Dwight Powell cant be a starter, due to the complete lack of defense. There is not way we are going to win anything with him in the lineup.
Furthermore, he is a player completely dependent on his athletic ability. If he loses a step or even a tenth of a step, and gets slower, it will hurts his game significantly. All of his game relies on rim rolling, everything else he is very bad at. If his injury impacts his jumping etc, he is of no value. This is in contrary to players that rely on skill, Luka Dirk etc. You can remove one of their legs, they will still be hard to guard.
I think we need to have something more in sight and higher ambitions than playing Powell at PF. We need to assemble a team around Luka to win the championship, perhaps even create a dynasty, there is potential for this. Forget Powell, we need a much better player. One that can rim roll + play terrific D, and preferably also add more other skills. Obviously the best here would be Giannis. But we need to have high standards for this position. Powell is a good bench player that brings energy.
Remember, defense wins championships. We have plenty on offense, but we also saw against Clippers we need to stop great all star players if we want to win in playoffs. We need to add complete players, not one dimensional players. The one dimensional are good as bench players. Such as Boban (great offense, no defense and no rim protection) and Powell (excels offensively in one area, plays zero defense). This unfortunately applies also to THJ and Curry, that are mainly offensive players. The only players that might offer 2 way contribution (other than Luka and KP) are Maxi and DFS. Maxis shooting didnt work in the last series, and he could not guard Kawhi despite being a great defender.
I think we need to look at players that are multi dimensional and can add on both sides of the floor, and fit in offensively in the system, while still playing D, and make us tougher team to breakdown. We have also seen that both Luka and KP can get impacted mentally by the other teams "enforcer". Need to work that out and get better at, but this experience will be a huge factor for Luka and KP to understand that and not commit the same mistake again. It adds experience to make a deeper playoff run next season. However, we need more defense and all around skills for this.
Furthermore, he is a player completely dependent on his athletic ability. If he loses a step or even a tenth of a step, and gets slower, it will hurts his game significantly. All of his game relies on rim rolling, everything else he is very bad at. If his injury impacts his jumping etc, he is of no value. This is in contrary to players that rely on skill, Luka Dirk etc. You can remove one of their legs, they will still be hard to guard.
I think we need to have something more in sight and higher ambitions than playing Powell at PF. We need to assemble a team around Luka to win the championship, perhaps even create a dynasty, there is potential for this. Forget Powell, we need a much better player. One that can rim roll + play terrific D, and preferably also add more other skills. Obviously the best here would be Giannis. But we need to have high standards for this position. Powell is a good bench player that brings energy.
Remember, defense wins championships. We have plenty on offense, but we also saw against Clippers we need to stop great all star players if we want to win in playoffs. We need to add complete players, not one dimensional players. The one dimensional are good as bench players. Such as Boban (great offense, no defense and no rim protection) and Powell (excels offensively in one area, plays zero defense). This unfortunately applies also to THJ and Curry, that are mainly offensive players. The only players that might offer 2 way contribution (other than Luka and KP) are Maxi and DFS. Maxis shooting didnt work in the last series, and he could not guard Kawhi despite being a great defender.
I think we need to look at players that are multi dimensional and can add on both sides of the floor, and fit in offensively in the system, while still playing D, and make us tougher team to breakdown. We have also seen that both Luka and KP can get impacted mentally by the other teams "enforcer". Need to work that out and get better at, but this experience will be a huge factor for Luka and KP to understand that and not commit the same mistake again. It adds experience to make a deeper playoff run next season. However, we need more defense and all around skills for this.