sol537 wrote:The sky isn't falling.
1. The offense (shooting percentage) and defense will pick up with familiarity as the season goes along and as Mitch/Deuce return. Those are two of our top defenders and top 3pt "producers".
2. I still think we should trade KAT at some point this season if a better fit presents itself. ie Grant + Advija? Something like that... Even if we keep KAT, I think we can carve out a nice "attack" role for him while playing next to Mitch/Deuce for long stretches.
3. We need to keep empowering OG and Bridges. More touches. More curl plays. More fast breaks. The more involved they are on offense, the more tenacious they are on defense. Both guys are borderline all-stars and, arguably, more valuable to our long-term success than a guy like KAT is.
4. I'm not in love with Yabu/Clarkson/Shamet off the bench. I think they should be phased out or used very sporadically until we can find an upgrade before the trade deadline (hopefully). For this team, I'd rather have Wright, Gary Mathews, and Precious on the end of the bench. Defense + 3pt specialist.
I still think we get that #1 seed in the East.
The issue with any KAT trade is his ability to play center...as we saw last night...Hukporti is a bit of a wild card...he might be affective sometimes but he is still young and you don't know what you're getting from him.
And then Mitch is just a complete unknown. You cant lose KAT for wings at this point if your trying to win because we have no trust worthy bigs.

early sample size of lineups but what can we tell here...
KAT at the 4 is not ideal- that is our most played lineup and it basically is a net neutral in 20 minutes so far.
our best two lineups are KAT at the 5 with either McBride or Hart with the starters.
The Yabusele minutes (and Clarkson) for that matter have been horrendous. The are in most of our negative lineups that continue to get outplayed.
The worst lineup we have out there playing right now is Kolek/Clarkson/OG/Yabu/KAT...that lineup from Brown needs to be sent to the moon. That is two bad perimeter defenders coupled with two bad big defenders...and then thinking OG can make up there issues is not a good idea. They have a net -31.3 rating in 9 minutes (so nearly a qtr of action together).