HomoSapien wrote:GoBlue72391 wrote:HomoSapien wrote:
I would have given them a chance to establish chemistry too, but for the life of me I don't understand why you don't seem to think this might be because they have no faith in Lauri/have decided not to retain him.
His future with the team is irrelevant if we're really all in on the playoffs. Playing him 15 minutes and getting him 3-5 shots doesn't help the team, it hurts it.
Either cut him out of the rotation entirely so those 15 minutes can go to other players who are better suited to fill that role or play him more in the 25 minute range and involve him in the offense so he can actually help the team with his scoring and shooting.
What we're doing right now just doesn't make sense given that our goal is the playoffs. That doesn't just apply to Lauri either, the minutes and utilization of Coby, PWill, and to a lesser extent Thad are illogical from that standpoint as well.
My guess is that our coaching staff is grappling with several issues:
1. They don't think Lauri playing 30MPG actually helps us win.
2. They know they're not keeping Lauri, so they're not inclined to try and make things work.
3. They don't think he's helpful as a starter, but think he's solid in that 15-19 minute role.
If that's the case then they're very bad at their job. Lauri doesn't need to start and he doesn't need to play 30 minutes, but the way they're using him now doesn't help the team. If they were actually involving him during those 15-19 minutes like he was for those 2 games then that would be one thing, but Billy made it clear that's not going to be the case when he said Lauri will no longer be "featured."
He's downright dreadful in this current Keith Bogans role. It's just a total misutilization of his skillset. Even if they think he's only worthy of 15-19 minutes, that's fine, but at least use him properly during those 15-19 minutes. It doesn't make any sense. It hurts the team and could easily be corrected by using him properly even if his minutes do not change.
I think most of our problems are obvious and could be fixed rather easily:
1) Do not allow Coby to play PG under any circumstances. Use him strictly as an offball scoring guard. We can go backup PG by committee.
2) Start someone other than Thad at PF next to Vuch since they're redundant and a poor fit together. Thad can go back to his hub passer role off the bench and be in a better position to post up and slash instead of getting in Vuch's way and failing to stretch the floor.
3) Move PWill to the bench and limit his minutes to 20 or so. TBJ, Temple when he returns, or even Denzel or Lauri could start over him.
4) Make more of an effort to involve Lauri in the offense during his time on the floor, even if he stays in that 15-19 minute range, though I personally think he should be closer to 25.
5) Obviously Zach and Vuch should be the focal points of our offense, but we need to go back to involving everyone in the offense because we're better as a team when we do so. Right now it's mostly just Zach and Vuch with a dashing of whoever is playing the hub role while the other guys just stand around and watch. When Zach and Vuch are on the bench, it's the Coby show, again, with a dashing of whoever is playing the hub role while everyone else just stands around.
That doesn't help our overall PG and defensive concerns, but it shores up a lot of the smaller but still problematic issues. Basically what I'm saying is, we need to put every player on our roster in their proper roles and do everything possible to utilize them properly during their time on the court. We're not doing that right now at all and there's at least four players I can point to for proof.
