2017-2018 start of season lineup- why did CBS not stick with it?

[Tr1boy]

The lineup of  Baynes Horford Tatum Brown Irving  - went on that terrific winning streak at the start of 2017-2018 season

At the start of this season, the team went with this lineup for a few games....but then went with
Horford Tatum Brown Hayward Irving and all kinds of inconsistencies and problems arose

And since then CBS has stuck with a very inconsistent Horford Morris Tatum Smart Irving lineup

So at the end of the day, **** is CBS smokin is the question?


Baynes has been down alot this season due to injury.  But the formula that seemed to have worked really well is having a center/rim player ....  to make it easier for the others. Especially Horford who could switch to playing his preferred PF position.  With things clogged a bit underneath the basket , Horford could gobble up the rebounds and Tatum and Brown could use their athleticism to grab weakside rebounds

(Though some will disagree)....once Baynes went down and Hayward starting experiment was not going to work  (I mean it was not going to from day 1, this season as he needed reps off the bench) , I would have tried

R. Williams Horford Tatum Brown Irving as the starting unit.  Or at least Danny needed to trade for someone like Baynes to fill in this role at the starting spot

This kind of mistep could have been how all of this locker room drama, Jaylen Brown fault etc. could have spurn out of control

Either Ainge is too cheap or oblivious of this problem (Baynes injury and starting center hole) or CBS does not have the sack to tell Danny, hey I need a center starting replacement for this to work

[Tr1boy]

On top of this

bringing Morris, Rozier and especially Smart off the bench worked nicely

Because Smart would raise up the energy level with his play

But this is missing this season

[Androslav]

R. Williams is closer to a wish than an NBA starting center ATM.
Many C. fans need to seriously lower their opinion on a rookie.
 
Why would DA trade for Baynes like guy when he knows he has Baynes for the real games?
For consumerism's sake?
By real games I mean playoffs, since regular season is just a pole position and lottery grabbing time.

I think Morris will sit by or in the playoffs.
Then Baynes could start vs Philly, Brown vs other teams.

[Tr1boy]

R. Williams is closer to a wish than an NBA starting center ATM.
Many C. fans need to seriously lower their opinion on a rookie.
 
Why would DA trade for Baynes like guy when he knows he has Baynes for the real games?
For consumerism's sake?
By real games I mean playoffs, since regular season is just a pole position and lottery grabbing time.

I think Morris will sit by or in the playoffs.
Then Baynes could start vs Philly, Brown vs other teams.

you are overlooking home court adv

[GreenShooter]

The 2017-18 season starting line-up was same as 2018-19, with Hayward starting the pre-season games. Hayward got hurt so CBS inserted Baynes. Technicality, I know. But that was likely going to be the line-up if not for the injury.

[smokeablount]

It's a valid question (Kyrie-Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes) and I haven't seen anyone take a real shot at answering yet.  I don't have an answer.

[Silky]

It's a valid question (Kyrie-Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes) and I haven't seen anyone take a real shot at answering yet.  I don't have an answer.

Its because he has to try and play the 30plus million dollar Hayward.

Need to get value back into him as an asset

[Androslav]

R. Williams is closer to a wish than an NBA starting center ATM.
Many C. fans need to seriously lower their opinion on a rookie.
 
Why would DA trade for Baynes like guy when he knows he has Baynes for the real games?
For consumerism's sake?
By real games I mean playoffs, since regular season is just a pole position and lottery grabbing time.

I think Morris will sit by or in the playoffs.
Then Baynes could start vs Philly, Brown vs other teams.

you are overlooking home court adv

Perhaps, but if you cant win on the road, then you are a pretender in the 1st place.
Like last year, we were a nice Cinderella story, but we couldn't win outside of Boston.
Hopefully, we get better results this year.

[slamtheking]

The lineup of  Baynes Horford Tatum Brown Irving  - went on that terrific winning streak at the start of 2017-2018 season

It's a valid question (Kyrie-Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes) and I haven't seen anyone take a real shot at answering yet.  I don't have an answer.

the simplest and most likely answer is that Brad WAS putting out his starting line-up from 2017-2018 which was Kyrie, Brown, Hayward, Tatum and Horford.  line-up changed the next game by adding Smart in place of Hayward after the injury. 

Brad was probably looking to resume the original line-up he put on the floor to start last season.  wasn't until this season progressed that he saw Hayward was clearly not ready for heavy minutes and Brown, Tatum and Rozier had regressed from where they left off from last year's playoffs.

[jambr380]

I agree triboy. I realize Baynes has had a number of injuries, but the line-up we went with after Hayward went down last year was money.

I understand him trying to go with Hayward to start this year - the rest of the guys were so good that he thought he could ease Hayward back in - but he was not ready and something happened with Jaylen and something needed to change. Brad was so quick to change up the line-up after our slow start, but it's not like the Morris/Smart starting line-up has been killer. Seems unfair to some other guys.

It's just unfortunate Jaylen had to be torn to shreds in order to build himself back up to the player we all expected him to be. If we had just gone with Baynes instead of Hayward, maybe we would be looking at an All-Defensive player scoring an efficient 15 or so ppg in Brown.

[RodyTur10]

The lineup of  Baynes Horford Tatum Brown Irving  - went on that terrific winning streak at the start of 2017-2018 season

At the start of this season, the team went with this lineup for a few games....but then went with
Horford Tatum Brown Hayward Irving and all kinds of inconsistencies and problems arose

And since then CBS has stuck with a very inconsistent Horford Morris Tatum Smart Irving lineup

So at the end of the day, **** is CBS smokin is the question?


Baynes has been down alot this season due to injury.  But the formula that seemed to have worked really well is having a center/rim player ....  to make it easier for the others. Especially Horford who could switch to playing his preferred PF position.  With things clogged a bit underneath the basket , Horford could gobble up the rebounds and Tatum and Brown could use their athleticism to grab weakside rebounds

(Though some will disagree)....once Baynes went down and Hayward starting experiment was not going to work  (I mean it was not going to from day 1, this season as he needed reps off the bench) , I would have tried

R. Williams Horford Tatum Brown Irving as the starting unit.  Or at least Danny needed to trade for someone like Baynes to fill in this role at the starting spot

This kind of mistep could have been how all of this locker room drama, Jaylen Brown fault etc. could have spurn out of control

Either Ainge is too cheap or oblivious of this problem (Baynes injury and starting center hole) or CBS does not have the sack to tell Danny, hey I need a center starting replacement for this to work

I have been advocating for that line-up all the time. It's so annoying to see Morris starting every game.
Morris is NOT a viable starting PF on a contender. He's a bench scorer.

We have been doing very little to get Williams or Theis ready to replace Baynes in case of injury, so Stevens always goes back to small ball by default.

I'm giving up on this season. At best they go down in the second round in 5 or 6 to the Bucks.

[smokeablount]

The lineup of  Baynes Horford Tatum Brown Irving  - went on that terrific winning streak at the start of 2017-2018 season

It's a valid question (Kyrie-Brown-Tatum-Horford-Baynes) and I haven't seen anyone take a real shot at answering yet.  I don't have an answer.

the simplest and most likely answer is that Brad WAS putting out his starting line-up from 2017-2018 which was Kyrie, Brown, Hayward, Tatum and Horford.  line-up changed the next game by adding Smart in place of Hayward after the injury. 

Brad was probably looking to resume the original line-up he put on the floor to start last season.  wasn't until this season progressed that he saw Hayward was clearly not ready for heavy minutes and Brown, Tatum and Rozier had regressed from where they left off from last year's playoffs.

Yeah but then that original Hayward lineup proved to be bad.  Then we mixed up the starting rotation taking 2 guys out and putting 2 guys in, and at least 1 of those new starters (Morris) now pretty much sucks.  Only for about two weeks or so did we have great starters with the Marcuses added.

We never have actually been that good this year so it doesn't make sense to me why we never went back to the Baynes at C lineup, which took us on a win streak last year and to the #2 seed with worse overall talent than this year.  Also, Al is a PF.  We really haven't achieved jack this year, ever, vs. last year with that Baynes lineup.  Now I happily call Triboy out when appropriate and I think his opinions on Kyrie are foolish, but this is right on.

[Chris22]

This has always been my favorite starting lineup.

Brad is kind of a weak coach.

[Androslav]

This has always been my favorite starting lineup.

Brad is kind of a weak coach.

I congratulate you and like-minded fellow CS's on the audacity to call someone 100.000.000 more knowledgable (Stevens) than yourself out.
It takes a tremendous amount of subjectivity to do so.

[smokeablount]

This has always been my favorite starting lineup.

Brad is kind of a weak coach.

I congratulate you and like-minded fellow CS's on the audacity to call someone 100.000.000 more knowledgable (Stevens) than yourself out.
It takes a tremendous amount of subjectivity to do so.

This is what hard data is for.  While often having sample sizes that are too small to make a real comparison, the performance of our lineups is in black and white.