Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee356  If I thought Amir Johnson could not play good D by this playoffs after getting a lot of playing time in our rotation, I would not be calling for him to get many minutes right now. But that is not the case. I believe he would be one of our best defenders by that time, if given the playing time now.
The next question is, would it cost us wins if Amir played now to gain the experience? So far, the answer is no. Sure our bench has given up leads here and there, but that is not from Amir's play. Like a game I just reviewed yesterday, maybe you remember it. Murray turned the ball over. Maxiell turned the ball over twice. All the sudden, the lead had shrunk. Amir had contributed a bit, fouling a guy and sending him to the line. But Amir in the same stretch got rebounds, blocks, and showed up on transition D to prevent scoring. Pretty much neutral.
How about this last game. There was no problem with Amir playing center for us. He gathered in 9 rebounds in his first 8 minutes. The lead was holding well enough. Brezec came in at center, and wow, the lead got dangerously close. Not quite too close to where we had to put starters back in, but maybe just one bucket from it. Brezec, in 8 minutes of play, got no rebounds.
I'll go at this another way. We had all kinds of time to showcase Murray. That costs us games. Ditto for Mohammed. And Hunter cost us games while getting up to speed. We certainly can find time to play Amir Johnson, one of the future stars of this team, and one that can help us this year, in the playoffs, where we will need him.
If you don't envision Amir playing in the regular rotation in the playoffs, then who would you have as the 4th big? I certainly see no better options. |
In case you may have forgotten AJ is one of my favorite players so I would love to see him starting, but not at the expense of the team or his long term development.
Where I think we disagree at this point.
Is that you are saying we should play AJ now because this experience he will get will help us now and in the playoffs because he is good enough now to help us at this time by taking away minutes from guys in the regular rotation.
I can see your perspective and understand where you are coming from.
However, I am sorry but I don't agree with you.
1. I don't believe that by putting him in the regular rotation of 9 or even 10 will help us now.
2. I don't believe that by playing him in the regular rotation at this point it will help us in the playoffs.
The reasons I don't see it that way are.
1. AJ is not just in my opinion, but also I believe in the opinion of the Detroit brass not strong enough at this point to defend the low post. Players rarely if ever get stronger during the regular season. Bulk up work is done in the off season.
2. I don't see him at the #3 because he doesn't have an outside shot. If you post him then it takes away Sheed's low post game, otherwise if we try and post both of them we will wind up with horrible spacing and lousy ball movement. Also, at this time his footwork is not good enough to defend against most starting #3s and experienced backup #3.
3. Playing him now in the regular rotation would lead to unnecessary team fouls and give our opponents penalty free throws quicker than we would like and is good for us.
4. Playing him now in the regular rotation would adversely affect our team defense because he is just not at that level at this time.
5. All of the above will lead to a negative experience for him and make him frustrated. This will slow his growth curve. He will not be 21 until next May so he is still very young and needs in my opinion to be put into on court situations with a high probability of success for him and the team. This will reinforce a positive mental attitude on his part and also of his teammates towards him. It seems to me that he will get more of those at this time by playing as many minutes as possible in situations where the game is not on the line, which means out of the regular rotation.
Bottom line is I think I understand where you are coming from but I just don't agree with the conclusions that you arrive at if we were to put AJ into the regular rotation at this point.
One final comment: Bynum is also only 20, but
1. He has and continues to work full time with Kareem.
2. Bynum also got substantial minutes last year with the Lakers instead of sitting on the bench or playing in the D league. I believe that we are good enough that AJ can get substantial minutes this year even if he isn't in the regular rotation.
3. Bynum is substantially stronger than AJ and is in fact stronger than most of the centers in the league, whereas AJ is at this point weaker than most power forwards in the league.
