I've summarized a full argument for why JV should definitely be starting and Ibaka should be playing most of his minutes at PF here, if anyone is interested. It's huge, so I can't copy the whole thing here.
Conclusions as follows:
I doubt Casey thinks about rotations on this level.
It's basically going to be start JV and then bench him whenever possible.
Seems like the rest of the world has caught up to Lithuania? Doesn't make sense for such a basketball-crazy nation to have such an issue with guard play.
Pretty sure the thing you should chalk that up to is they barely got to play with Lowry at all, and when they did they had like 3 games of injury recovery Lowry to play with on the fly with no practice. And Patterson still came off the bench, so JV-Pat was when JV got to roll out against bench units (ie lesser opposition). Plus bench lineups had more Tucker, less Carroll.
Wait, you want to decide a starting lineup based on a sample size of 36 minutes?
I've already got Poeltl slated to play minutes beside Ibaka with the starters (about 3 minutes midway through each of the 1st and 3rd Q's, plus time with the DeRozan lineup at the end of the 1st half), enough to get some actual reps with those guys and build a real sample to judge them on.
So, is the idea just to disregard the evidence we have that JV works great with the starters, generally, and even with Ibaka while Lowry was hurt managed to tread water, and the evidence that JV doesn't work with DeRozan-centric bench units at all, just so we can start Poeltl on the basis of a tiny sample against non-starting quality opposition, just because you don't like JV? Like, the JV bench units were a +9.5 net rating, so he should come off the bench, but the minutes Ibaka spent with Poeltl on the bench had a +8.2 net rating in a far smaller sample, so we should totally start that pairing? Come on.
And obviously, everything is an option once you get some games under the belt and data from this season to work with. But "worth trying at some point if something's not working or an injury happens" is not what I was driving at with the articles. I'm trying for a plan A, one that is the most likely to succeed. Which doesn't mean throwing shit against the wall to see what sticks.
Again you pick a strawman and then proceed to debate that. I did not say that.
Seems like the rest of the world has caught up to Lithuania? Doesn't make sense for such a basketball-crazy nation to have such an issue with guard play.
they seem to have no trouble producing decent bigs... Valanciunas, Motiejunas (pre-injury), kuzminskas, etc. are all pretty skilled and not afraid to mix it up. but their guards are just disastrous for them. They're trying to play a ball-moving system but they constantly miss the simple pass and throw a complicated one into a trap. plus none of them can handle the ball. One of their guards has the highest dribble I've ever seen on a professional / national-team player.
Again you pick a strawman and then proceed to debate that. I did not say that.
Back on ignore you go.
You literally said:
Ibaka-Poeltl only got 36 minutes together in 11 games but were +8.2 netRTG in that time. Tiny sample size of course, but I think this definitely shows enough to deem it worth trying that lineup and pairing JV up with our bench guys to see what happens.
If you don't think we should start Ibaka and Poeltl and play JV with the bench units, and think my arguing that is arguing a straw man, it would be clearer if you didn't explicitly say to play them together with the starters and play JV with the bench, "definitely."
If you don't think we should start Ibaka and Poeltl and play JV with the bench units, and think my arguing that is arguing a straw man, it would be clearer if you didn't explicitly say to play them together with the starters and play JV with the bench, "definitely."
Shaolin confuses my soul. He literally gets pissed every time you speak to him and constantly says you're putting words in his mouth when the receipts are there lol. It's entertaining to witness lmao.
I relish negativity and disappointment. It is not healthy. Somebody buy me a pony.
If you don't think we should start Ibaka and Poeltl and play JV with the bench units, and think my arguing that is arguing a straw man, it would be clearer if you didn't explicitly say to play them together with the starters and play JV with the bench, "definitely."
If you assume Shaolin is just playing with you Dan, the conversations will flow a little smoother and your frustration levels will go down. Imagine he's the little kid who simply replies "No I didn't" every time you point out something he did.
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