Brad's bet for roster flexibility seems to be paying off so far (8-2), with the starters getting a lot of minutes together and a relatively shortened bench rotation.
We've had no important injury 12% into the regular season. We can consider ourselves lucky so far, but we might sing a different tune if/when one of our top-6 guys is out for say 3 weeks. Guess we'll need patience until the deadline, but I predict PP or Kornet will take some blame anyhow.
I still wish we'd kept Grant or Muscala for continuity. Grant in particular for his multiple skills. Bill Simmons said in a recent podcast that Smart and Grant were let go because they were contrarians to Joe's voice, so to speak, or that their voice was too strong. Food for thought I guess.
I think Sam Cassel's presence is definitely felt in the locker room and for the better. Team defense feels more tight overall. Teams are scoring 5% less on us than last year (106 from 111 OP/ppg).
Hopefully White gains back his crisp offense from the first few games that he yet hasn't got back since his family break (15.5 vs 9.25 ppp). Team offense should only benefit from that.
Tatum's play is sensitively better than last year, as evidenced by an improvement in eFG% (.543 to .616). He's missing some stupid free-thows though (down to 79% from 85% last season). His AST/TO is down from 1.6 to 1.4. He's great but he's chucking sometimes.
Kristaps is up from .57 to .65 eFG%
. And he still feels a bit underutilised, as others have pointed out. Wouldn't mind him being a tad less effective but pressuring the defenses more down low to open up the perimeter even more for the rest of the guys.