And now, after the trades, wing depth is a weakness. Our starting wing duo of Tatum and Brown is probably the best wing tandem in the league but our 3rd wing is Nesmith who wasn't all that effective even before the injury. In the last game (Nets) we played the entire game with 2 of GWill, RWill, Theis or Horford on the court at all times paired with 3 of Smart, Brown, Tatum, White, and Pritchard so we really didn't play a true back up wing. Against Memphis, GWill was on the court as a wing quite a bit.
What is different about this group now is that we don't need Tatum or Brown to cover at power forward much at all. What only a few months ago that seemed like a gaping weakness at power forward, now looks pretty good. Horford and GWill have been far better than we had a right to expect, and Theis can now cover a few minutes here and there too.
That pushes the minutes for Tatum and Brown down to focus almost exclusively at the 2/3, and Grant Williams can cover some of those backup minutes at the 3 pretty easily.
So, even though we suddenly don't have much wing depth, we don't need much.
I agree with this. I am not suggesting it is a fatal flaw or anything but the result of the trades was to switch around where we had more or less depth.
Our base or starting line up is pretty classic:
1 Guard, 2 Wings, 2 Bigs.
This is a solid, traditional line up and it has been working really well for us but it doesn't mean that you can't sometimes go with:
2 Guards (PG + Combo), 1 Wing, 2 Bigs
or
1 Guard, 3 wings, 1 big
and so on. It is a pretty subtle distinction to me between a combo guard (White) and a "wing" guard (Brown) but I think there is a distinction. I see a distinction between a "wing" forward (Tatum) and a "power" forward or "swing" forward (Grant) also, perhaps more so.
But I agree completely, we will play a lot with 1 guard and 2 wings but with the team we have, we can play 2 guards (Smart + White) with one wing (Brown or Tatum). Smart's versatility really helps with that. He can switch over and cover a bigger guard or wing without any problem. Or as you say, GWill has the versatility to match up as more of a wing at times.
As to the bigs, I remain a fan of playing with 2 bigs but with the caveat is that you need at least one of the bigs to have some skill and some ability to shoot. We are getting that from Horford and GWill; that to me has been a big key to our success. I was not expecting either Horford or GWill to be this good. They have made something that could have been a fatal flaw into something that is holding their own or maybe even a little better than that.
Topic: Management, I’m pleading with you; blow it up! (Read 12310 times)