TDL Archived: The 2nd Rnd Pick Yankee Swap

[DanSchwartzgan]

That's funny because I was building a much bigger post for the other thread as well, but when I read your post I decided to mostly just respond to that.

I did find one interesting thing regarding the potential starting lineup.  Bullock has had a rough go most of the season and Green has been a net rating king, so I figured any potential starting lineup rating was going to suffer including Bullock and excluding Green, but the combination of:

Powell/Luka/Bullock/Timmy

is over +21.  Gota think adding Kyrie to that group is not going to hurt.  Thats a fairly small sample but:

Powell/Luka/Timmy is +11 on over 400 minutes

Powell/Luka/Bullock is +13 on over 300 minutes

The defense was largely the responsibility of DFS, Reggie and Maxi last year.  Reggie’s TS% in 13 games in November was .342.  HIS TS PERCENT.  No lineup data is going to look good with that sprinkled in.  Since 12/1, his 3% is .418.  He’s just a different guy.  If you look at EPM, Green and Dorian’s numbers are almost the same on O, D and total EPM.  And, I don’t think those numbers are done climbing.  

What really need is good Maxi to return.  He makes so much make sense for the D.  If that happens and we close with Maxi/Luka/Green/Reggie/Irving, it will be really tough to close us out in a tight game.  There is enough D on the court to hold teams and between Reggie and Green hitting corner 3’s at a high rate and Luka, Kyrie and to some extend Green getting into the lane on a regular basis, we are going to be a load.  

That is a lot to put on Maxi and given his minutes limitations, you almost have to design his time on the court around closing and make everything else work around that.  If he’s not right, there are alternatives.  They just aren’t as good for what is needed as Maxi at his best.