Let's begin with your starting premise of our rotation is a worst case scenario on a healthy roster... it has Bass starting.
Our starting unit should be:
Rondo
Bradley
Green
Sullinger
Humphries.
Our team is better. Better defensively, better offensively, better passing, better ball handling, and better rebounding. So not sure what your point in all of this is.
Sorry, but this is homerism, and blatant at that.
You definitely couldn't avoid letting your familiarity get in the way.
Nope, not homerism... tell me exactly which of my claims is wrong. To say nothing of your depth chart that is a bit out of whack.
Alright then, here we go.
Better defensively:
Rondo better than Wall? Skeptical. Wall is significantly bigger and more athletic. Plus he cares more on a regular basis.
Bradley better than TA? It's relatively close, but TA's size, health, and experience give him the edge.
Green over Deng? I don't think so. Deng has been a great wing defender for the best defensive team in the league the past few seasons.
In the frontcourt, neither team has a center who can defend the rim, or even break into the rotation. Bass vs Cunningham is a wash, Sullinger vs Hansbrough depends on matchups, Olynyk vs Villanueva remains to be seen, Hickson vs Humphries is a wash.
The rest of the bench is a wash. Thabo is better than Lee; Wallace is better than Jackson; Pressey and Roberts both stink.
First of all you're putting too much emphasis physical attributes than on how players actually defend.
I've been very critical of Rondo's defense, but there's no way that Wall is currently a better defender than Rondo. There's no reason to be skeptical, Rondo simply is.
Bradley is indeed better than TA. Tony's advantage really comes from his ability to guard 3 positions, but from an overall impact on the game and on their respective assignments, Bradley is better. Bradley's usual assignment is to guard the PG full court press which completely disrupts the opponents offensive ability, unless there's a legit scorer at the SG position, which then that becomes his assignment like Wade.
That said, regardless of the individual attributes, Rondo and Bradley together have formed one of the most dynamic and dominant defensive combinations I've witnessed in some time, and when Lee gets together with Bradley it continues, if it not improves.
Green is currently a better defender than Deng. Deng has history on his side, but you're, along with the rest of the NBA media, underrating just how dominant defensively Green became last year. Can he do it again? Who knows, I just know where he's at currently.
The rest can't really comment on because it breaks from the premise of how I envision our rotation and starting units. I'll say this, Humphries is not a wash defensively with Hickson, he's a better defender and Sullinger was on his way to become a very good defender last year... not shot blocking, but he was rotating perfectly and being quite disruptive with his hands and physicality.
I also don't know how Pressey will be, particularly since I'm skeptical of him getting any playing time, but he's shown to be quite good defensively, but since he's short I'd be worried about being abused for it, but he's active and disruptive, great foot speed and great hands.
And of course you have Wallace coming off the bench.
That said, our perimeter defense looks to be quite spectacular in my opinion. Seriously, find me a team with a better defensive rotation than Rondo-Bradley-Green with Lee and Wallace as subs. I'm not seeing it anywhere.
It's for this reason that I don't think we'll miss shot blocking and KG all that much because of how good I envision our perimeter defense being, if it wasn't, then we'd be on in serious trouble. But just like a good defensive center can make up for a porous perimeter, a very good collective perimeter can make up for the lack of shot blocking center. But while we lack shot blocking, we have a unit filled with speed and capable of good defensive rotations and help.
Better offensively:
Wall averages more points for his career so far than Rondo ever has for a single season. Last season he had an ample sample size of games in which he averaged over 20 points a game.
TA is a much better slasher / finisher than Bradley, though he has no jumpshot whereas Bradley has a streaky one. It's a wash, at best.
When Green is having a good game, he's better than Deng. But Deng has been much more consistent over his career.
The frontcourt again is pretty much a wash. Villanueva, for all his drawbacks, is a scorer. Cunningham is primarily a jumpshooter and finisher of open looks. Humphries and Hickson have the same skillset. Hansbrough might be a better scorer than Sullinger; it's hard to tell.
Rest of the bench is, again, a wash, though I suppose Lee is a better scorer than Thabo.
While Wall averages more points, it's also true that he shoots more a game. With Pierce and Garnett out, you can expect Rondo to shoot more... so far he's also been more efficient than Wall, but we'll have to wait and see on how Rondo does without them. And you can't divorce the fact that Rondo is a better passer from the offensive skillset.
TA and Bradley is quite tricky, I'm personally confident that Bradley will be much better this year. Don't forget that prior to his surgery, Bradley had a season of 50% FG and 41% from 3s. Can he get to that form? Not sure, but I think he can get close to it with a fully healthy summer to work on his game for the first time in his career and training camp. Bradley is a very good cutter though, and him combined with Rondo and his passing can do more damage than the combination of Wall and TA in my opinion. They've shown to be very good together.
Green is superior to Deng, there's really little to no discussion to be made here. Green has been better throughout his career, so consistency is really not that much of an argument for you, but last year he was vastly superior. He's a better shot creator too.
I don't see how you can make the front court a wash... Villanueva sucks, one of the most inefficient frontcourt players in the game currently. Really, there's no comparison here, the offense in our frontcourt is much better. Not only is it more efficient, it's also more versatile and productive, to say nothing of their capability to grab offensive rebounds.
Our bench is more balanced.
Better passing / ball handling:
I think you're selling John Wall short on the handles part of this equation. The guy was a consensus top pick in large part because he has a nice crossover and an amazing first step.
As far as passing goes, Rondo does have the edge, but I think Wall is much closer than you probably give him credit for here, too. Wall has never had the teammates to finish his passes than Rondo has had. Wall could easily average double digit assists once he gets some finishers.
The problem here is that you're taking "better passing" and "ball handling" to mean Rondo vs. Wall. Though there's some of that, as Rondo is a better passer and distributor, it's a qualification of the whole team, not just 2 individuals.
The fact is that 1-5 our team has better passing and ball handling than your proposed team.
Better rebounding:
I don't see it. The hypothetical team is bigger at most of the positions. Rondo rebounds nicely for his size, but Wall does, too. TA is a better rebounder than Bradley. Deng is definitely a better rebounder than Green. Wallace won't play enough for the difference between him and Jackson to matter. Bass is not a good rebounder and neither is Cunningham. Hickson and Humphries are a wash. Sullinger is probably a bit better than Hansbrough. Olynyk and Villanueva are probably similarly lightweights on the boards due to their perimeter oriented games.
You're not seeing it because you're underrating Humphries as a rebounder and you're sticking Bass in the starting unit. Sullinger should be our starter over Bass.
Overall, I think you can argue these points but to flatly dismiss the hypo team as being, across the board, inferior, suggests a serious bias.
Na', I stand by my statements. The team you've constructed is flawed beyond believe. Our team has less weaknesses, is more efficient, and simply put better defensively. There's really little comparison, and the problem with your proposal begins with Bass being in our starting unit because if he is, Stevens should be fired.
Topic: How Many Games Would This Team Win? (Read 4007 times)