MAVS 98, SUNS 105

[mavsluvr]

I am not DougieFresh, but my thoughts are that Powell seems to stunt KP offense when they are on the floor together and WCS has been completely useless.  Powell makes the most sense as the primary backup center getting roughly the 16 minutes KP is not on the court.  When Maxi is back, he and DFS can split the 4 minutes.  Hopefully this is how it plays out eventually.

This last offseason we needed to upgrade starter talent, get a secondary ball handler, and based on this strategy of "protecting KP" upgrade the big depth.  Its kind of crazy that we failed to do any of that.  I would much rather have Caruso or Theis (who both got the MLE) than Bullock on this team, and with some squeezing under the cap might have been able to get both.

No problem, these are all open discussions. It seems that your strategy is a little different than Dougie's. He doesn't want Powell to start. It seems that you feel that Powell and KP should never be on the floor together. 

That could be right. To explore it a bit -- 

Agree that KP and Powell have had some awful displays of poor execution together in this early part of the season. Most of that, however, seems to have consisted of one or the other, or both, not knowing where they are supposed to be, to the point of such clownish occurrences as KP trying to post up and DP rolling to the basket at the same time, or KP and DP running into each other. But I assume that those wrinkles will be ironed out in time, and I believe that combo has had good results in the past. 

Kidd is trying to balance a number of particular things. KP does not have a history of holding up well over the course of a season, and Kidd is trying to hold both his total minutes and his expenditure of energy on the court to moderate levels. Hence, his using a two-big lineup to start the game. Maxi also has a history of not responding well to big minutes (which may be part of the reason that he began the season as a backup). 

Luka really likes playing with Powell, because it enables him to utilize his PNR excellence to advantage. So, there's that. 

Balancing all these goals doesn't seem to me to be all that straightforward. Let's say, trying to keep KP's minutes in the low 30's and having him play center maybe no more than 2/3 of his time on the court. Limit Maxi to 30 mpg or so. Keep Powell on the floor for Luka for maybe at least 20 minutes or so. Don't let KP and Powell take the floor together?

This is all before we even get to particular matchups. I guess my point is that I'm not sure there really is a simple fix to these problems. Having all these centers does enable the team to play different styles. But some of them are pretty limited in what they can do, and KP and/or Maxi may be liable to miss a few stretches. I guess this all leads me to wonder if most of the solutions at these two positions may be more makeshift than not with the current configuration of players. But if shuffling the deck would substantially help the situation without upsetting too many apple carts, it's worth a try.