which would be in the 2nd half. You want to maximize a limited offensive players production. By getting him open shots, thats the way to maximize that production. Ron Artest should come off the bench. You can run an offense through him. Barry and Luther head would get wide open shots. Dorsey or Landry (if they are here) will be great finishers off Artest's drives and Hayes and Artest would be a great defensive forward duo. While Yao and Tmac will do their thing and Scola will have the 15 ft jumper open all game and is a good rebounder and a compliment to Yao. Tmac will have Battier open in the corner for the 3's and Rafer can take ball handling pressure away from Tmac.
I think people are getting too caught up in starter vs bench player definitions. Just because you are the starter doesn't mean you are the better player. Its all about how many minutes you get. Ginobli was averaging about as many minutes as Parker and Duncan were. The reason you bring Artest off the bench is because it will mean there will be 2 stars on the court at virtually all times in the game, vs starting 3, and eventually being forced to just trot out 1 when 2 of the stars need rest.
U start ur best players, period. Manu doesn't start because he's reckless and wouldn't hold up. If he had shown he could be durable and not so reckless, he would start. I think u have it all wrong, but that's just me. When guys like Gordon doesn't start its becase he's a tweener and can't defend his position. When Bobby Jackson was 6th man, he wasn't better than christie or bibby. Artest is one of the top players in the entire league and you don't sit him for a scrub like Battier. U start artest with yao,tracy,scola and rafer, beat the brakes off people and move on. Why let the defenses leave shane and force him to make plays, when you can come out and maul teams and get the games over with. The 6th man doesn't have to be instant offense. The 6th man can change tempo and pace by being filling in the blanks. Posey changed tempo in boston by being a tough guy, great defender and matchup guy. This battier starting stuff is really bs to me.
That's a weak counter-argument. You've already said that "you start the best players, period". Well, that doctrine clearly is not accepted by Popovich, who's considered by many to be the best head coach in the game. And who says that Ginobili isn't the same caliber as Artest? I'd wager that if you poll the GMs and ask them to rank the best wing players in the game, more of them would put Ginobili ahead of Artest than the other way around. You argue that Ginobili is reckless and injury-prone, hence he doesn't start. Need I remind you that Artest has missed 79 of 246 regular season games the last 3 years (that doesn't include the brawl suspension)? It seems that the exact same thing, actually more so, could be said of him.
what is this love about a 6th player that can score? We argue about this last year, when rox got scola. And we saw the huge difference it makes, when scola starts along yao. Let the best 5 players play, set the tempo of the game, let the opposite team feel the pressure and chase the game. About putting players in and out, let Rick do his job on how to play the 5 man game. Maybe he will do the same thing like last year, where he put on 3 players at the same time. Maybe not. But i cant understand why you want to take artest off the bench. He is not the explosive scorers. He is a volume scorer, where he score by playing his minutes. If you really wants an explosive scorer, put tmac on the bench, he can comes in, do his heat check, then score for fun on the 2nd squad, then back to the bench.
I would like Artest in the starting 5. If he comes off the bench teams could then double team him and have a better chance of stopping him. If his in the starting line up, depending on what star opposing teams decide to double, it will still leave 2 stars open or on 1on1 situations. Each one of our big three is more than capable of being succesful in 1on1 situations.
and if Artest becomes reckless? Start your best players period? Thats kinda stupid, no it is stupid. You start what works for you. If Artest is known for hogging the ball why would start him with your two premiere scorers? Why not let him have his own show for the most part? If having your 3rd best scorer come in for for another star to get rest to keep the tempo up and the pressure always high is whats gonna make this team a formidable match. all in all, its not who starts but who works, and thats a period.
I am still waiting for the day a basketball game, you can argue a call kinda like football you can challenge on baseball you can come out and argue with the umpire. when will basketball come up with something to wear you can pick up T's to spark your team or get kicked out of the game. Is this a dumb idea or a good one?
Oh, like 1980's basketball? Stern's been trying to get away from that since Magic & Bird had health problems. Seriously.
I agree with the premise (start people based on match-ups), but not the conclusion. IMO Alston, Tmac, Artest and Yao start every game when healthy. The other spot to decide on is Scola VS Battier. If Artest can handle the opposing teams PF (some players might be too tall for him) and the extra perimeter defender is handy, play Battier and bring Scola off the bench. If we need the extra size with Scola and the 4 and Artest at the 3, leave Battier on the bench. Off the top of my head of the WC playoff contenders I like the smaller lineup (Scola off the bench) vs... NO, LAL (assuming Odom is the PF), GS, Dallas, Sac & Denver etc. I like going bigger/longer (Battier off the bench) vs...SA (assuming Duncan starts at PF, not C), Utah, Portland, & Phx. Against Boston, I don't at all want Artest on KG. KG probably can face him up and shoot right over him, the main thing KG thrives on is a clear look on his jump shot right over smaller guys. Scola on KG, Artest on Pierce, Tmac on Allen--that is what you start with. I agree on Artest. He not only is a potent offensive player, he also is efficient (as efficient as Battier, and much more than Tmac). He is a great defensive player who has become a good and efficient offensive player. He also draws fouls. He could really help us get to a good start offensively and pressure our opponent, something we havn't been great at. You can say this about Scola and Alston too. In reality Shane, Scola and Alston are all pretty comparable in talent/skill. Alston however needs to start because PGs need to set the tempo. So I agree with you Artest should absolutely start, but I am open to the idea of a Scola/Battier platoon in the 5th spot. I agree to a point. But IMO the reason this works for SA says more about Manu than anything. He is an extrodinarily flexible player who can be effective as a 1st option in times of need as well as an effective off the ball player around two primary options (TD and TP). Very few of those super explosive 6th man types I can think have seamlessly been able to do, other great 6th men that come to mind havn't (Barbosa, B Jack, or to go back, Eddie Johnson, the Microwave). Personally I want Artest to get a lot of work with Yao and Tmac, because you know in close games the 3 of them will be on the floor and they need to be comfortable. I am concerned if he is regulated to an off the bench player with the majority of his minutes w/o Yao and/or Tmac, it may be hard for those three to get a rythum when needed. So start Alston, Tmac, Artest, Yao + SB/Scola. Now we can sit Tmac and/or Yao much earlier than before (a good thing). Artest gets plenty of time as the supporting role within the big 3, + about 20% of the time as the 1st option on the second unit. I think sitting Artest at the start is about a silly as Boston sitting Pierce for Posey, or Detroit sitting Prince or Hamilton. You don't have to sit one of your stars to keep them fresh for the 2nd unit, you just adjust your rotations accordingly.
