i honestly might bench crowder too. is it just me, or has he just played pretty bad this year? he makes shots sometimes, but when he doesnt, he's not really helping. his defense hasnt been as good either. and he chucks a lot of shots.
Yeah, Crowder has been very meh overall, especially his defense. Honestly, outside of Horford, our whole first unit defense has been pretty bad, as evidenced by last night. The problem is that we don't have anyone to replace Crowder in the starting unit.
And IT's defense will always be subpar, but that's a known with him. AB's defense has largely been subpar this year, too, and several guys have already went off on him this year.
I would make two changes: JJ for Amir and Smart for Bradley.
I think if you put Smart with the first group, it gives you a renewed emphasis on the defensive side of things. Further, if you have him primarily initiating the offense and having IT off the ball, which has been very successful every time we've done it, I think you get away from the offensive lulls and IT's overdribbling and forced possessions. It also maximizes Smart's playmaking abilities and gets him away from being a spot-up shooter. I also like the Rozier/AB bench grouping better than Smart/Rozier.
I dont mind these changes, but you just know Brad would never do this. He's too kind hearted to bench Avery. Maybe he'd bench Amir, but even then, he would probably just start Zeller, his favorite person on the team lol
You're probably right. But I see it more as a James Harden in OKC situation rather than a demotion for AB. We need scoring off the bench, and though Smart has drastically improved as a playmaker, he's just not replacing Turner's overall scoring. AB's scoring and shooting would be very beneficial there.
I think the Rozier/AB pairing would function better than Smart/AB, too, because it would allow Rozier to be the primary ball handler and AB to be the primary scorer. I also like Smart being able to help IT with the playmaking to avoid IT's tendency to force it at times when nothing is going. Smart's better team defense and help coverage would be better utilized in the first unit, too.
The Amir for JJ thing seems beyond obvious to me at this point. Amir is playing only 20 minutes per game, but those minutes ultimately would be better spent against the bench unit of the opposing team. However, with him as a starter, that means he's primarily playing against the other starters, which is tearing him up due to his decreased efficiency and athleticism this year.
JJ would also provide better overall spacing for the team, which would open things up much more for IT and Smart to penetrate and create. I also think we really, really, really need to move Horford back to the C position, which would help our overall rebounding and interior defense tremendously. For example, you would think that our best interior defender should be on Drummond last night, but, no, since Amir has lost most of his mobility out on the perimeter, Horford has to guard PF's now, which allows bigs like Drummond to constantly take advantage of Amir down low. It's baffling. If we had a true center like Noel, Cousins, Bogut, etc., then I could see playing Horford at PF. But this is just taking away his greatest strength of interior defense and being a defensive anchor by having him out chasing stretch 4's on the perimeter.
And it's not even just about JJ, too. You could move KO to the starting lineup for Amir and get many of the same effects with even better offense. However, I like KO much more with the bench unit due to our overall lack of scoring and shooting there.
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Topic: If you had to move a guy to the bench. (Read 4027 times)