Game SIX Magic at Raptors Friday Oct. 29th 7:30pm on Sportsnet (HALLOWEEN EDITION)

[DanH]

Birch is slower, has a hard time switching onto guards, has limited range, and is not a 7 footer rim protector type either (his 6-9 like much of the roster). Those are the reasons he hasn't had barely any time with the starters, and was waived at age 28. It's taking a raw sophomore in Achiuwa sucking really bad for us to contemplate starting him (and that's us, for all we know Nurse might continue start Achiuwa to give him the chance to bounce back)

I'm ok starting Birch over Achiuwa though. The real question is who sits when Pascal is back. If you believe Birch is better than Trent, we'll disagree on who the better player is, but we'll agree on one thing: we'll choose to start our 5 best players.

If you believe Trent is better than Birch, then the question becomes: should a team start their 5 best players? It's a valid question often discussed in different teams and different years. There are exceptions (physical preservation of your better players being one of them), but usually, the answer is yes: a team typically wants to start their 5 best players to give them the best chance to take control of the game early.

I personally feel like a starting lineup of Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Birch would struggle shooting, especially if Pascal's 3 is not back to where it once was, and one of Fred or OG is having a cold night. Things may change and it's early, but Trent with the starters has provided a much needed escape valve for shooting, especially when our offence stall in the half court, while also providing a much better than expected defence (including deflections/steals, which are important in Nurse's system).

The other alternative that was considered by many in training camp was to send Barnes to the bench when Siakam is back, so we can start Birch (instead of Barnes), so he can guard all these monster C's that have been dominating the league by slowly posting everyone up. Not what I would do personally, but that's just my opinion. We'll find out soon enough what Nurse does when Siakam is back. Either way is a good problem to have, means we have depth.

It's taking Precious struggling for us to consider starting Birch? Speak for yourself, I've been advocating Birch as the clear cut starting C since we re-signed him (frankly since we picked him off the waiver wire last season).

Barnes to the bench when Siakam came back was the plan before we saw Barnes, but some people (like myself) advocated for just not deciding any of that until we saw how things went before Pascal came back, use the time we had to make the decision. Unfortunately, we've wasted a bunch of that time starting Precious instead of getting a sense how effective Birch can be with the starters.

It's not about guarding dominant monster C's. No one has made it about that. It's about basically every team having a starting C who is big enough to be a physical load and a grind over the course of 82 games for our key forwards to have to deal with consistently.

And yeah, if the lineup struggles shooting then maybe you have Barnes come off the bench for Trent, but I'd like to see it fail first.

[The Claw Reborn]

Birch is slower, has a hard time switching onto guards, has limited range, and is not a 7 footer rim protector type either (his 6-9 like much of the roster). Those are the reasons he hasn't had barely any time with the starters, and was waived at age 28. It's taking a raw sophomore in Achiuwa sucking really bad for us to contemplate starting him (and that's us, for all we know Nurse might continue start Achiuwa to give him the chance to bounce back)

I'm ok starting Birch over Achiuwa though. The real question is who sits when Pascal is back. If you believe Birch is better than Trent, we'll disagree on who the better player is, but we'll agree on one thing: we'll choose to start our 5 best players.

If you believe Trent is better than Birch, then the question becomes: should a team start their 5 best players? It's a valid question often discussed in different teams and different years. There are exceptions (physical preservation of your better players being one of them), but usually, the answer is yes: a team typically wants to start their 5 best players to give them the best chance to take control of the game early.

I personally feel like a starting lineup of Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Birch would struggle shooting, especially if Pascal's 3 is not back to where it once was, and one of Fred or OG is having a cold night. Things may change and it's early, but Trent with the starters has provided a much needed escape valve for shooting, especially when our offence stall in the half court, while also providing a much better than expected defence (including deflections/steals, which are important in Nurse's system).

The other alternative that was considered by many in training camp was to send Barnes to the bench when Siakam is back, so we can start Birch (instead of Barnes), so he can guard all these monster C's that have been dominating the league by slowly posting everyone up. Not what I would do personally, but that's just my opinion. We'll find out soon enough what Nurse does when Siakam is back. Either way is a good problem to have, means we have depth.

This is a very fair take to the soon to be impending dilemma of NN

[planetmars]

Birch is slower, has a hard time switching onto guards, has limited range, and is not a 7 footer rim protector type either (his 6-9 like much of the roster). Those are the reasons he hasn't had barely any time with the starters, and was waived at age 28. It's taking a raw sophomore in Achiuwa sucking really bad for us to contemplate starting him (and that's us, for all we know Nurse might continue start Achiuwa to give him the chance to bounce back)

I'm ok starting Birch over Achiuwa though. The real question is who sits when Pascal is back. If you believe Birch is better than Trent, we'll disagree on who the better player is, but we'll agree on one thing: we'll choose to start our 5 best players.

If you believe Trent is better than Birch, then the question becomes: should a team start their 5 best players? It's a valid question often discussed in different teams and different years. There are exceptions (physical preservation of your better players being one of them), but usually, the answer is yes: a team typically wants to start their 5 best players to give them the best chance to take control of the game early.

I personally feel like a starting lineup of Fred-OG-Barnes-Siakam-Birch would struggle shooting, especially if Pascal's 3 is not back to where it once was, and one of Fred or OG is having a cold night. Things may change and it's early, but Trent with the starters has provided a much needed escape valve for shooting, especially when our offence stall in the half court, while also providing a much better than expected defence (including deflections/steals, which are important in Nurse's system).

The other alternative that was considered by many in training camp was to send Barnes to the bench when Siakam is back, so we can start Birch (instead of Barnes), so he can guard all these monster C's that have been dominating the league by slowly posting everyone up. Not what I would do personally, but that's just my opinion. We'll find out soon enough what Nurse does when Siakam is back. Either way is a good problem to have, means we have depth.

Trent hasn't proven to be a reliable 3pt threat yet. It's historically part of his game, but in 7 games (small sample I know but it's been an issue) he's 37% from the field and 35% from 3 with 5.7 attempts a game. He's not really spacing the floor. Pascal can put up those numbers too. And if OG can settle back into being a catch and shoot guy, he's going to be way more reliable than Trent has been or even can be I think. What you lose with Trent coming off the bench is his deflections and the general chaos he brings to the defense. But I think that's more important near the end of the game then at the start of games.

I'd rather have OG be the starting SG personally, and have OG focus on defense and then be the catch and shoot guy for everyone else. He can guard point guards and shooting guards just fine.

I'm mostly concerned about two things if we play Pascal, OG or Barnes at the 5 for a majority of the game (so starting minutes):

1. Injuries. It's not easy to bang with any center. Even the half decent ones like Clint Capela or Brook Lopez. Let alone Joel Embiid. I know small ball can work in certain situations. But all day for 75+ regular season games? That's going to hurt.

2. Rebounding. Precious and Khem have been really good, especially on the offensive end. To the point where we have been getting multiple second chance opportunities which have helped us a lot this season (our offense is going to be inefficient, and rebounding is going to be very important). Khem is a nice pick and pop threat. Precious is a nice lob threat (Fred's working on it). Both can protect the rim. We'll want our best offensive players to relax a bit on defense so they have more energy for offense, at least in the regular season.

And a minor one is that our depth becomes weird as we'd have 3 centers coming off the bench. We'd hurt Precious' development. You can't play all three at the same time. That will get cleaned up if we can find a way to trade Boucher. But that likely won't happen anytime soon.

[JawsGT]

Trent hasn't proven to be a reliable 3pt threat yet. It's historically part of his game, but in 7 games (small sample I know but it's been an issue) he's 37% from the field and 35% from 3 with 5.7 attempts a game. He's not really spacing the floor. Pascal can put up those numbers too. And if OG can settle back into being a catch and shoot guy, he's going to be way more reliable than Trent has been or even can be I think. What you lose with Trent coming off the bench is his deflections and the general chaos he brings to the defense. But I think that's more important near the end of the game then at the start of games.

I'd rather have OG be the starting SG personally, and have OG focus on defense and then be the catch and shoot guy for everyone else. He can guard point guards and shooting guards just fine.

I'm mostly concerned about two things if we play Pascal, OG or Barnes at the 5 for a majority of the game (so starting minutes):

1. Injuries. It's not easy to bang with any center. Even the half decent ones like Clint Capela or Brook Lopez. Let alone Joel Embiid. I know small ball can work in certain situations. But all day for 75+ regular season games? That's going to hurt.

2. Rebounding. Precious and Khem have been really good, especially on the offensive end. To the point where we have been getting multiple second chance opportunities which have helped us a lot this season (our offense is going to be inefficient, and rebounding is going to be very important). Khem is a nice pick and pop threat. Precious is a nice lob threat (Fred's working on it). Both can protect the rim. We'll want our best offensive players to relax a bit on defense so they have more energy for offense, at least in the regular season.

And a minor one is that our depth becomes weird as we'd have 3 centers coming off the bench. We'd hurt Precious' development. You can't play all three at the same time. That will get cleaned up if we can find a way to trade Boucher. But that likely won't happen anytime soon.

What starting unit would you like to see when pascal returns? I didnt quite gather from the post, and I'm curious because I cant think of a configuration I'd put on the floor with OG at the 2. Even just from a defensive standpoint.

[planetmars]

What starting unit would you like to see when pascal returns? I didnt quite gather from the post, and I'm curious because I cant think of a configuration I'd put on the floor with OG at the 2. Even just from a defensive standpoint.

I'd go:

Khem or Precious at the 5
Pascal
Barnes
OG
Fred

And use Trent as a 6th man and possibly in a closing line up.