Scoot McGroot wrote:pacers70 wrote:Pacers_Freak wrote:
I think that bench gets run to the MF'in woodshed. Sumner, Leaf, Alize have done nothing to show that they are ready for NBA every night minutes. I hope they all turn out to be NBA rotational players. That would be great for us. The odds of that happening are astronomically low.
Our bench this past season was CoJo/Evans/McDermott/Sabonis/Leaf.
Leaf was part of the rotation although he only played 6-8 mpg. There is no reason to think that he can't improve on that. Holiday got some rotation minutes and looked promising. There is no reason why he can't improve either. We will still have McDermott. Sabonis would be playing a lot of minutes with the bench. In theory Turner would start at Center and play 30-32 mpg. Sabonis would start at PF and then slide over as backup Center, consequently he would be playing 16-18 mpg as the backup Center with the bench.
Our backup front line would still be McDermott/Sabonis/Leaf. The only difference would be that Leaf would play a few more minutes and someone else would have to pick up a few minutes. That could be Alize, maybe we slide Bogey over as a small ball 4 or we sign a low cost veteran to get a few minutes. While our bench would not be great, I don't think it would be as bad as some seem to think.
It’s an interesting argument that we’re saying we’ll just play the starters more and make them play the bench minutes too. Any worries that we’ll burn some of the starters out? Or, by over staggering, are we going to play Alize with the starters so we can keep Dom with the bench for the majority of his minutes to protect them?
The only way for Sabonis and Turner to each get 30+ mpg is either play Sabonis at PF most of time or let him play Center (a position he is more comfortable at) with the back up unit. The starters will not be playing more minutes and the only one that would play significant minutes on a consistent basis with the bench would be Sabonis. Leaf and someone else would have to pick up the minutes at PF with the starters. That could be Alize, Bogey or we could sign someone.