Lance Stephenson to Start at SF in Opener

madmaxmedia · Post #1 » by **madmaxmedia** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 10:59 pm

[tweet]https://twitter.com/DanWoikeSports/status/658708426302689280[/tweet]

http://clipperholics.com/2015/10/26/lineup-news-lance-stephenson-to-start-at-sf-in-opener/

Lance has been very spotty in the preseason. I'm less worried about the shooting % (as sample size is small), than him being able to consistently play smart basketball.

Being with the starters may rein him in and keep him focused though. If he stays active off the ball, he'll get opportunities to drive to the basket where he is a good finisher. He is also a pretty good passer, but again has to be grounded.

nickhx2 · Post #2 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:25 am

i think this is a good move. our offense was a gigantic mess in the 2nd unit and lance was just all over the place. but with the starters his "creativity" is far more subdued and his defense looks on point. he still can't shoot and probably won't shoot north of 33%, but that's ok. we'll figure it out.

Neddy · Post #3 » by **Neddy** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 2:11 am

I feel the very opposite about Lance's role with the starters.

his defense is highly overrated but his play making skills are underrated. Wes is the better fit with the starters and he would never complain about not getting enough touches and he is our best 3 and D wing player. ( Pierce is not just a 3 and D player, I mean from the batch of Wes/Lance/Mbah/Dawson/Wilcox Wes is the best fit with the starters and Lance should be the one to lead the second unit. the one who should change his role is Jamal. we need to take the ball out of his hands and make him a spot up shooter with a desperation iso plays. if Lance was with the second unit, it would only work if Jamal accepts being a non-primary ball handler and relegated to spot up duties, then Rivers-Jamal-Lance-Josh-Cole would work out with Lance being the primary ball handler, and Rivers and Jamal being th secondary ball handlers whose primary assignments are spot up or slash in.

Post #4 » by **mkwest** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 2:17 am

The other 4 starters are so solid that I don't really think it makes much of a difference who you put with them. It's going to be a successful unit imo. Whoever plays with those guys will gain the most in terms of their individual game. Lance is a bigger investment than Pierce or Johnson. Wes is on for a year at the minimum and hopefully Pierce happily retires at the end of the season.

Having the starters rein Lance in may be what's for him. There's more structure, stability and a better defined role with the starters, so it's fine by me.

Clemenza · Post #5 » by **Clemenza** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 2:54 am

He looked good in the starting role.. I'm onboard

Ranma · Post #6 » by **Ranma** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:34 am

I've advocated for Wesley Johnson to be in the starting lineup, but based on the limited views I've seen this preseason, I've resigned to accept that Lance Stephenson may be better off in the starting lineup for now. He's still not really good there, but as has been mentioned, he seems more reined in and motivated playing with the 1st unit. He also seems to get up for being in the the spotlight with the star players. I don't really like it but I guess it's the best way to start off the season.

I like Neddy's suggestion of having Crawford be a spot-up shooter, but we all know how apt Jamal is to take to that. What scares me is the possibility of having ball-dominating gun-slingers in both the starting and bench units.

nickhx2 · Post #7 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:15 am

you guys saying things about jamal crawford being a spot up shooter is like saying "if i won the lottery i'd buy this!"

anyway, at the end of the day, pierce/stephenson/johnson have major flaws. i think the team minimizes the three available evils by starting lance. i think it was pretty clear that lance's garbage over-dribbling moves were hurting the bench unit already fielding austin rivers and jamal crawford, so making him a starter neuters that.

ideally we'd dump crawford for a ham sandwich and swap lance with wes, but that's not gonna happen. so far i'm hesitant, but ok with lance as a starter. could be good.

mattd13 · Post #8 » by **mattd13** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 12:21 pm

I am still on the fence with lance however I agree with what most are saying. my concern with lance is he a willing passer to who ever is open and his defensive rotations. I would prefer pp to start but as others have said it leaves the second unit a mess. plus from what I here doc saying is he thinks his son and jamal are great and that scares me. getting him away from those two bone heads is most likely a good idea. lance with the starters at this point makes sense in the overall big picture. hopefully he will fit in and accept his role.

nickhx2 · Post #9 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:21 pm

lance has shown in the preseason he's a pretty good passer, especially in the pick and roll. so giving him a structured offense instead of allowing him to freelance will cut down on a lot of his fancy dribble moves.

his defense also looked a lot more locked in as a starter than it did as a backup, but we'll see if he can be consistent off the ball, which is his biggest weakness defensively.

madmaxmedia · Post #10 » by **madmaxmedia** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 3:26 pm

I think Lance is a willing passer (led the league in triple doubles 2 years ago) when the open guy is there. But there's generally not an open guy when he does his ISO dribble routine 20 ft. from the basket. If he plays decisively, drives or shoots when its there and passes when it's not, he'll improve the offense. And he is a very good pick-and-roll passer, able to make that quick misdirection bounce pass to the roller. But if he stalls things on offense, well the team won't let him do that with the starters. So either it's going to work out well, or the experiment will end early.

The Clipper offense is great overall, my perception over the last couple of years though is that it gets really stagnant in crunch times. Teams can just sit and wait and load up on CP3 and Blake, it takes them too long to get into the offense and it's easier to stop Blake when he's only got 8 seconds left and defenses are just waiting for him to try to score. So I thought someone who was more dynamic than Redick or Barnes would help the flow a bit. Obviously in most crunch time situations Paul Pierce will be in there with the starters, but it will be interesting to see how this goes.

I read some things about Lance's past. He was one of those NY legends, which one hand means you have a lot of skills but OTOH you can develop a lot of bad habits (and he had attitude issues to boot.) He was still pretty highly recruited and expected to develop into a lottery pick. But after a good but not great freshman season at Cincinnati, he ended up an early 2nd round pick by the Pacers. So bad habits, attitude concerns, to go along with very raw talent that was a questionable fit for NBA. Given all that, I think he really wasn't close to ready to take on a primary role on a young developing team like Charlotte. Maybe in another 2-3 years if he continued his development in Indiana, but not last year. So he's a risk with good upside, a potentially very good value pickup for us. I think all things considered he can actually be very proud of what he's achieved at the NBA level, but if he wants more he'll have to work hard to keep honing his game.

Here's a pretty good breakdown when he was a FA in 2014:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npcj9WLml2M[/youtube]

nickhx2 · Post #11 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:42 pm

i agree. and one of the big things that he will really need to work on as a starter is to take the open 3 even though his last year was pretty bad. it's a big mental game he is going to have to fight through or our offense will suffer a lot

Lindecision · Post #12 » by **Lindecision** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 4:47 pm

Not that much of a surprise here. Only 2 pre-season games to go with, but the starting unit looked better with Lance in there. Bench looked better without all his free-lancin. I mean his best ball for Indiana came in the starting unit as a creator and a lock-down defender, so hope that trend continues.

nickhx2 · Post #13 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:16 pm

i'm not sure he was ever a lockdown defender in indiana. from what i recall his metrics don't point toward that and more point to him being ok.

for all the hype that doc and some other media guys give him, he is definitely overrated. but he has some strengths and in a focused role in the starting unit i think he can maintain that bulldog mentality to our benefit, while reducing his off-ball weaknesses.

TucsonClip · Post #14 » by **TucsonClip** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 6:48 pm

Not a fan of him starting at the 3. I think he should be sub #1 off the bench at SF.

TucsonClip · Post #15 » by **TucsonClip** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:30 pm

nickhx2 wrote:i'm not sure he was ever a lockdown defender in indiana. from what i recall his metrics don't point toward that and more point to him being ok.

for all the hype that doc and some other media guys give him, he is definitely overrated. but he has some strengths and in a focused role in the starting unit i think he can maintain that bulldog mentality to our benefit, while reducing his off-ball weaknesses.

Just a note. Was trying to PM you back, but your PMs are turned off.

nickhx2 · Post #16 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:38 pm

oh thanks, sorry about that, that is weird! let me turn it on.

nickhx2 · Post #17 » by **nickhx2** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:40 pm

TucsonClip wrote:
nickhx2 wrote:i'm not sure he was ever a lockdown defender in indiana. from what i recall his metrics don't point toward that and more point to him being ok.

for all the hype that doc and some other media guys give him, he is definitely overrated. but he has some strengths and in a focused role in the starting unit i think he can maintain that bulldog mentality to our benefit, while reducing his off-ball weaknesses.

Just a note. Was trying to PM you back, but your PMs are turned off.

ok i think it should be set. thanks! i think it was set to off ever since i joined the board.

kylem4711 · Post #18 » by **kylem4711** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:08 pm

im very interested to see how it works out. I really want him to help on with rebounding too since blake can be so lazy.

Neddy · Post #19 » by **Neddy** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 2:16 am

mkwest wrote:The other 4 starters are so solid that I don't really think it makes much of a difference who you put with them. It's going to be a successful unit imo. Whoever plays with those guys will gain the most in terms of their individual game. Lance is a bigger investment than Pierce or Johnson. Wes is on for a year at the minimum and hopefully Pierce happily retires at the end of the season.

Having the starters rein Lance in may be what's for him. There's more structure, stability and a better defined role with the starters, so it's fine by me.

true about Lance being the bigger investment, and also true that the other starting 4 are good enough to plug in just about any wing player currently in NBA and be okay, but let me play a little devil's advocate here.

with Pierce, even if we want him to be our starter, his body won't hold up for 82 game season anymore. hell he is only a few years junior to myself and I can't even play a pickup game with my daughter for more than 15 minutes at a time. but we need him come playoffs and I'm sure every one of us in this forum agree that Pierce's old ass legs must be preserved for the end of the season affairs.

Wes is surely a single year investment, and yeah if he works out here with the starters he maybe looking for a big payday elsewhere, but same goes for Lance. Wes is a single year deal? well isn't lance on a team option after this season? so isn't that eventually a wash in terms of being single year deals and if Wes performs and gets something close to what Lance is supposed to be getting next year, I bet Wes will be more than stoked. on the other hand, if we have to coddle Lance to play up to near his contract's worth, I dunno man. I would have to ask, do you want a guy over performing his cheap single year contract or do you want a guy who underperforms his much bigger contract?

having said all this, all can be forgiven regardless of what their value per dollar was for this season if we win it all.

nothing but respect, MK. you know I just like to dissect and debate for the intellectual exercise of it. you still da man.

nickhx2 · Post #20 » by **nickhx2** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 2:34 am

most every one of our guys is a 1 year payday type guy except lance. we hold a team option on him, so if he sucks we cut bait. if he's good we can just keep him for the low, low price of 9 million dollars

also i just don't see how lance doesn't play hard for his money. if he washes out here he's going to be considered permanent tainted goods.