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joedumars1 wrote:Dpoy potential? I get it’s only sl and I haven’t watched him, but based on comments I think dpoy one day isn’t out of the question, that effort should translate easy. When we start winning obviously. What you guys thinks? I’m crazy? Lol

bstein14 wrote:

joedumars1 wrote:Dpoy potential? I get it’s only sl and I haven’t watched him, but based on comments I think dpoy one day isn’t out of the question, that effort should translate easy. When we start winning obviously. What you guys thinks? I’m crazy? Lol

No chance... Even Evan Mobley was great on defense as a rookie and he got 2nd team all-defense. I think that as the season goes on Ausar's playing time will likely increase and its possible that he will get some votes for all-defense buts its incredibly rare for a player to even make 2nd team all-defense as a rookie. He talked about it in an interview for SL last night that one of the things he wants to do is learn defensive reads, figuring out what the offense is trying to do, etc... you have to play against these guys and watch film to really get a feel for how to defend different players and teams and that is part of the reason a lot of rookies struggle on defense. I don't think Ausar is going to struggle but I think its likely he takes significant steps forward as the season goes on and as he gets into year two.

Ausar still might not play major minutes either all talk from our staff is that our new guys (like Harris and Morris) are expected to be key pieces for us and we know that we kept Burks and Bojan. Not to mention we just gave Stewart big money so he's certainly still going to be a 24+ MPG guy for us.

I do think we saw enough to see that he's clearly a rotation player from day one and that he's going to be able to beat out guys like Livers, Bagley, etc from playing time but I'm not sold that they play him 30 a night from day one.

Duren 29 / Wiseman 19 - Bagley
Stewart 29 / Ausar 19 - (15th man FA?)
Bojan 29 / Harris 19 - Livers
Ivey 29 / Burks 19. - Sasser
Cade 31 / Morris 17 - Hayes

I think that this is the most likely starting lineup (and the one James Edwards III posted)

Of course it’s possible that Wiseman or Bagley aren't good enough to make the rotation, and thus Stewart plays backup C to Duren. This isn't super ideal for me but won't be as big of an issue playing smaller since Ausar would likely benefit and get more minutes overall and he looks like a super aggressive rebounder high motor guy in general.