What's the depth like this year?

[nikster]

Wanted to talk about the bench this year. I know it was a joke last year that we thought we had some depth and it ended up pretty honderous. There's reason to believe it will be a lot better this year.

Last year we started the year with Precious, who's barely a rotation player and out of place as the only backup Centre. Malachi is a 3rd string PG or not an NBA player. Gradey was not an NBA player for the first 2/3rds of the season. Mcdaniels was trash. Boucher couldn't crack the rotation. GTJ was our best bench player and the only one who looked like an actual NBA player. But even he had a down year, he was just horrible scoring inside the line, doesn't really play within the flow of the offense and was a weak defender.

Not sure who gets the starting job right now. I would think Gradey gets it over Agbaji but Brown might take it once healthy.

So off the bench
Gradey/Brown at SG
Agbaji at SF
Mitchell at PG
Olynyk at C.
That's 4 players who seem to be actual NBA players, and are upgrades at every single position.

Then there's potential for contribution from others. Boucher has a shot at getting it together and proving hes a rotation player again. We have our first round pick in Walter. And then several shots at 2 way guys and 2nd round picks (Mogbo and Shead probably most likely to have any kind of impact).

Don't think we will have even an above average bench but it shouldn't be nearly the dumpster fire it was last year

[TheGeneral99]

Hard to tell because we've had arguably the worst bench in the league every year since 2021.

Assuming our starting line-up is Quickly, Gradey, Barrett, Barnes, Poeltl:

Donovan Mitchell - Can he become the solid point guard back up we have not had since 2020?
Brown - Should be a solid contributer
Olynyk - A decent vet
Boucher - solid energy guy
Agbaji - unknown at this point
Walters - unknown

Brown, Olynyk and Boucher are good, but they aren't near as good as guys we had before like Ibaka, Norman, Fred and OG coming off the bench.

So it's really hard to tell. I don't think our bench will be ranked in the bottom 5 like it has been for a few years but it's not a great bench either. Will really depend of guys like Mitchell and Agbaji can improve into legitimate rotational players. If they can't, the bench will be bad.

[ForeverTFC]

On paper, we definitely have better depth simply because we have more options at each position. With that said, I don't expect it to last through the season. BB and Boucher are definite trade candidates by the deadline. Should also help in the loss column at that point.

[Scase]

Outside our (presumed) starting 5 of IQ/RJ/GD/SC/JP we have little to no NBA level depth.

PG : Davion is a cast off and lacks any offensive game, Shead is similar, but both offer up very good defence.
SG : Ochai has looked ok in pre season, but still not NBA level IMO. JKW has no NBA experience so huge ? with him. And then we have g leaguers for the rest of the spots.
SF : Rookies/G leaguers
PF/C : KO is not any level of reliable depth IMO, or at least he shouldn't be which speaks to our depth. Rest are rookies/g leaguers

I didn't count BB/Boucher because they shouldn't be on the team by the deadline. The biggest issue we have for depth is that we have a lot more potential options, but they are virtually all rookies, two ways, or g league level talent (currently at least).

It's depth in quantity, not quality. If we lose ANY of our key players, they aren't getting replaced by backups, but 3rd stringers. Our depth will continue to be bottom of the league bad, but with any luck some of these guys prove their worth and in a couple years that changes, but nothing much will likely change this year.

[DreamTeam09]

Although ppl aren't counting BBrown, if and when he gets traded it'll be for another rotation player. Not many players/salary in the league we can take back for brown that are complete dead weights.

[Snappycoocoo]

We beat Boston the other night

Probably looking at a championship this year

[Spida888]

Hard to tell because we've had arguably the worst bench in the league every year since 2021.

Assuming our starting line-up is Quickly, Gradey, Barrett, Barnes, Poeltl:

Donovan Mitchell - Can he become the solid point guard back up we have not had since 2020?
Brown - Should be a solid contributer
Olynyk - A decent vet
Boucher - solid energy guy
Agbaji - unknown at this point
Walters - unknown

Brown, Olynyk and Boucher are good, but they aren't near as good as guys we had before like Ibaka, Norman, Fred and OG coming off the bench.

So it's really hard to tell. I don't think our bench will be ranked in the bottom 5 like it has been for a few years but it's not a great bench either. Will really depend of guys like Mitchell and Agbaji can improve into legitimate rotational players. If they can't, the bench will be bad.

You mean Davion Mitchell. Our bench would be pretty sick if we had Donovan Mitchell as our 6th man .

[YogurtProducer]

Outside our (presumed) starting 5 of IQ/RJ/GD/SC/JP we have little to no NBA level depth.
.

I mean sure... if you ignore than Brown was a 6th man on a title team, Davion was an 8th man on a SAC playoff team, Olynyk has been a rotation player his entire career, Ochai was a rotation player on a decent Jazz team, etc.

Our depth will continue to be bottom of the league bad

Man.. please go and look and other teams benches and then come back. This is just blatantly false.

The Celtics right now are set to go into this season with a bench of Pritchard/Hauser/Walsh/Tillman/Kornet (and KP when healthy). That is not significantly better, if at all, than ours.

https://hoopshype.com/lists/2022-23-depth-charts-an-early-look-at-team-rotations/

Go look at these rotations.

[YogurtProducer]

Brown, Olynyk and Boucher are good, but they aren't near as good as guys we had before like Ibaka, Norman, Fred and OG coming off the bench.

I think we need to accept that bench we had before was probably one of the best of all-time, if not the best of all-time, and it is not something we can really aspire to have again. ESPECIALLY with the new salary cap there is no world where teams can feasibly have that level of firepower off the bench.

FVV/Norman/OG/Ibaka was a foursome that feasibly could have started on most NBA teams that year. Wild bench.

[Tripod]

The one good thing with guys like Davion is strong defense can lead to more fast breaks where we can get easier buckets.

And the defense can be infectious....as we saw at times vs Boston last night.

The big thing is that this year everyone seems to have a defined role...even in development.

[YogurtProducer]

The one good thing with guys like Davion is strong defense can lead to more fast breaks where we can get easier buckets.

And the defense can be infectious....as we saw at times vs Boston last night.

The big thing is that this year everyone seems to have a defined role...even in development.

Defense gets ignored - especially among bench guys. Bench players always have massive flaws - Davions is his offense sucks. But his defense is really, really good.

[nikster]

Outside our (presumed) starting 5 of IQ/RJ/GD/SC/JP we have little to no NBA level depth.

PG : Davion is a cast off and lacks any offensive game, Shead is similar, but both offer up very good defence.
SG : Ochai has looked ok in pre season, but still not NBA level IMO. JKW has no NBA experience so huge ? with him. And then we have g leaguers for the rest of the spots.
SF : Rookies/G leaguers
PF/C : KO is not any level of reliable depth IMO, or at least he shouldn't be which speaks to our depth. Rest are rookies/g leaguers

I didn't count BB/Boucher because they shouldn't be on the team by the deadline. The biggest issue we have for depth is that we have a lot more potential options, but they are virtually all rookies, two ways, or g league level talent (currently at least).

It's depth in quantity, not quality. If we lose ANY of our key players, they aren't getting replaced by backups, but 3rd stringers. Our depth will continue to be bottom of the league bad, but with any luck some of these guys prove their worth and in a couple years that changes, but nothing much will likely change this year.

I don't see how Kelly Olynyk isn't a reliable back up. He's a veteran with a long career proving himself a serviceable big. Bruce Brown and Boucher are on the roster currently, it's silly not to include them when they will be here 2/3rds of the season even if we end up moving them. We are obviously talking about the roster as is.

Davion and Ogbaji are closer to finge players but I think there defense is likely to keep them in the league for a while. I agree that anybody else is a shot in the dark.

Either way it's a considerable upgrade from last year

[TheGeneral99]

Brown, Olynyk and Boucher are good, but they aren't near as good as guys we had before like Ibaka, Norman, Fred and OG coming off the bench.

I think we need to accept that bench we had before was probably one of the best of all-time, if not the best of all-time, and it is not something we can really aspire to have again. ESPECIALLY with the new salary cap there is no world where teams can feasibly have that level of firepower off the bench.

FVV/Norman/OG/Ibaka was a foursome that feasibly could have started on most NBA teams that year. Wild bench.

Yeah I meant to say just 1 of Ibaka, Norman, Fred and OG are better than any bench player we have now.

But yes I agree.

[Tripod]

The one good thing with guys like Davion is strong defense can lead to more fast breaks where we can get easier buckets.

And the defense can be infectious....as we saw at times vs Boston last night.

The big thing is that this year everyone seems to have a defined role...even in development.

Defense gets ignored - especially among bench guys. Bench players always have massive flaws - Davions is his offense sucks. But his defense is really, really good.

Yup. Defense isn't sexy and isn't a counting stat you see on the scores sheet every night. But saving buckets or making other teams top guys work extra hard for buckets pays dividends over a long haul.

Even last night, Boston took and made a bunch of hard shots. Better that than doubling needlessly only to pass to an open guy for a 3...like we also did with Prichard last night that 1 play.

I said it before too....our starters having to practice against guys like Davion and Sheed can help their development too.

[OakleyDokely]

The bench has the potential to be much better than past seasons. My main concern is that many of the players that make up the bench rotation are one dimensional -- either mostly offense or mostly defense. This might be Darko's most difficult task, creating functional bench units that work with a starter or two mixed in that can balance both ends of the floor.

[Scase]

Outside our (presumed) starting 5 of IQ/RJ/GD/SC/JP we have little to no NBA level depth.

PG : Davion is a cast off and lacks any offensive game, Shead is similar, but both offer up very good defence.
SG : Ochai has looked ok in pre season, but still not NBA level IMO. JKW has no NBA experience so huge ? with him. And then we have g leaguers for the rest of the spots.
SF : Rookies/G leaguers
PF/C : KO is not any level of reliable depth IMO, or at least he shouldn't be which speaks to our depth. Rest are rookies/g leaguers

I didn't count BB/Boucher because they shouldn't be on the team by the deadline. The biggest issue we have for depth is that we have a lot more potential options, but they are virtually all rookies, two ways, or g league level talent (currently at least).

It's depth in quantity, not quality. If we lose ANY of our key players, they aren't getting replaced by backups, but 3rd stringers. Our depth will continue to be bottom of the league bad, but with any luck some of these guys prove their worth and in a couple years that changes, but nothing much will likely change this year.

I don't see how Kelly Olynyk isn't a reliable back up. He's a veteran with a long career proving himself a serviceable big. Bruce Brown and Boucher are on the roster currently, it's silly not to include them when they will be here 2/3rds of the season even if we end up moving them. We are obviously talking about the roster as is.

Davion and Ogbaji are closer to finge players but I think there defense is likely to keep them in the league for a while. I agree that anybody else is a shot in the dark.

Either way it's a considerable upgrade from last year

How is it an upgrade? We had all of these players on the roster last year except Mitchell.

KO is another year older and allergic to defence. BB was horrendous last year, and quite frankly so was Boucher. Boucher hasn't had a productive year since that 48 win season in 20-21. So even considering them in doesn't matter much. Any new players added to our depth are either rookies/g leaguers and Mitchell, who like you said is a fringe NBA player.

I think we are deeper from a playable bodies standpoint, but not from a quality perspective. That's why I think this year is likely not much better than recent history, but should get better year by year.

[YogurtProducer]

Outside our (presumed) starting 5 of IQ/RJ/GD/SC/JP we have little to no NBA level depth.

PG : Davion is a cast off and lacks any offensive game, Shead is similar, but both offer up very good defence.
SG : Ochai has looked ok in pre season, but still not NBA level IMO. JKW has no NBA experience so huge ? with him. And then we have g leaguers for the rest of the spots.
SF : Rookies/G leaguers
PF/C : KO is not any level of reliable depth IMO, or at least he shouldn't be which speaks to our depth. Rest are rookies/g leaguers

I didn't count BB/Boucher because they shouldn't be on the team by the deadline. The biggest issue we have for depth is that we have a lot more potential options, but they are virtually all rookies, two ways, or g league level talent (currently at least).

It's depth in quantity, not quality. If we lose ANY of our key players, they aren't getting replaced by backups, but 3rd stringers. Our depth will continue to be bottom of the league bad, but with any luck some of these guys prove their worth and in a couple years that changes, but nothing much will likely change this year.

I don't see how Kelly Olynyk isn't a reliable back up. He's a veteran with a long career proving himself a serviceable big. Bruce Brown and Boucher are on the roster currently, it's silly not to include them when they will be here 2/3rds of the season even if we end up moving them. We are obviously talking about the roster as is.

Davion and Ogbaji are closer to finge players but I think there defense is likely to keep them in the league for a while. I agree that anybody else is a shot in the dark.

Either way it's a considerable upgrade from last year

How is it an upgrade? We had all of these players on the roster last year except Mitchell.

KO is another year older and allergic to defence. BB was horrendous last year, and quite frankly so was Boucher. Boucher hasn't had a productive year since that 48 win season in 20-21. So even considering them in doesn't matter much. Any new players added to our depth are either rookies/g leaguers and Mitchell, who like you said is a fringe NBA player.

I think we are deeper from a playable bodies standpoint, but not from a quality perspective. That's why I think this year is likely not much better than recent history, but should get better year by year.

How are you this obtuse?

After the Utah trade, we played a total of 8 games in which we had Olynyk / Brown / Ochai / Dick all came off the bench together. (started IQ / RJ / GTJ / Barnes / Poeltl). This was Kelly and Agbajis first 8 games here, and Browns 10th-18th ish.

After that, Kelly and Agbaji started every game for us down the stretch, Dick started most of them as well, and Brown was in and out of the lineup.

So it is completely disingenuous to say they were our bench last year, when Brown started 11/34 games, Kelly started 19/28 games, Ochai started 18/27 games, Dick started his last 17 games, Boucher got hurt March 9th and played no more games after that, Mitchell was not even on our team, and the rookies obviously were not either who could end up providing some depth as well.

Besides, trying to look at what we did in a completely **** season in which our lineup changed every 2 weeks and 80% of our starting lineup (IQ RJ Barnes Poeltl) all missed significant time is crazy.

[pingpongrac]

When commenting on our “bottom of the barrel” depth, I think people need to look around the rest of the East (or league) as most of the lower-tier playoff teams or play-in teams in the East have comparable benches. Teams like the Pacers and Heat have better and/or deeper benches, but is a five-man unit of Anthony/Harris/Black/Isaac/Wagner in Orlando really that much better than Mitchell/Agbaji/Brown/Boucher/Olynyk? Ball/Ayo/Craig/Smith and LeVert/Okoro/Niang/Wade aren't much (if at all) better either.

It's going to take some tweaking from Darko as we do have reserves with glaring weaknesses, but our bench is considerably better than what we've had the past few seasons and we do have some options/guys in our rookies that might be able to contribute more as the season rolls on too. We'll run into trouble when we're missing 2-3 rotation players – especially if one of those absent players is one of our core three – but the same can be said for all but 5 or so teams in the entire league.

[RoteSchroder]

impact players:
IQ
RJ
Scottie
Poeltl

wild card:
Dick

Role players:
Mitchell
Boucher
Olynyk
Ochai
Brown

[YogurtProducer]

When commenting on our “bottom of the barrel” depth, I think people need to look around the rest of the East (or league) as most of the lower-tier playoff teams or play-in teams in the East have comparable benches. Teams like the Pacers and Heat have better and/or deeper benches, but is a five-man unit of Anthony/Harris/Black/Isaac/Wagner in Orlando really that much better than Mitchell/Agbaji/Brown/Boucher/Olynyk? Ball/Ayo/Craig/Smith and LeVert/Okoro/Niang/Wade aren't much (if at all) better either.

It's going to take some tweaking from Darko as we do have reserves with glaring weaknesses, but our bench is considerably better than what we've had the past few seasons and we do have some options/guys in our rookies that might be able to contribute more as the season rolls on too. We'll run into trouble when we're missing 2-3 rotation players – especially if one of those absent players is one of our core three – but the same can be said for all but 5 or so teams in the entire league.

You said this better than I have tried. Anyone who thinks our bench is one of the worst in the league has not taken the time to look around very hard.