Barkley6 wrote:bwgood77 wrote:Sounds like Shamet will play. Unless they want to ease him back in, I won't be surprised if they start him. Surely when they gave him that extension they believe in his potential, etc, more than Payne, and maybe starting will help him out. Would probably help the rest of the starters more than Payton too since players will guard Shamet and won't leave him open, so people won't leave him like they would Payton to double Book or Ayton. I don't think ball movement will be a big problem unless Booker tries to do too much.
I think you start Elf. His best skill is his passing and shot creation for others, which is also the thing we'll miss most from CP3 (Aside from clutch play). Having Elf run with a crew of Shamet, Craig, and McGee has the potential to be pretty bad offensively.
Elfrid Payton just worries me, given that when he plays with solid offensive options he will not be guarded and players will get doubled. So many teams have given him opportunities to start without good results...obviously Orlando gave him a long time, and then I think a couple other teams including us but of course our team sucked anyway. Finally the Knicks had a good season and he started most of the games, but the starting lineup always was outscored when he was on the floor.
You can better hide him and he can be somewhat effective against bench units and we will need someone to run the bench unit obviously. Book can be primary with starting unit if needed and ball movement is find as everyone passes quite a bit, but the bench might really suffer without someone to set people up. Holiday and Shamet can do some of it, but have not been true pgs or big assist guys. Though I guess it could be good to get Holiday and Shamet playing together so they can be our bench guards when Payne gets back, at least until Paul gets back.
His net rating is just so awful and when he has played with kind of a makeshift starting group it was a bad 5 man combination...our worst lineup to date. CamJ was in there instead of Crowder and McGee instead of Ayton but it was ugly. See below his net rtg (off rtg & def rtg on far right of first table) and our worst lineup this season.
We don't have many options but Shamet starting instead of Booker had positive net ratings of 19.9 with Cam and 11.4 with Crowder. They probably wouldn't be as good in place of Paul but it certainly would be better for spacing. Of course he's coming off injury.
Even with the Knicks who won over 50 last year you can see their starting lineup with Payton which had the most minutes had a negative pt differental and then the other lineup of their top 5 lineups in minutes was barely a positive, while the next 3 lineups in minutes were far superior. When Rose came back and started they were loads better you can obviously see, and Rose isn't that great himself anymore.
Then of course his individual net rtg on the team was really awful compared to the rest of the team who got significant minutes as you see in the second chart below on the right.
Of course we don't have a ton of options but I'd probably start CamJ and then my second choice would probably be between Holiday and Shamet depending on Shamet's health.
SUNS (48-10 | 26-5 Home)
THUNDER (18-40) | 9-19 Away)
Overall for shooting percentages, I would go with Holiday.
