Evans was signed, I believe, with Wade in mind and to help our perimeter defense. The problem with Dupree is that it is hard to conceive of a solid role for him in the rotation. Many of our bench guys are showing they can play, but plugging them into productive (for wins and losses) roles may not be easy. Take Delfino. He should be handling the ball but that is what Arroyo is suppose to do. Delfino's shot is still iffy. I think Evans role should be as a defensive specialist and whatever offense we get is gravy. Take Darko. His offense is still not polished (probably because of lack of playing time). Early on, he too should come into the game as a shot blocker. Many other questions abound with the bench.

Someone disagreed with me last night on ballhandling of these two. Said it was good enough. But these two played 42 minutes combined, and got zero assists. Not good enough. These two were sharing guard and small forward duties, and did not manage a single assist between them in nearly a games worth of player minutes.

Another poster kind of said he just wanted the bottom line on whether our bench or their bench did better. But its not quite so simple. We had several bench players do very well, but the unit did not work well together. At least, not as well as it could have played. Acker was the only guard played with the subs who had any ball handling skills. Just not enough. I surely would have liked to see this same unit with Delfino in there instead of Dupree. I bet Flip would like to see it too.

I dearly love the fact that here we were in the 5th game of the preseason and the coach is playing two rookies extensively. Another poster seems to think we should start using the regular rotation players who will be seen in the regular season. But wait one moment. Who will those players be? Seems the better route is to keep auditioning people for roles. Getting the right people playing is far more important than establishing a rotation. Acker and Maxiell could end up being a large part of our rotation. If anything, maybe cut Dupree. Or at least realize no way he will earn regular rotation minutes at this point and just sit him on the bench; asking him to do just one thing the rest of the season: work on defense and be ready to play when and if needed. As far as his offense, pretty much limit to fast break dunks, his specialty.

Other than that, the guys who played the bulk of the minutes last night, plus Dyess, Arroyo, and Delfino, are the guys we will be seeing in the regular season, in my opinion. The only question I see is who plays in what units, and what roles will each player have. There is still a lot to learn there, and I do hope Flip starts working on this.

Evans has offensive game too he is very good at tipping in missed shots. He is very good at taking people to the hole, and he can step out and hit the jumper.

I have to respectfully disagree in a couple of areas.

Your definition of ball-handling seems to be a bit broad. You make a one to one comparison with assists and how one handles the ball which I think isn't accurate. Sabonis was not a great ball-handler, but he was a helluva assist man. I would think that ballhandling would be measured more by turnovers and the ability to get the ball up the court with plenty of shot clock. Having not watched a game yet, I can't tell you at this time what I think of Evans and Dupree's ball handling skills except I don't think they should be doing much ball handling in the first place.

On the topic of continuing to use the final games for auditioning talent, I don't think that is a wise strategy. Especially if you want to start the season on all cylnders. Unless your plan is to concede the first couple of games until the set rotation is defined, I can't see the logic in this approach. I think it is important for Flip to set the tone early with this season to gain the confidence of the fans, the management, and the players in his system. Otherwise it will be the beginning of a long line of excuses as to why we are having issues which I'm sure no one wants to hear at this point in time.

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Got Jokes?

Thanks fellas I absolutely looked right past saturday's game against Miami, how I don't know.

As far as bench scoring, I didn't add up our bench players totals compared to their bench. I looked at the times of the game where bot coaches were playing bench vs bench (the 2nd and 4th qtrs) and the outscored us. If you just add up player pts we win, but both teams were mixing and matching starters and bench for alot of the game. So I'm wrong, but kinda right...if that's possible....ah what the......I WAS WRONG

You were just using a different methodology.

Actually, Maxiell and Darko didn't do much when they were in during the first Q. I thought that Milwaukee played the game to win (that's probably the thing they need to work on most, winning) and mixed up their lineup much more than the Pistons.

I have no doubt that if we played Dice, Arroyo, Davis and Delfino we would have won that game.

Still a little nervous that the effort seems to come and go at the halfway point of the preseason. I don't expect Tayshaun to leap into the stands or for Rip to take a shot in the face, but you gotta have pride and stop TJ Ford from running all over the place. He flat out embarassed some players last night.

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To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

Yep!!! It's absotively posilutely time to get ready for the real thing. This is a new system and they need to know what works and what doesn't with the guys you will most likely be out there with. Plus it wouldn't be good to start the regular season coming off a string of losses if that can be avoided.

Plus I can't argue with Motown because he is a big time "STARTER" now with all of those posts!! Darth----> <------Motown

I'll be curious to see how the bench is utilized this year. Most of what we've seen in preseason has involved subbing as a group-very little mixing and matching with the starters (a bit like the way Carlisle subbed).

Mixing subs with starters hasn't worked too well because they haven't played much together (really only Dyess played substantial minutes with the starters last year). Let's see if Flip tries to work a couple of bench players in with the starters in the next couple games. That should tip us off as to what he'll start out the season trying.

Was the bench minutes similar for both sides?

very close detroit used their bench for 126, milwaukee 125. But thats with us not playing Dice, Arroyo, and Delfino. what i do know is that our other loss against dallas they played there starters a lot more than us.

Personally i think thats stupid you should try to get your bench players better, and see which players will make the team, and rotation.