Curry to change the starting lineup.

lol...I would defenitely take a page from their style of play...( as they did from ours) DEFENSE!!! the scoring will be there if we can just keep teams under 100 points(as a Piston fan I never thought I would say that)

We are now down to 4 players on the team who are breakeven or better in the on court +/- measure.

Afflalo- +59 in 318 minutes
Amir- +46 in 289 min
Herrmann- +6 in 164 min
Bynum- Even in 129 min.

All the rest of the players have been outscored while on the floor this year. This is a big change from previous years where the starters were topping the league and our bench was just hanging in there.

I thought these stats were sort of interesting. Wasn't sure where to post them so feel free to move: (from basketball-reference.com). But maybe we could talk about what, if anything, this indicates about the past, present, and future of the team.

We're in bold all the way through. Champ def. stats are in red; Champ off. stats are in green.

2003-4
Offensive Rating: 102.0 (18th of 29) ▪ Defensive Rating: 95.4 (2nd of 29)
We were champs.
2004-5
Offensive Rating: 105.6 (17th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 101.2 (3rd of 30)
We lost in Game 7 of finals.
Spurs (eventual champs) stats:
Offensive Rating: 107.5 (8th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 98.8 (1st of 30)

2005-6
Offensive Rating: 110.8 (4th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 103.1 (5th of 30)
We lost to Miami in ECF
Miami (eventual champs) stats:
Offensive Rating: 108.7 (7th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 104.5 (9th of 30)

2006-7
Offensive Rating: 108.9 (6th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 104.2 (7th of 30)
We lost to Cleveland in ECF
Spurs (eventual champs) stats:
Offensive Rating: 109.2 (5th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 99.9 (2nd of 30)

2007-8
Offensive Rating: 111.4 (6th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 102.9 (4th of 30) lost to boston in ECF
Boston (eventual champs) stats:Offensive Rating: 110.2 (9th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 98.9 (1st of 30)

2008-9Offensive Rating: 107.1 (12th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 107.3 (18th of 30)
Current Cleveland Stats
Offensive Rating: 114.7 (1st of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 100.0 (2nd of 30)
Current LAL stats
Offensive Rating: 112.9 (3rd of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 100.2 (3rd of 30)
Current Boston stats
Offensive Rating: 108.5 (9th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 98.5 (1st of 30)

thanks, how about the long answer?

what struck me is that the defensive numbers and rankings during the flip era were nowhere near as bad as I would have thought. we may not have been first or second, but we stayed in or near the top five, while our offensive numbers increased.

of course, our numbers this year are mediocre, as is expected and has been pointed out by others.

thnx for the stats prof..defense wins it. The good news is nothing is handed out in december..and defense is something these guys have played and know how to play....so it is correctable.

If we really do have 3 1st round picks + all this cap space, then I feel OK about this transition. Ignoring my distain for the CB trade and only looking forward, then the best possible chance of winning a ship this year is to gamble on AI. We may be a better team right now with him coming off the bench, but I think it's obvious that we would not be a Championship team this year with that formula. He needs to find a way to get back to his 2002 level... or closer to it, and the rest of the players need to find a way to mesh. Curry has to do a coaching job that Phil Jackson would find challenging.

Odds are slim, but there is still a chance. If we were going to be put in this situation, then it's good to have the entire year to work out the kinks. So far, we have really flushed/ fleshed? out the bench, which was long overdue. We are getting great looks at all the players (minus Ack and Sharpe). We have guys like Stuck, Afflalo, and Amir, who are showing that it's not out of the question to start them. This would have been unheard of in the recent past.

As forumites who have been spoiled by a high level team for many years, we have to get used to not being able to check any games off the schedule ahead of time with W's. Every game is a challenge now.

Offensive Rating: 105.5 (18th of 30) ▪ Defensive Rating: 101.3 (4th of 30)

There's a chance that we can win the championship. AI + Sheed + Tay will have to play their hearts, but it's possible. Heck maybe McDyess can be hot again this post season for more then one game.

Yes and Amare told me he is not going to come here.

Chris Bosh is a possibility, but not one you bank your future on.

Great post. JD knows this and a watchful eye is present. There will be tears.

Whoa now forumites.... lets get back to the middle so we can glance across at both side of the fence here.

Joe didn't make "changes".

I repeat:

Joe did not make "changes".

He swapped out one guy.

This is coming from a GM that told us last summer that he "wanted" to change out the "majority" of the core.

The majority. That's most. That's more than 50%.

That's not one guy.

Let's not start bailing on him just because he isn't placating all of us by making the changes he envisioned all at once.

The years most definitely not over yet and the playoffs aren't even being discussed. We should be patient, especially if Joe does in fact decide to do what he warned us he would do 6 months ago, and make changes.

As of right now, he's only made one change. That is hardly insane territory.

Cloud I agree with the sentiment. In fact, Curry has made many more changes to this team than Joe has, but I appreciate that fact that this guy is experimenting.

My biggest complaint with Flip was that no one had a role on the team except the starting five. When the team was tested, he had no idea what to do. During the Cavs series in the ECF in 2007, he rolled out Nazr for a few minutes to try to change things up in game 6, and that's when I knew that we would lose that series. He was clearly panicking and throwing crap against the wall to see what stuck. Naturally that experiment turned out to be a disaster.

Contrast this with Curry. When (or if) some team puts a small-ball line-up on the floor against us in the playoffs, this guy will know for certain if he can put one on the floor to match, because he gave it a thorough try during the regular season when the games mattered a lot less.

He probably shouldn't match it. He should just exploit it with either our skilled big men or our energetic young bigs.

The small ball lineup did work well in the first quarter though, when Wash shot 29%. Their 60+% shooting for the rest of the game made the strategy look a little worse.

-AI

He's clearly spelling out the case for him to come off the bench.

Give him 38 min per game.

6 in the 1st. 12 in the 2nd. 6 in the 3rd. 12 in the 4th.


Let him isolate all game long.

I really like that a lot, get Curry on the phone. A.I would be spectacular off the bench. Then we could start Stuckey, Rip, Tay, Amir(if he can stop fouling 3 times in 4 minutes) and Sheed. With A.I, Dyess, Afflalo, and Maxeill. That would be best way to go in my mind. That would make us as deep as anyone in my opinion.

The extra 2 minutes must be overtime....:D

If only we could transplant Ginnobli's personality into AI. We are actually good enough to be able to play him off the bench. Imagine a team with that weapon against team's 2nd units.

Good thing I don't deal with numbers for a living...