1. post your team depth chart - (list a player only once, even it that player will play multiple positions - you can break down your team rotations in your summary.
Mike Conley Jr. / Brandon Jennings
Jason Terry/ Nick Young (SG/SF) / Jordan Crawford (PG/SG)
Gerald Wallace / CJ Miles
Dirk Nowitki / David West
Marcin Gortat / Bismack Biyombo / Jason Thompson (PF/C)
With 12 rounds some bench players were taken to be able to play more positions to virtually have 3 men depth chart at any position - Young and Crawford would be used based on matchup and opposite team strategies in stretches of games (more about it in next pargarpahs I guess), otherwise whichever of them is hotter at any given night may earn backup SG minutes.
2. discuss the reasoning behind your team selectionIn our case it was all influenced by getting the very first pick. What was we supposed to do other than pick Dirk and go from that? We then had to wait who will be left in next round and after seeing all those stars being taken in this highly competitive draft we decided to build a team for play offs rather than for regular season which was actually the purpose of this draft. We went with chemistry, no-nonsense guys rather than big names and star mentality when having a choice trying to recreate the wining spirit of this year Mavs a bit with upgrades at some positions and hopefully more depth.
I think we did it pretty well despite some of you kept stealing players we wanted numerous times, damn you!
We tried to pick one of the best options when on clock checking which category is closing fast and what are going to be our positional need in next round - rather than discussing style of play of the team, we discusses how availale players would fit than having a style of play for the team from Round 1.
3. describe your team's style of play, your go to players, defensive and offensive strategiesOffense:We didn't want to have "just" Dirk and team him up with defensive specialists. We picked all startes to be capable scorers on their own with maybe the exception of center spot but we still picked up Gortat who is great for pick and rolls plays and helps playmakers a lot with his fabulous screens.
Naturally Nowitzki is a first option, being backed up by another power forward with range in West, hopefully keeping the opposite PF rotation (or whoever would guard them) under pressure. Then we have Terry being uncounscious from downtown once in a while especially in big games, Crash doing his thing especially in stretches with Dirk not on court. Conley may be overpaid and not the same caliber as Rose and others but he proved he is more than capable to run a playoff team. And having big, long and deep center rotation + Crash to lob should help too aside from already mentioned pick and roll and Gortat setting screens - just as an alternative option, not relying on it.
Bench scoring should help a lot too with Jennings, Crawford, Nick Young and even Miles - assuming we won't bring Terry from bench. West was already mentioned before.
Defense and reboundingHaving Nowitzki it's natural to think about defensive anchor at C. Most fitting is probably Bismack, we liked him anyway and that First/Last category gettign shallow fast only helped us to decide when (I guess he wouldn't lasted another 26 picks). But he is a rookie so opinion on him may differ so we brought him as second center, although I am optimistic about his shotblocking and rebounding. Gortat once freed from backing up Howard and let to show what he is capable for proved he does his job well, being top 10 rebounder per 48 minutes, and blocking more shots per minute than for example Tyson Chandler. The absolute numbers are skewed because of Phoenix having faith in Robin Lopez way too long and initial lack of minutes for Gortat. Jason Thompson buried on bench in our team is just a big body bringing hustle for limited playing time, doing the dirty work Cardinal way (we thought about picking him for the lulz actually) and ready to step up and surprise if needed for a bigger role. We probably have neough depthy and weigth under the basket.
Than we have jack of all trades on defensive end - Crash, no need to decribe him much.
We missed out on Tony Allen and thus don't have a genuine defensive specialist on perimeter but we don't have any glaring hole either. For height issues we have Young and mainly combo guard Crawford to cover that in case of unfavorable matchups. Last but not least we could count on our backcourt bench should be able to outscore the opposite ones most of the times and with good rebounding (Gortat, Bizz, Crash) we could play "one shot per attack" defense and be good.
Go to guys/optionsDirk and bench scoring, if that fails (injury etc.) then
Terry 3pth shooting, West midrange shooting
Crash carrying his way
pick and roll
4. tell us why your team can win the finalsI guess the easiest way to prove
that would be comparing what we have with last year Mavs. We obviously have Dirk and Terry, aside from that we replaced Marion with Crash (upgrade), Chandler couldn't be picked anyway but we got Gortat to play on both sides on the floor plus mroe simillar player in Biyombo to support the nech lineup; Instead of Stevenson we go Nick Young, instead of Peja Stojakovic we got David West, instead of Cardinal we got Jason Thompson; instead fof Kidd and Barea we got Conley and Jennings and we could still do the 2 PGs backcourt Mavs did not just with Terry bu also with Crawford.
Well that was for bit of a fun although it has soem substance. We basically picked a core experinced in playoffs game, playing them regularly and backup them with young upcoming (and West) rather than veterans who could fade significantly next year, that's always hard to tell how much they have in a tank.
Gamewise, we think we have enough defense not to be easy to score upon and although I am yet to check other teams closely I think we would have an upper hand in rebounding and lenght against some opponents. Offesnively it's abotu who is hot and who is not but hopefully we have enought depth to not run out of options.
Ok, we have Dirk.
