'21-'22 Roster Construction

[grindhouse]

The more I think about it 2 things keep coming back to my mind.

1. Fred is going to have to be traded at some point to make room for Barnes, hopefully for a Center

2. Isaac bonga is going to get minutes

barnes
trent
OG
pascal
birch or Boucher

only way Fred fits is if he comes off the bench.

think about it we have Barnes bonga and banton who can all play point. Fred is our leader but I feel like Scottie is a better leader. And we can’t have too many chefs especially with pascal waiting for someone to tell him he is the man.

[SkywalkerAC]

[Primer]

The more I think about it 2 things keep coming back to my mind.

1. Fred is going to have to be traded at some point to make room for Barnes, hopefully for a Center

2. Isaac bonga is going to get minutes

barnes
trent
OG
pascal
birch or Boucher

only way Fred fits is if he comes off the bench.

think about it we have Barnes bonga and banton who can all play point. Fred is our leader but I feel like Scottie is a better leader. And we can’t have too many chefs especially with pascal waiting for someone to tell him he is the man.

Bonga won't even make the team, he's very likely cut during camp unless you think he beats out Yuta or Ish.

Barnes is not a PG, he won't ever be taking FVV's spot. Even if he was doing 100% of the ball handling we'd still want a player like FVV to man that position, similar to what Seth Curry does in the Philly lineup.

[grindhouse]

Bonga won't even make the team, he's very likely cut during camp unless you think he beats out Yuta or Ish.

Barnes is not a PG, he won't ever be taking FVV's spot. Even if he was doing 100% of the ball handling we'd still want a player like FVV to man that position, similar to what Seth Curry does in the Philly lineup.

Bobby is on record saying he wants the wall 1 - 5 positions being able to switch Fred doesn’t fit into that.

so with your logic how does Barnes get into the starting lineup when pascal comes back and years ahead?

Yuta or ish you pick one bonga is a better defender than both of them, better passer, probably a better scorer

[DanH]

Yep. We're losing a guy, Lowry, who was historically the main driver of wins and an advanced stats superstar. There's yet another advanced stat (DPM or DARKO Plus/Minus, lol), which appears to be the new advanced stat de jour. DPM ranks Lowry as the top Raptor from last year's team in terms of projected impact this year. And he's a tier above Siakam/FVV/OG.

In terms of projecting wins, we are really in uncharted territory this year.

https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/

DanH what say you about DARKO?

It's a funny stat, grounded in fantasy ball, meant to project a player's box score stats forward, trying to filter out noise from the recent trends to try to predict players who will break out and provide better value than expected in a fantasy league. But basically applied the same approach to the impact stats approach later on, and led to a pretty robust approach. I haven't read up on it enough - it does sound like it will be interesting to follow how it changes during the season, as it's meant for that exact application, while right now in a look forward at a full season in the offseason, likely has no additional value beyond what other impact numbers manage. Worth adding to your list of impact stats to look at though when trying to average a bunch to get an average and range for each player.

[Kawhisexual]

The more I think about it 2 things keep coming back to my mind.

1. Fred is going to have to be traded at some point to make room for Barnes, hopefully for a Center

2. Isaac bonga is going to get minutes

barnes
trent
OG
pascal
birch or Boucher

only way Fred fits is if he comes off the bench.

think about it we have Barnes bonga and banton who can all play point. Fred is our leader but I feel like Scottie is a better leader. And we can’t have too many chefs especially with pascal waiting for someone to tell him he is the man.

YESSSSSS, I am gonna celebrate when Fred van vleet gets traded

[Primer]

Bobby is on record saying he wants the wall 1 - 5 positions being able to switch Fred doesn’t fit into that.

so with your logic how does Barnes get into the starting lineup when pascal comes back and years ahead?

Yuta or ish you pick one bonga is a better defender than both of them, better passer, probably a better scorer

If Bonga beats out Ish and Yuta I think that's a good problem to have. Not what I'm expecting but they all basically play the same position so not out of the realm of possibility. No matter who makes the team out of those guys they will be a human victory cigar and get very little meaningful minutes. You don't make any roster moves with our guys under contract on account of Bonga.

With my logic Barnes moves to the bench when Pascal comes back. It will be a lot better for him to develop on the bench where he can play a bigger role and against less talented players. He can become an elite 6th man this season who can sub in at basically any position. He's a raw 20 year old with established starters ahead of him, he doesn't need to start this year.

If Barnes is ahead of schedule and proves we need to start him I think he bumps Trent to the bench, OG slides to SG and Barnes is at SF.

We won't have any trouble getting Barnes 20+ minutes every night, and when he's on he can play 30+ and we can give some rest to our regular starters.

I know we haven't had a capable bench in a while but we do this year and won't need to run guys into the ground.

[The Great One]

YESSSSSS, I am gonna celebrate when Fred van vleet gets traded

FVV is one of the best PG's in the NBA. It just makes me laugh how some here keeps talking about trading him. Smh.

[The Claw Reborn]

@DanH….you seem mum lately with people talking about Van Vleet as one of the best Point Guard in the NBA. If my memory is correct, you were so hell bent before that he is a shooting guard.

A slew of posts from different threads about role definition of Van Vleet vs. Scottie Barnes and yet I have not heard your self-proclaimed holier than though opinion on the topic.

please educate us again or you just pick your battles whatever serves you best? Maybe selective hearing lol

[DanH]

@DanH….you seem mum lately with people talking about Van Vleet as one of the best Point Guard in the NBA. If my memory is correct, you were so hell bent before that he is a shooting guard.

A slew of posts from different threads about role definition of Van Vleet vs. Scottie Barnes and yet I have not heard your self-proclaimed holier than though opinion on the topic.

please educate us again or you just pick your battles whatever serves you best? Maybe selective hearing lol

I think I've made my stance clear, no? FVV made a leap in playmaking such that he was fine as a PG last year, though his ideal usage is still primarily off the ball (offensively), which still fits great on this team with Siakam making a playmaking leap last year and Barnes coming in as a playmaking forward as well.

Fred indeed graded out as one of the highest impact guards in the NBA last year playing beside Lowry in a sort of timeshare of the PG/SG duties. He obviously has plenty of room for improvement, but there's no long jam where he is blocking some other player from moving into a lineup because there's not enough ball to go around - Fred is serviceable on the ball and great off the ball on offence, while he's great defensively regardless, so you are getting a positive impact guy whatever role he fits best into in any given lineup.

[grindhouse]

If Bonga beats out Ish and Yuta I think that's a good problem to have. Not what I'm expecting but they all basically play the same position so not out of the realm of possibility. No matter who makes the team out of those guys they will be a human victory cigar and get very little meaningful minutes. You don't make any roster moves with our guys under contract on account of Bonga.

With my logic Barnes moves to the bench when Pascal comes back. It will be a lot better for him to develop on the bench where he can play a bigger role and against less talented players. He can become an elite 6th man this season who can sub in at basically any position. He's a raw 20 year old with established starters ahead of him, he doesn't need to start this year.

If Barnes is ahead of schedule and proves we need to start him I think he bumps Trent to the bench, OG slides to SG and Barnes is at SF.

We won't have any trouble getting Barnes 20+ minutes every night, and when he's on he can play 30+ and we can give some rest to our regular starters.

I know we haven't had a capable bench in a while but we do this year and won't need to run guys into the ground.

Not sure trent is going to like coming off the bench but it works. It’s either him or Fred I personally like the idea of trents length but it’s not like Fred’s defence is broke

[DanH]

As much as I like the idea of Barnes with the starters longer term, I agree that aside from the early season potential to fill the Siakam gap, he likely is stuck coming off the bench this year.

Now, closing games is another story. If he achieves that status in year one, that would be really impressive, regardless of whether Trent's payday or Birch's size keep them in the nominal starting positions. The shooting will be the big hurdle there.

[grindhouse]

As much as I like the idea of Barnes with the starters longer term, I agree that aside from the early season potential to fill the Siakam gap, he likely is stuck coming off the bench this year.

Now, closing games is another story. If he achieves that status in year one, that would be really impressive, regardless of whether Trent's payday or Birch's size keep them in the nominal starting positions. The shooting will be the big hurdle there.

He is arguably the best defender on the team. Maybe even the best passer I think he should start day one and never look back

[LJ2]

He is arguably the best defender on the team. Maybe even the best passer I think he should start day one and never look back

This is what I meant by people needing to temper their expectations with Barnes. He hasn’t played an NBA minute and he’s arguably the best defender and passer on the team?

[Hotshot]

This is what I meant by people needing to temper their expectations with Barnes. He hasn’t played an NBA minute and he’s arguably the best defender and passer on the team?

lol exactly. People saw the pickup games & the eye test matched to their inflated expectations. Barnes is going to get into much foul trouble at first & will have issues guarding some players.

At best he will probably be the 3rd best forward defender behind OG & Siakam this season.