I've long felt MK is almost the perfect player to put next to Sabonis (MT should have been, but he wanted a bigger role and MK is happy to do what the team needs him to do).
I think Holmes is an upgrade to Powell, but isn't paid so much that putting him on the bench when it's a bad matchup for him is a problem. If we take his line from 2 years ago where he played 28 mpg (hopefully playing on a better team he has much more motivation and puts up better numbers, but that year as a baseline), and add the 20 mpg stats Powell is contributing to the team this year, I think that is a good enough C combo.
My one issue that has been raised recently is Holmes size. At first I thought that was ridiculous thinking he was much bigger than he is. After seeing him next to Powell last night, they are basically exactly the same size. I think RH is slightly taller than DP (seemingly from the camera shots I saw last night) and they have about the same bulk.
My biggest question is does he have the ability to play bigger than he is? Neither Powell or MK have that ability (although they can play smaller than they are though which is about as good). If he can mostly stand his ground against the likes of Poeltl/Jokic/Zubac/Ayton/Embiid and any other big bigs we see in the league, that is a full on win for us. If not, he's still a slight upgrade.
To me, an MK for RH straight up swap makes sense for both teams. It puts 2 bigs (in him and Powell) that play roughly a similar offensive role to play throughout the game. Stability of play on offense. On Defense, he's a rim protector and rebounder that we haven't had in our big spot for a LOOOOOOONG time. Holmes rebounding is pretty much exactly what we need with a big time rebounding PG in Luka and he replaces MK's rim protection.
Next, figuring out how to get PJ Washington for our big wing spot!!! Because:
JB/SD
LD/JG
DFS/RB
PJW
RH/DP
Could be a team that makes some noise in the playoffs.
I think Holmes is an upgrade to Powell, but isn't paid so much that putting him on the bench when it's a bad matchup for him is a problem. If we take his line from 2 years ago where he played 28 mpg (hopefully playing on a better team he has much more motivation and puts up better numbers, but that year as a baseline), and add the 20 mpg stats Powell is contributing to the team this year, I think that is a good enough C combo.
My one issue that has been raised recently is Holmes size. At first I thought that was ridiculous thinking he was much bigger than he is. After seeing him next to Powell last night, they are basically exactly the same size. I think RH is slightly taller than DP (seemingly from the camera shots I saw last night) and they have about the same bulk.
My biggest question is does he have the ability to play bigger than he is? Neither Powell or MK have that ability (although they can play smaller than they are though which is about as good). If he can mostly stand his ground against the likes of Poeltl/Jokic/Zubac/Ayton/Embiid and any other big bigs we see in the league, that is a full on win for us. If not, he's still a slight upgrade.
To me, an MK for RH straight up swap makes sense for both teams. It puts 2 bigs (in him and Powell) that play roughly a similar offensive role to play throughout the game. Stability of play on offense. On Defense, he's a rim protector and rebounder that we haven't had in our big spot for a LOOOOOOONG time. Holmes rebounding is pretty much exactly what we need with a big time rebounding PG in Luka and he replaces MK's rim protection.
Next, figuring out how to get PJ Washington for our big wing spot!!! Because:
JB/SD
LD/JG
DFS/RB
PJW
RH/DP
Could be a team that makes some noise in the playoffs.