So who do we start?

[Luigi]

Standing reach is the real thing to worry about. At the draft combine, Jefferson has 9' 2". Boozer had 9' .5". Memo hasn't been measured as far as I can tell. Neither has AK.

Then there is also playing big. Millsap isn't very long 8' 9.5". But playing big is a function of weight, strength, vertical, positioning, and will power.

[Purch]

It is too early to do this. We don't know when Okur is coming back, we don't know how many minutes Bell can play (he barely played last year), and we don't know what we are getting for backup bigs.




But here's my best guess.

Before the ASG:
Williams (36) / Price (12) / Gaines
Miles (30) / Bell (18) / Jeffers?
Kirilenko (30) / Hayward (18) / Evans?
Millsap (36) / Ratliff? (12)
Jefferson (36) / Fesenko (12) / Okur (inj)

Williams is going to be carrying a more important load this year as a leader, so I expect 36 minutes to max him out. Price will probably get the backup spot, but we seem to get a lot of point guard injuries, so Gaines may play.

Miles will enjoy his increase in minutes, and I expect him to start at the 2. It's too bad we let guys like Tony Allen (10 over 3), Ronnie Brewer (12 over 3), and even Kyle Korver (15 over 3) go to other teams. Bell is old, and hasn't really played for a year. The shot should still be there, but when those other guards got signed I was surprised to see us give bell a comparable contract despite his age. I'm going to like his personality back in Utah a lot though (I hope he can replace Boozer's vocal leadership . . . "GET IN THERE" hahaha). But if things don't work out at the two spot (If Bell is old or injured, of if CJ making mistakes), Sloan is not afraid to play Price and Williams on the floor together. Jeffers will probably be injury insurance.

AK is in a contract year. I hope he is all healthy for the start of the season, and I hope he is in shape and at a good heavy weight to start the season (he always struggles to keep weight on through the season). If we don't get a backup 4, AK will have to play more minutes. But one injury out of our sg-sf rotation, and I don't think he will have any time to play the 4. Hayward is going to have to play in his rookie season, but I think he is too big (and hence slow) to play NBA shooting guards. I hope he can stand up to the pressure, even if it is more than he is really comfortable with/prepared for. Evans will probably be injury insurance.

Millsap is going to get a ton of minutes to start things off. I expect a strong start that turns a lot of heads as he stuffs stat sheets and looks like a junk yard dog doing it, followed by another frustrating stretch where everybody is wondering why he can't keep putting up double doubles with the increased minutes. While everybody is scratching their heads at his drop off, I'll be pointing out that he is better coming off the bench: he can out hustle and out muscle tired starters and he can dominate second stringers. That is his best role, especially given his size. I am hoping he gets someone to back him up while we wait for Okur to return, because I don't think he'll deserve being a slight disappointment if he is left to carry it alone.

Jefferson will play center for a while. As someone noted, he has a nice standing reach (9' 2" I think). He's also burly. But Boozer also had an impressive standing reach (9' .5" I think), and I think he was a better bully. Boozer/Millsap front courts were dwarfed despite their bulk . . . I hope Jefferson's improved reach can make up for that. I am very excited to see him get his post game on and find out if he can learn to pass. Plus, he better be in good shape. Sloan demands that his centers have energy to bang and to move their feet. Which reminds me, if Fesenko has any sense in his Ukrainian head, he's grinding it out on a treadmill as you are reading this. Sloan actually likes him after games when he plays well (strange to see him smile about a player's performance). I expect him to be stronger with improved stamina if he wants to stay in the league.




After the ASG:
Williams (36) / Price (12) / Gaines
Miles (30) / Bell (18) / Jeffers?
Hayward (20) / Kirilenko (28) / Evans?
Jefferson (15) / Millsap (30) / Ratliff? (3)
Okur (30) / Jefferson (15) / Fesenko (3)

Point stays the same (barring injuries).

SG stays the same.

If Hayward is playing well, it wouldn't surprise me if he was moved to a starting position. He plays fundamental basketball, and I expect Sloan to take a shining to him. The starting spot would be more ceremonial as his minutes would barely increase, but I could see it happen (I'm still pissed about the pick though). Kirilenko can help the offense run with the second unit. His greates value right now isn't his defense or shot blocking (which is still useful at his age), its his facilitating on offense. He has an incredible feel for offensive movement, and he can pass. When Williams is sitting, AK should always be on the floor. That second unit is going to be great, which brings us to the bigs.

The bigs will have to adjust to Okur's return. I'm ignoring the transition of Okur into full play (symbolically using the ASG as the divider). Okur will keep bigs out of the paint for Jefferson to abuse whoever is left. Jefferson will hopefully understand the offense enough by this point that he won't struggle with the new assignments. Okur and Jefferson make a pair of heavy bigs that will decimate defenses, but that have a hard time protecting the rim against high-fliers. NBA players tend to improve their defense at Al Jefferson's age (remember how bad dirk was from 20-25?). I hope he can get his timing down to be a true shot blocker, and learn position defense from Okur. How will Al handle 4s though? I'd rather see him guard centers. Oh well. Millsap will come off the bench and go back to being incredibly productive. Everyone will forget his struggles as a starter, and will start saying he deserves a bigger role. His 30 minutes off the bench will be perfect for him, unless he is going up against Odom. Okur will go back to his mismatch game, but I expect him to see more 4s guarding him than 5s. Boozer could torch 5s so he never really saw a lot of them defending him. If I am a coach planning to guard Jefferson, I'm going to use my center to push him off his spot before he can get his back to the basket game going. That means more 4s on Okur that will get further out to guard the shot. Okur can post them up easily and make his free throws when they fouldhim at the rim (God knows he isn't finishing), but I wonder how valuable it will be to have Okur post up on them when Jefferson is on the team. The offensive roles aren't as obvious with Okur and Jefferson together as they were with Boozer, but I expect them to work out well enough. Plus, we did get a bit bigger with Al. Let's hope we continue to be one of the most physical teams around even without Boozer's swag.

Spot on Luigi. But if Millsap is playing well come all star break. I mean really well, I'd rather keep him and Jefferson in the lineup then too move Okur back in. Changing lineups mid season is always a chemistry killer to me. Why fix something that isn't broken? But I also see the positives of putting Okur in the starting lineup. This is assuming Okur is healthy he can stretch the floor and give Jefferson room to go to work on 1 on 1 on the block and also give him room to dominate the glass. Honestly I'd rather leave the back to the basket game against big man up to Al Jefferson cause he has the best post game in the Nba. I think Okur needs to in a sense take a Rashard Lewis role to space the floor and give Jefferson and Will more space to work and also get the ball in position to shoot from a D-Will pass or a Jefferson kick out.

[StocktonShorts]

Standing reach is the real thing to worry about. At the draft combine, Jefferson has 9' 2". Boozer had 9' .5". Memo hasn't been measured as far as I can tell. Neither has AK.

I would like to think that for players who have played in the NBA for 6+ seasons we have more to judge them on than their pre-draft standing reach...

[Luigi]

Yeah, that's why I brought up playing big. Size is size, and it doesn't change much. But playing big is something you just have to watch for.

[HammerDunk]

Purch, your bigass sig of the AJ video is cracking me up. Who has that for a sig?

[Purch]

Purch, your bigass sig of the AJ video is cracking me up. Who has that for a sig?

Lol they had youtube vid tags in the sig so I said why not.

[Colby]

Step 1: Get a ruler
Step 2: look at an inch
Step 3: realize that's the difference between Jefferson and Okur

+10,000,000

Step 4: Have them both reach both arms straight up in the air.
Step 5: Get a ladder if you're under 9 feet tall.
Step 6: Try and find a good reason why Al couldn't/shouldn't play center over Mehmet Okur.

[carrottop12]

Al Jefferson is the sweatiest man alive.

It's like he never left the sweltering Mississippi heat.

[LjJazzman]

Standing reach is the real thing to worry about. At the draft combine, Jefferson has 9' 2". Boozer had 9' .5". Memo hasn't been measured as far as I can tell. Neither has AK.

I'm confused why this is something to worry about? So we should be worried that AL has a higher reach?

[Luigi]

Oh, I was just bringing up reach because there was a discussion about height going on and I think that it is more useful.

I'm a fan of starting Okur and Jefferson together once Memo is healthy. Millsap is the stunty one. All three will get big minutes, but Paul will do better against second units than he will against starters (who are often bigger).

[Jazzfan12]

Millsap needs to be assisted on almost all of his baskets though and that's easier to do with Deron Williams running point than Ronnie Price.


PG: Deron Williams
SG: CJ Miles
SF: Andrei Kirilenko
PF: Paul Millsap
C: Al Jefferson


Is our best lineup imo, and the one that will be on the court at the end of the game, but I think we should start Hayward at SG and let CJ have a sixth man role like Manu and be able to run the offense while Deron is out.

[Purch]

Millsap needs to be assisted on almost all of his baskets though and that's easier to do with Deron Williams running point than Ronnie Price.


PG: Deron Williams
SG: CJ Miles
SF: Andrei Kirilenko
PF: Paul Millsap
C: Al Jefferson


Is our best lineup imo, and the one that will be on the court at the end of the game, but I think we should start Hayward at SG and let CJ have a sixth man role like Manu and be able to run the offense while Deron is out.

I doubt that it will be the lineup on the court at the ends of games assuming Memo is healthy. Memo's clutch 3's at the end of the game has always been a big weapon for us. So I think Sloan would want Memo on the floor to spread the defense so Jefferson has more room to work in the post and Deron can go to work on isolations, and if they help he can kick it out to Memo. Same thing with Jefferson in the post assuming he learns how to pass out of double teams and kick it out to Memo.

At the end of the game we need someone to hit big shots for us besides Deron, and I don't really trust Miles with that.

[DelaneyRudd]

I trust Raja with big shots, as long as it's a kick out.

[Jazzfan12]

Memo wasn't in at the end of games last year that much.

[Purch]

Memo wasn't in at the end of games last year that much.

The difference is last Year we had Matthews and Korver this year we'd end up depending on CJ to take more clutch shots and I don't fully trust him. That's why I'd rather have Okur in.

[Luigi]

Millsap needs to be assisted on almost all of his baskets though and that's easier to do with Deron Williams running point than Ronnie Price.


PG: Deron Williams
SG: CJ Miles
SF: Andrei Kirilenko
PF: Paul Millsap
C: Al Jefferson


Is our best lineup imo, and the one that will be on the court at the end of the game, but I think we should start Hayward at SG and let CJ have a sixth man role like Manu and be able to run the offense while Deron is out.

I don't think we should cater to Millsap's offensive game. If anything, we need to be catering to Jefferson and Okur's offense since they are more useful on offense to begin with.

I wonder if Hayward can play the two. Seems like he'd be out of position to me, but we really don't know yet. I'm sure CJ would like to have the green light to be the offensive punch off the bench. If it is Miles and Bell playing all the two guard minutes, it might be wise to start Bell and let CJ come in and try to create a little bit (with limited touches of course, he's no Kobe). I still trust AK more than CJ to run the offense, but CJ could have an effective iso once in a while.

[The59Sound]

I disagree that Millsap needs to be assisted on all of his plays. He has a surprisingly good face-up game.

[countrybama24]

I disagree that Millsap needs to be assisted on all of his plays. He has a surprisingly good face-up game.

Agreed. Even on this board his offensive game is underrated. Shameful.

[Purch]

Didn't he show us an improved mid range game in the Denver series? And I hope people realize how great Millsap was for us that series.