Everything OG Anunoby

[Hotshot]

Good thing the Spurs didn't demand OG to be in the trade with Derozan.

There are bargain deals out there if you are patient and savvy enough. Kudos for the Sixers for getting a good deal with Butler without including additional players or a draft pick.

[sanyo]

I could see Danny Green move to 2nd unit by all star break and OG move to 1st unit.

Lowry, Kawhi, OG, Siakam and Ibaka is a pretty deadly lineup with FVV, Green and JV the main players off the bench...

[Puffer]

I could see Danny Green move to 2nd unit by all star break and OG move to 1st unit.

Lowry, Kawhi, OG, Siakam and Ibaka is a pretty deadly lineup with FVV, Green and JV the main players off the bench...

That is a better starting three than on a lot of NBA teams.

[golden]

I could see Danny Green move to 2nd unit by all star break and OG move to 1st unit.

Lowry, Kawhi, OG, Siakam and Ibaka is a pretty deadly lineup with FVV, Green and JV the main players off the bench...

The Kawhi-OG-Siakam trio is probably our key competitive advantage, which comes on the defensive end. 3 highly switchable freak athletes with crazy length and quick feet for their size. Need to get them reps together for sure.

[golden]

I could see Danny Green move to 2nd unit by all star break and OG move to 1st unit.

Lowry, Kawhi, OG, Siakam and Ibaka is a pretty deadly lineup with FVV, Green and JV the main players off the bench...

No love for Wright? He's been outplaying FVV by a wide margin.

[Truth Teller]

Delon Wright has been easily better than FVV. FVV needs to understand the new offense and pass the ball quicker. I hate watching him dribble for 10 extra seconds.

[LJ2]

FVV seemed like he fit in pretty well before the toe injury. But yeah it seems to have affected his judgement since he's been back.

[DanH]

FVV (and Wright sometimes too) will likely continue to look out of place while we keep running out this nonsense bench unit. The magic of the bench unit last year was having three points of attack (FVV, Wright, Siakam), two shooters plus a developing shooter to space the floor (Miles, FVV, and Wright), and an abundance of quickness and help defence inside to let Wright and FVV make gambles for turnovers while Siakam and Poeltl stopped the inevitable penetration Miles gave up. They sacrificed rebounding and consistent offensive production in the halfcourt but it didn't matter because the frontline defence was so good. JV is fine, but he's not able to replicate the scrambly help that Poeltl provided last year, so the Miles issues become more significant defensively. OG has been great, but he's not a creator like Siakam is and too much of the bench offence is falling into isolating JV because the first three attempts at a PnR with Wright or FVV have been snuffed out because those guys have been scouted and teams are happy to let FVV go under the rim and will give Wright midrange looks all day long.

Now, give FVV and Wright a pick and pop big, and Wright's attacking and FVV's passing can actually generate some offence. Bring Siakam back to the bench unit and you get that tertiary offence creation (wouldn't mind giving him the extra usage anyway to see just how far he can spread his scoring wings without playing beside high usage players). Put in a C who can replicate Poeltl's quick twitch rim protection better than JV can and the Miles perimeter defence issue gets mitigated again.

None of this even requires changing the starters, either. Just quick sub your frontcourt so they start and finish each Q, with the current bench frontcourt of JV and OG playing the middle 5-6 minutes of each Q. Not that I'd be opposed to changing the starters, it's just not a requirement to get more common sense pairings of creators and frontcourts.

[Puffer]

FVV (and Wright sometimes too) will likely continue to look out of place while we keep running out this nonsense bench unit. The magic of the bench unit last year was having three points of attack (FVV, Wright, Siakam), two shooters plus a developing shooter to space the floor (Miles, FVV, and Wright), and an abundance of quickness and help defence inside to let Wright and FVV make gambles for turnovers while Siakam and Poeltl stopped the inevitable penetration Miles gave up. They sacrificed rebounding and consistent offensive production in the halfcourt but it didn't matter because the frontline defence was so good. JV is fine, but he's not able to replicate the scrambly help that Poeltl provided last year, so the Miles issues become more significant defensively. OG has been great, but he's not a creator like Siakam is and too much of the bench offence is falling into isolating JV because the first three attempts at a PnR with Wright or FVV have been snuffed out because those guys have been scouted and teams are happy to let FVV go under the rim and will give Wright midrange looks all day long.

Now, give FVV and Wright a pick and pop big, and Wright's attacking and FVV's passing can actually generate some offence. Bring Siakam back to the bench unit and you get that tertiary offence creation (wouldn't mind giving him the extra usage anyway to see just how far he can spread his scoring wings without playing beside high usage players). Put in a C who can replicate Poeltl's quick twitch rim protection better than JV can and the Miles perimeter defence issue gets mitigated again.

None of this even requires changing the starters, either. Just quick sub your frontcourt so they start and finish each Q, with the current bench frontcourt of JV and OG playing the middle 5-6 minutes of each Q. Not that I'd be opposed to changing the starters, it's just not a requirement to get more common sense pairings of creators and frontcourts.

Saving this lineup for Golden State next spring. That's the only explanation for not using it now. :-)

[LJ2]

FVV (and Wright sometimes too) will likely continue to look out of place while we keep running out this nonsense bench unit. The magic of the bench unit last year was having three points of attack (FVV, Wright, Siakam), two shooters plus a developing shooter to space the floor (Miles, FVV, and Wright), and an abundance of quickness and help defence inside to let Wright and FVV make gambles for turnovers while Siakam and Poeltl stopped the inevitable penetration Miles gave up. They sacrificed rebounding and consistent offensive production in the halfcourt but it didn't matter because the frontline defence was so good. JV is fine, but he's not able to replicate the scrambly help that Poeltl provided last year, so the Miles issues become more significant defensively. OG has been great, but he's not a creator like Siakam is and too much of the bench offence is falling into isolating JV because the first three attempts at a PnR with Wright or FVV have been snuffed out because those guys have been scouted and teams are happy to let FVV go under the rim and will give Wright midrange looks all day long.

Now, give FVV and Wright a pick and pop big, and Wright's attacking and FVV's passing can actually generate some offence. Bring Siakam back to the bench unit and you get that tertiary offence creation (wouldn't mind giving him the extra usage anyway to see just how far he can spread his scoring wings without playing beside high usage players). Put in a C who can replicate Poeltl's quick twitch rim protection better than JV can and the Miles perimeter defence issue gets mitigated again.

None of this even requires changing the starters, either. Just quick sub your frontcourt so they start and finish each Q, with the current bench frontcourt of JV and OG playing the middle 5-6 minutes of each Q. Not that I'd be opposed to changing the starters, it's just not a requirement to get more common sense pairings of creators and frontcourts.

Do you think Pascal gets the open lanes he gets now, with the bench though? You know teams are going to sit in the paint with no respectable scorers on the floor. And it's hard to imagine the starting unit being as successful with JV in place of Serge or Pascal. Bad loss aside they've been really good with Pascal/Serge.

I don't know if there is a way to have both a great starting unit and bench at the same time. But if I had to chose I would go with having a great starting unit. We know that in the playoffs the bench isn't going to be as big of a factor when playing elite teams.

Hopefully Nurse gives what you are proposing a shot though. Can't hurt this early in the season.

[DanH]

Do you think Pascal gets the open lanes he gets now, with the bench though? You know teams are going to sit in the paint with no respectable scorers on the floor. And it's hard to imagine the starting unit being as successful with JV in place of Serge or Pascal. Bad loss aside they've been really good with Pascal/Serge.

I don't know if there is a way to have both a great starting unit and bench at the same time. But if I had to chose I would go with having a great starting unit. We know that in the playoffs the bench isn't going to be as big of a factor when playing elite teams.

Hopefully Nurse gives what you are proposing a shot though. Can't hurt this early in the season.

Why is it hard to imagine the starting lineup being more successful with JV in place of Serge? That's exactly what's actually happened on the court this year.

KL+KL+Serge: 209 MP, +10.7 RTG
KL+KL+JV: 87 MP, +23.4 RTG
KL+DG+KL+PS+Serge: 137 MP, +15.6 RTG
KL+DG+KL+PS+JV: 55 MP, +30.9 RTG

Can't be that hard to imagine, just have to turn on the game and see it happening.

I completely agree that we should be investing in having a great starting lineup, not a lineup that compares fairly closely to the starting lineup from last season (+9.4 RTG).

I do disagree though that we can't have a good bench and starting lineup. And there's a fairly obvious path to having both.

As for Nurse giving it a shot - he has! And it's worked great. He just hasn't used it nearly as much as I would argue he should, long term, to give both "starting" looks lots of run while also getting the bench to a more functional place.

[LJ2]

It's a small sample size which doesn't account for who is on the court for the opposing team, or even which teams that was against. This early in the season I think that matters when you are using a small sample like that.

The Raptors want to push the ball as much as possible and Serge fits a lot better for that, and on the other end of the floor I've already spoken about how many fast break points we seem to give up with JV on the court. I think you posted an article or link which spoke to that. Serge can contest and recover much better on p n' r as well.

[DanH]

It's a small sample size which doesn't account for who is on the court for the opposing team, or even which teams that was against. This early in the season I think that matters when you are using a small sample like that.

The Raptors want to push the ball as much as possible and Serge fits a lot better for that, and on the other end of the floor I've already spoken about how many fast break points we seem to give up with JV on the court. I think you posted an article or link which spoke to that. Serge can contest and recover much better on p n' r as well.

I agree, it's a small sample. I just found your phrasing odd that you can't imagine them doing better with JV than with Serge, considering how well they've done with JV. I would like the sample to be bigger for sure - hence my desire for more JV minutes with the starters proper. We should be running both versions (JV+OG in for Serge+Siakam, or maybe just JV in for Serge) of the starters every night so we get sampling of both lineups against all sorts of opposition and can make an informed decision on lineups moving forward against anything a playoff matchup can throw at us.

The Raptors wanting to push the ball as much as possible is interesting. I don't like it when teams come up with strategies and then tailor their rotations to those strategies instead of deciding who their best players are and tailoring their rotations and strategies to fit that. Same with matchups - the better team should be playing the combinations of players that they think fit best together, and worrying about opponent matchups as a secondary concern. And we are the better team almost every night. As for the pushing the ball thing, it might be worth noting that in those three-man lineups above, the KL-KL-JV lineup has posted 25 fast break points per 100 possessions so far, compared to the KL-KL-Serge lineup's 23, so I don't think JV is really slowing down the transition offence, even if he does hurt the transition defence a bit (13.8 Opponent FBPs/100 with KL-KL-JV versus 10.0 with KL-KL-Serge).

I am familiar with the pros and cons of Serge versus JV. I'm not saying they don't exist, nor that they aren't the reasons the coaching staff is doing what they are doing. I'm saying I don't believe those pros and cons justify the choices being made right now, and that the team is worse off for it.

[LJ2]

OG with 18 3pt attempts over the last 3 games. Has only converted 4 of those however. Shooting is definitely an issue right now.

[TacoBreath]

Last night they called it a sprained wrist for OG. Anybody hears more, please post.