We are starting Brewer to cover PGs making our bench: Ennis Gordon Dekker Harrell NeNe Sometimes they go small and run KJ at the 3 and Delker at PF. I expect Brewer to fall out of the rotation once Beverley returns, but I doubt it.
KJ McDaniels needs all of Corey Brewer's minutes once PBev comes back and I think we'll be all right.
The best way to improve the bench to become contenders is to get a star 3, 4 or 5 and put Ariza, Anderson or Capela on the bench. As for what we currently have, Bev to start. Gordon and DMo to bench. Dekker moves back to 3 as main backup. KJ fights for minutes at 2-3 (fighting with EGo and Bev, and small ball). Brewer practice minutes stay the same, but game minutes disappear.
Everyone besides James has room for improvement. The good thing about d'Antoni is he's actually increasing the value of our young assets like Capella, Dekker, and KJ so we have chips to work with in case any stars shake loose this trade deadline.
When Pat comes back, we have solid depth in backcourt with Pat, Harden, EG and KJ. Yet we need another player who can either make plays, distribute the ball, like Jeremy Lin or create his/her own shots by isolation or postup, like Dmo or Beas. Harden is the Rockets' entire offense, as Jeff Van Gundy repeats every single time when he broadcasts a Rockets' game since last season. And this doesn't get improved at all this season with our new coach and new players. We all know how bad the Rockets' offense is when Harden is off the floor(ironically, Rockets' is supposed to be a very good offensive team with our coach's mentality and specialty). According to stats.nba.com, when Harden is offcourt, the OffRtg of Rockets' is 82.8, which means that we can only score 82.8 points per 100 possessions(equivalent to 82 points per game given the pace we are playing right now). This is way worse than the dead last of the NBA(76ers have a OffRtg of 93.8), and it is against the opponents' bench players' defense, which make it even worse. Every game, the beginning 3-4 minutes of the second and fourth quarters are very hard for us because our second units really struggled to score any points. EG is a terrific 3-pointer shooter, and he can do a little dribble penetration or mid range pull ups with Harden on court drawing the attention of the defense and thus opening the lanes to paint for him. But when the defense is all over him, his ability to score the ball is lacking, so is Ryno. The most realistic solution now, is that we sign D-Mo, we can have him to do a little post ups and some two man games with EG, and hopefully it can add some fluidity to our second units' offense. But ideally, we need a second ball handler besides James. Even Nash had Joe Johnson/Boris Diaw/Barbosa backing him up, I just don't think James can do it all by himself. Had Stan Van Gundy not regret on that D-Mo first round pick trade, we can use that pick to get George Hill, who is a perfect fit for our lineup and system. But now, we really don't have any assets that can be used to trade any quality players. Maybe Brewer for Boggie? We all know that a fatty like Divac really loves a bag of chips.
Brown is the only consistent scorer. Dekker needs to take more shots. The rest contribute a little offensively but we definitely need a point guard who can score more points when Harden is on the bench. Ennis was better than usual, but still not good enough.
Pretty obviously Point Guard in my opinion. We are deeper than it appears in the other position IMO, if D-Mo comes back McDaniels, Brewer, Dekker, Harrell would create a log-jam. All have earned the opportunity to play more (well, maybe expect Brewer...)
We need rebounding in the worst of ways --> a banger that keeps other team honest --> someone that would end the other teams possession and prolongs ours. A Larry Smith type from his Golden State days --> Mr. Mean. OR an Anthony Mason type --> big wing that can still D but can pull down boards at will, too. A quicker Harrell --> to make a mismatch on the wing. JUST ENERGY FROM THE BIGS! Would go a long way.
Doesn't matter. The starting line up and the overall quantity of talent on the roster needs to be improved. This is not a talented group of 15 people in comparison with the other 30 teams. We lack talent. Who is our 2nd best player? Who are the players with most potential and highest ceiling on this roster? Do we have any rotation quality athletic players? This is a not very talented roster, but we have one monster, a genius offensive tactician, an extremely accomplished defensive coordinator, a GM who lives and dies by finding value, and a roster that seems to have good chemistry. It's miraculous our record is as good as it is given our schedule IMO. Improving your bench is something you talk about when you are tweaking the roster to achieve the perfect mix for contention. We're not there. It's worrisome that people are thinking about our team in this way, seems like a way to set yourself up for a let down. Right now at all 5 positions minutes are up for grabs, no one is a lock, the starters are barely better than their backups. Not trying to **** on anyone's parade, but it just strikes me as strange that we would care about improving a backup position when we really should be thinking of how to improve any of the 4 non-Harden starting positions.
I put contention off the table when they gave Anderson $80 million. You don't bring 1/5th of your cap off the bench, since it means they don't value defense and they just wanna win games, make the playoffs and hopefully get lucky. I am trying to enjoy this team for what it is, but we don't have the pieces to land a Cousins type player who is a game changer. So yeah, if they improve the bench (mainly the PG spot), either by downgrading Beverley or not, then this team might get lucky and make some noise in the first round which is a huge over achievement.
Yes, they just wanna win games. How terrible of them. Anyway, we are not contenders as you said, so there is no point investing in a secondary category like the bench. What Morey and MDA are doing within Les' preferences is working, everyone but Brewer is improving their value. We can land a Cousins type of player this summer easily if they want to play with a guy average 25/10/7 like James Harden. We currently are projected to have $10m in cap space, and can clear enough cap space very quickly by dumping some expirings like Brewer, Ariza, etc. You are contradicting yourself here bro. You are saying we are not in contention but want to make a move to "make noise" in the first round, which is only noise to you apparently because a 7 game loss in the first round is still a whimper to me. If you want to enjoy this season for what it is, you have to stop looking at things withing a 7 month window. We are building up the asset value of this roster and holding onto our picks because we're going all in come summer time. We're not going to waste picks or young players or well priced contracts trying to improve the bench for a team which is most likely not going to win it this season. What we're doing is installing a new system, giving young guys minutes, fitting some complimentary players into James Harden's team, and seeing how good Harden can be in this system. So far things have gone great for the purpose of contending next year. Things will not necessarily be better next year by improving us a little bit for the playoffs. If you're expecting more from this team than what we've seen so far, that's on you. No one promised you more. The organization's optimistic goal is home court advantage. We've played at home 2 out of 9 games and we are a game above .500. The backup position we need to improve is backup game plan in case an FA doesn't want to sign next summer. Not the backup to a player that's not going to be here long.
I think the back court will be fine once Bev returns but unless Morey can get DMo to sign, the front court has no depth and is really weak.
