Front Court

[Landsberger]

Now that Nance is back and Zubac looks to be a player that can contribute regularly how do we get all of our young and developing front court time?

Nance
Black
Mozgov
Zubac
Randle
Ingram (mostly front court)
Robinson
Deng
(not listed is MWP because he's not playing and shouldn't at this point)

All of these guys have had regular minutes at one of the 3 front court slots. Young has some minutes as a SF as well.

I think the FO will need to decide on a rotation of youngsters to keep AND play by next year. The contracts given to Deng and Mozgov will complicate this even more.

This team will have to also decide what it want's to be. A guy like Zubac isn't exactly a fit in the offense as it's currently constructed. Randle is having his issues in the set offense and needs to be in space. Mozgov is a serviceable center but is he the future? Nance is a fantastic hustle guy who knows how to play but isn't much of a consistent scoring threat. Black is showing the most improvement year over year of any of our younger players IMHO yet he isn't a true center by any means. Ingram is really a man without a position because of his skill set but he's also getting minutes up front a lot. Deng is a decent vet presence at this point but not really a future piece we should be playing starter minutes in the future. Robinson is the most limited of the group and really just a hustle guy.

One thing that is fairly consistent about this group is that none are really deep threats. Ingram may be some day but he seems a long way away from that. Not having a stretch 4 on the team has been an issue for our team at times. Having that guy to draw one of the bigs away from the hoop would really help a guy like Russell get better looks in this offense.

How do we clear the way for our youth?

Do we need to alter the offense to help a guy like Zubac?

Is Randle going to take the next step or is he starting to level off?

Can Nance develop a more consistent offensive game? Can he stay healthy?

Can Black keep improving and become a double double guy given more time?

Thoughts?

[MrWaffles]

Mozgov shouldn't play a minute anymore, but sadly he will have to because of 64million..

Ideally I'd like

Russell
Clarkson
Ingram
Randle
Black

Nance and Zubac off the bench, Robinson here and there.

Bench would then be

Clarkson
Williams
Young
Nance
Zubac

Deng and Mozgov eliminated from the rotation. But it won't happen so..

[Michael Lucky]

Well the best way would be to bench Mozgov as much as possible. Unfortunately with the contract he has that's not going to happen. So in order to give Zubac some time, Black is the one that is most likely to get the pine.
Randle and Nance's minutes will sort themselves out. I also see Nance losing out minutes due to Deng, so i'm not expecting him to get anything more than 10-15 mpg to give plenty of opportunity to Ingram and Randle. Robinson won't be getting anything unless it is garbage time.

[Vesper]

Zubac is nowhere near ready to start.

Team needs to get rid of our billion PFs.

Randle, Deng, Black, Nance, Robinson and Deng are all pfs. Ingram will be a pf in the future.

As long as Julius Randle is our PF, any center will look bad defensively.