Height cannot be taught. This is why small ball is a very dangerous strategy to count on. Pitino thought he could win in the NBA with a full court press and shooting three pointers. The only gimmick that seemed to work was Phil Jackson's use of the triangle. Yet, maybe any style would have worked if you had Shaq and Kobe on the same team or Michael Jordan getting star calls in a watered down league.
Small ball is something that is good to have in one's bag of tricks. But if it is the overall team strategy, that means the coach feels there is no other choice. And that's what happened with Barnes because Jae is injured and Jaylen Brown is a rookie.
This is painful because we were only about a week or two into the season and we lost 40% of the starting lineup including Horford. We can only afford to lose players when there is depth at the specific positions or the opponent is not strong at what we are missing due to injury.
Gerald Green shows me next to nothing for defense. He should have had a breakout game or Brown. We could have easily lost if Barnes had shot better.
I am not confident in starting Isaiah, Avery and Marcus together. I watched Doc Rivers play a lot of three guard lineups, but I think Doc's idea was to have the best players on the court as if height doesn't matter. I don't sense Brad does it for the same reason, but more because it is what it is and survival while key guys are out.
It's getting close to when Danny is going to have to make some tough decisions in order to maximize the current team. Maybe Nader with his wing span could have covered Barnes? I imagine Brandon Bass in other years might have been given a chance. Jordan Mickey could have tried? I am not sure.
Danny could have signed Zizac. We might have a better record right now despite losing Horford.
Evan Turner is not very good at defense. He probably still would've been a better option than anyone else currently on the roster, but that's not saying much.
People complained about Phil Pressey taking up a roster spot, but he was value for the 15th player. James Young simply takes up space. We don't need more than Green or Young for one scrub to be the third small forward/tall shooting guard.
Maybe Danny is a cheapskate (or tough negotiator sounds nicer) and learned that from Red. I'd like to see Danny cut strings more like he did with Humphries, Bass, Turner and Sully. I was shocked that Young was kept. I figured RJ deserved another year and a chance to grow into an NBA body.
We needed a tall shooting guard. Datome seemed decent enough.
Isaiah, Avery and Smart are a good three-fourths of a guard rotation, but we are missing a tall guard and that makes us vulnerable.
We got by one or two years with Sully, Olynyk, Zeller with Bass/Humphries, but at some point one gets tired of always having to be David against Goliath.
Danny wants to create value out of every asset even when it would make sense to just move on.
Instead of Zeller and Young, we could have had Zizac and Nader.
In Danny's defense, he couldn't have known Horford and Crowder would get hurt.
I am not too worried. No team can survive long after losing two of its best players. We are simply in a holding pattern treading water. We won't know what we have until we're back to full-strength.
This actually makes sense. We do have great depth and that's why we are still a playoff team despite the losses of Horford and Crowder.
