RealGM

Just curious, what do you guys predict will be the opening night depth chart?

PG:
Knight
Bynum
Billups
Siva (not on team. Either in Europe, traded or not signed)
Guy we trade for by trade deadline - possibly

SG:
Stuckey/Billups -- I think the team starts Billups at first because we need a 3 pt shooter
KCP - starter when Cheeks feels he's developed enough: probably by midseason.
Stuckey will be traded, at which point Billups will primarily play at SG.
Guy we trade for by trade deadline - possibly

SF:
Smith
Datone
Singler
Middleton

C
Drummond
Monroe
Slava

PF:
Monroe
Smith
CV (traded by traded deadline)
Jerebko
Mitchell

My depth Chart:

PG Brandon Knight / Will Bynum
SG Chauncey Billups / Kentavious Caldwell Pope
SF Josh Smith / Gigi Detome
PF Greg Monroe / Charlie Villanueva
C Andre Drummond

Non playing bench:
Kyle Singler
Rodney Stuckey (if here)
Jonas Jerebko
Slava Krastov

D-League or Suits:
Khris Middleton
Tony Mitchell
Peyton Siva (In Europe)

StikWitEM wrote:Just curious, what do you guys predict will be the opening night depth chart?

Knight/Billups/Bynum/Stuckey
Billups/KCP/Stuckey
Smith/Singler/Middleton
Monroe/Smith/Mitchell
Drummond/Monroe

Knight-Bynum
Stuckey-Billups
Singler-KCP
Smith-Jerberko
Monroe-Drummond

My depth Chart:

PG Brandon Knight / Chauncey Billups / Rodney Stuckey/ Will Bynum
SG Chauncey Billups / Kentavious Caldwell Pope / Khris Middleton
SF Josh Smith / Gigi Detome / Tony Mitchell / Singler
PF Greg Monroe / Josh Smith / Tony Mitchell
C Andre Drummond / Greg Monroe

I think with what I'm hearing from Joe positionwise, Knight and Billups will share the pg duties. So whoever is pg and sg in the "depth chart" is a it arbitrary.

My depth chart/rotations

PG: Knight (30mpg) / Bynum (18mpg) / Billups (emergencies) / Stuckey (every PG fouled out)
SG: Billups (20mpg) / KCP (28mpg) / Middleton (emergencies) / Stuckey (every PG/SG/SF is incapacitated)
SF: Smith (16mpg) / Gigi (20mpg) / Middleton (12mpg) / Singler (emergencies)
PF: Monroe (20mpg) / Smith (16mpg) / Villanueva (12mpg) / Mitchell (emergencies) / Jerebko (emergencies)
C: Drummond (28mpg) / Monroe (12mpg) / Slava (8mpg)

I'm surprised by how many people have Billups starting. I see KCP getting the starting SG spot.

Knight/Billups
KCP/Stuckey
Smith/Middleton
Monroe/Smith/Mitchell
Drummond/Monroe

That's a good nine man rotation. We are so much deeper than last year.

Also, whats with the Middleton hate? He played fantastic at the end of last year. He clearly outplayed Singler and I'm not banking on some euro player who no one's ever heard of before to win the backup SF spot. I'm very confident Middleton will be in the rotation.

Knight/Billups
Billups/Stuckey/KCP
Smith/Singler/Middleton
Monroe/Smith/Mitchell
Drummond/Monroe

DetroitPistons wrote:I'm surprised by how many people have Billups starting. I see KCP getting the starting SG spot.

KCP will play mins but Chauncey will definitely start, thats easy to see.

If Stuckey is here

Billups-Knight
Stuckey-Kcp
Smith-Datome
Monroe-CV-Mitchell
Drummond-Slava

DetroitPistons wrote:Also, whats with the Middleton hate? He played fantastic at the end of last year. He clearly outplayed Singler and I'm not banking on some euro player who no one's ever heard of before to win the backup SF spot. I'm very confident Middleton will be in the rotation.

I was wondering the same thing, I've actually really been looking forward to Middleton this year, and his reputation as a shooter should find him some minutes with this team as its constructed. I'd like to see him beat out Singler, and while I'm excited to see what Gigi has, I fully expect there to be a transition period while he adapts to the NBA athletes and the speed of the NBA game.

I guess I'm alone on this but if Drummond is only going to get 25 minutes a night, I don't see the problem with bringing him off the bench for a little while longer, especially if it means that Josh will be playing his natural PF spot. I could see a situation where Josh and Moose play 36 minutes a night with Drummond getting the remaining available 24 minutes.

C -Monroe/Drummond/Khratsov
PF-Smoove/Jerebko/Charlie V
SF-Mitchell/Singler
2G-KCP/Stuckey
PG-Knight/Bynum/Chauncy getting minutes at both spots.

what it probably will be...

Drummond/Monroe
Monroe/Smitty/CV
Smitty/Luigi or Singler
Stuckey/KCP
BK/Bynun

what I think it should be...

Drummond/Monroe
Monroe/Smitty/CV(small role)
Middleton, Luigi or Singler (best 2)
KCP/BK
BK/Stuckey/Bynum(small role)

Our opening night starting line up is going to be very different to the starting line up 20 games in i think.
With the amount of young guys we have they won't start immediately.

I think it might be...

Knight / Bynum / Billips
Stuckey / Billips / KCP
Smith / Singler / Middleton / Jonas
Moose / Smith / CV / Jonas / Mitchell
Drummond / Moose / Slava

But as the season goes on, i see KCP taking minutes from stuckey and billips and hopefully starting. Also Mitchell will most likely take minutes from jonas and CV.
I can also see Middleton leap frogging Singler for main back up SF.

Singler is a guy coaches love - he's always making the right play, and he's shown signs of developing into a fine 3 pt shooter. Thorpe is on record as saying he has a beautiful shooting stroke.

I'm a big Singler fan.

And this Euro guy seems like he might be a great shooter, and his Euro experience might even put him ahead of these other two guys.

It's very hard to know how this is going to shake out. I also believe other teams know exactly what we have here, and that there will be serious interest in those guys. It isn't worth trading them for crap, however. Joe won't move them unless we get serious value.

WC NBA Fan wrote:I guess I'm alone on this but if Drummond is only going to get 25 minutes a night, I don't see the problem with bringing him off the bench for a little while longer, especially if it means that Josh will be playing his natural PF spot. I could see a situation where Josh and Moose play 36 minutes a night with Drummond getting the remaining available 24 minutes.

C -Monroe/Drummond/Khratsov
PF-Smoove/Jerebko/Charlie V
SF-Mitchell/Singler
2G-KCP/Stuckey
PG-Knight/Bynum/Chauncy getting minutes at both spots.

Drummond will be getting a minimum of 30mpg. People need to drop this 20-25mpg nonsense. It's seriously dumbfounding how some posters can think he will be getting so few minutes.

Clarity wrote:

DetroitPistons wrote:I'm surprised by how many people have Billups starting. I see KCP getting the starting SG spot.

KCP will play mins but Chauncey will definitely start, thats easy to see.

How is it easy to see? Even most beat writers have questioned how much he has left in the tank. He isn't a great defender anymore and has been riddled with injuries lately. KCP and even Stuckey have a much better case for starting based on youth alone. Billups should be taking Bynum's job, not KCP's.

Montanabadboy33 wrote:

DetroitPistons wrote:Also, whats with the Middleton hate? He played fantastic at the end of last year. He clearly outplayed Singler and I'm not banking on some euro player who no one's ever heard of before to win the backup SF spot. I'm very confident Middleton will be in the rotation.

I was wondering the same thing, I've actually really been looking forward to Middleton this year, and his reputation as a shooter should find him some minutes with this team as its constructed. I'd like to see him beat out Singler, and while I'm excited to see what Gigi has, I fully expect there to be a transition period while he adapts to the NBA athletes and the speed of the NBA game.

Imo he already beat out Singler last year and badly too.