Game 45 Dirkie Award: Luka all the way. Ooops. Someone feels a little love for JG.

[StrandedOnBeauboisHill]

The winner of this is obvious, but Josh deserves a little love.  Season high 21 on 8/12 (would have loved for that to be 9/12 and him make that bunny lay-up late in the 4th).  Otherwise a really strong game.

I’ll note that he may have finally grabbed that starting spot that so many thought he’d get when the season began.  Injuries have obviously pushed this, but in January Josh has started 10 of 11 games.  His splits are 10/4/2.4.  He’s back over .600 on TS% at .618 and his 3% in those 11 games is .457.  I’m an Exum fan, but I like him as the ball-handler off the bench.  If Josh can keep his scoring in the 10-12 range on good efficiency, I suspect he keeps the starting spot.  Just need to figure out the last spot before 2/8.

You and I got into a debate while Exum was showing out about whether or not Green actually won the starting role the couple games before he got hurt. It’s been so interesting watching this play out because Exum absolutely deserved that starting spot before he got hurt and now he’ll have to earn it back because Green is balling (Exum played well last night too). Either way I think 48 minutes split between the two of them is good enough for this team, it always comes back to who is going to play the 4. Lost in all the excitement is the DJJ injury which I still can’t find any updates on but that sure looked like a broken wrist to me so now we may only have Grant Williams and Maxi to play the 4 which is a very brittle solution. If DJJs injury is worst case and Green/Exum keep playing well then I really hope we move Hardaway for a PF. I know there’s a ton of debate about whether or not a PJ Washington is good but he would be a great option to play next to one of Green/Exum and move Grant and Maxi to the bench where they’d be more valuable. Might not be good enough to “put this team over the top” but he’s good enough to move this team forward while keeping plenty of tradeable assets moving forward.

Side note, I really hope the anti-Luka ball crowd is watching closely every time Grant Williams tries to create for himself. Looks like a toddler taking his first steps. The moment that dude floors the ball it becomes a bad possession. He needs to go back to shooting and just doing an escape dribble or two.