(05-03-2022, 03:17 PM)cow Wrote: Heavy minutes by Maxi's standard is what I should have said. I wish we could play him 30+ but his body just doesn't hold up. He probably has a concussion after game 1.
You'd probably give that Green/Bertans role more minutes if they could do anything that resembled being productive, but they aren't. Imagine if Green was Bane or Bey. Imagine if Bertans wasn't the folding chair that Yi Jianlian used to up his pre-draft stock.
Our productive rotation in this series is going to be: Luka, Brunson, DFS, Maxi, Dinwiddie, Bullock.
You are having to play the following to soak up minutes and hope they don't hurt you too badly: Powell, Green, Bertans
For the Utah series, move Powell to the productive rotation. You need more productive depth than 6-7 guys. I guess you could argue for THJ.
With the state of our assets and payroll, we need to get a lot better at attracting low cost/productive veterans (McGee, D12 prior to this year), fallen angels (Clarkson), undrafted talent (Miami Heat), and slow to blossom players (Payne).
We have made a ton of mistakes from an FO standpoint, but it is interesting that list of guys in our rotation includes a second round pick, an undrafted guy and a random we plucked out of Germany.
Adding Gobert to that group would make a massive difference. From a playoff series standpoint that means you only need 15 from Maxi as backup center and he could help with that 10 to 15 minutes DFS or Bullock are off the court.
Green is still really young and made a huge improvement from last year to this one. If he takes another step (mostly just a willingness to take open 3s) he can be a legit rotation player. That takes a ton of pressure off Dorian and Bullock.
A lot of folks have referred to this team as Luka and the spare parts. That spare parts just took 2 out of 3 from Utah. I realize Utah is flawed, but they were still a legit playoff team. And Luka is 22. He is going to get better. He has not peaked yet.
I don't think we are 3 players away from contention. I believe a high quality starting center would put us in the conversation.