RealGM

as we shore up our guard situation with Barea, I thought we should also discuss our big men. Not so much trades as who will play:

PFs:
Kevin Love, Derrick Williams, Anthony Tolliver, Anthony Randolph

Cs:
Kevin Love, Anthony Randolph, Darko Milicic, Nikola Pekovic and Brad Miller

(am I missing anyone?)


I will now begin speculating:
Adelman has stated he's here to win games not develop young talent...

Kevin Love and Adelman seem to be clicking, no surprises. Adelman has mentioned Love may be playing center sometimes and is expecting shades of Vlade Divac.

Tolliver seems to be playing well in training camp at least on offense, and I think he'll impress Adelman with his professionalism, all around skill and hustle.

Adelman really wants Brad Miller to play, even though he's 35 and coming off knee surgery, Adelman expects big things out of him, and says the Rockets were a better team last year with Brad on the court.

I've heard nothing about Darko or Pek, which is surprising since Darko was our starter last year, is reported to have come into camp in shape and I think you can make a case he should be our starter this year.

I've also heard very little about Randolph, but in general I'd guess he's slightly improved and added a bit of muscle.

oh right, and Derrick Williams, I'm guessing he plays mostly 3/4 and I don't see it out of the realm of possibility Adelman throws out a front court of D. Will and K. Love.

From all this I'm coming to the conclusion we'll be playing small ball, which is a shame because I was kinda hoping Darko would be getting burn, D. Will would be playing a lot of SF, and Tolliver/ Randolph would be our back up big men.

Thoughts?

I sort of get the feeling, after listening to interviews with Adelman, that he'll probably just mix and match depending on the matchups until he finds something that works...

That said, The wolves bigs are a mess, wish Darko wasn't horrifying on offense. Will Brad Miller even make it through an accelerated season? I like the idea of a AR/KLove frontcourt provided that AR can put it together and DWill can defend SFs

something has to give. There are too many bigs on this team. Pekovic seems like the most likely candidate to get traded and I'd love for that rumored Martin deal to go through (Wes, Luke, and Pek for KMart). If that happened, I think something like this (going from most minute to least minutes at each position):

SF: Beasley/Williams/Webster
PF: Love/Tolliver/Williams
C: Darko/Randolph/Miller/Love


But, as Phonzy said, I think Adelman will do a lot of matchup-specific lineups.

Agree that a lot of it will be based on matchups.

I'm trying not to read much into the lack of talk on AR/Darko/Pek from training camp. There are a big stories that everyone is going to want to read about everyday: Rubio, Derrick, Love, Adelman, maybe Beasley (but he's handling the off-season stuff really well).

Then there are plenty of stories bigger than off-season work and possible roles for your returning bigs. Beasley (health, improvements, off-season stuff), Lee (rookie), Barea/PG status, Wes and the status of our shooting guard situation.

There probably aren't a lot of interesting qutoes on the big guys, and mass-appeal is in Rubio/Derrick/Love/Beasley/Adelman for reporters.

Let's see the preseason games and a few weeks of action before we worry about anybody's fate (except the 16th man).

Also, I agree that Adelman will probably take a liking to AT, and expect there won't be any trouble putting him out there at the, "5," if matchups permit (pretty much just saying that he'll be able to play with Beasley/Williams if the matchups don't kill us).