Hidden Depth !

I've just seen a thread on whether you'd rather have Miami's bench or ours, well whatever your answer the comparison was just stupid, apparently our bench consists of 2-3 players. Let's dispell that myth shall we:

Billups/Douglas/Carter
Fields/Azubuike/Brewer/Shawne/Walker/Mason
Melo/Fields/Azubuike/Balkman/Mason
Amar'e/Turiaf/Balkman

and then we come to the problem

Williams ... erm. Yep one natural C. Not even close to good enough.

But look at that above, you don't hear of half the players we have on this team and though I don't want rid of him like most do and am prepared to give him time, it's another D'antoni downfall. You need to make the most of all the players at your disposal.

You'd be forgiven for thinking Carter and Brewer don't play for us, that Shawne is a really poor C.

The truth is that if we bother to get a good rebounding C then we do clearly have the depth people say we don't, it's not the rest of the team, it's that one position!

I think with 3 guys that can score 25+ on any given night in the starting rotation, you wanna put 2 guys that will focus strictly on the D alongside them in the rotation, so having Landry & Turiaf makes sense. But our bench is a problem without a reliable 6th man scoring option. Douglas & Shawne Williams are feast or famine & Bill Walker isn't a good enough scorer to begin with to consider in that role. We would really benefit if Azubuike comes back healthy & can get back into the flow of things & be effective by the time the playoffs roll around, but that's a lot to hope for at this point.

Obviously the need for a rebounder at C is huge, but we have no options to fill that role other than Shelden & doesn't seem like MDA is interested in playing him for whatever reason I have no idea maybe he's just keeping the job open for his favorite scrub JJ Bones.

STAT1 said:

I think with 3 guys that can score 25+ on any given night in the starting rotation, you wanna put 2 guys that will focus strictly on the D alongside them in the rotation, so having Landry & Turiaf makes sense. But our bench is a problem without a reliable 6th man scoring option. Douglas & Shawne Williams are feast or famine & Bill Walker isn't a good enough scorer to begin with to consider in that role. We would really benefit if Azubuike comes back healthy & can get back into the flow of things & be effective by the time the playoffs roll around, but that's a lot to hope for at this point.

Obviously the need for a rebounder at C is huge, but we have no options to fill that role other than Shelden & doesn't seem like MDA is interested in playing him for whatever reason I have no idea maybe he's just keeping the job open for his favorite scrub JJ Bones.

Click to expand...

Brewer is better defensively than Landry and Landry could offer more scoring off the bench and really open up his offensive game.

Turiaf is a bench player and not a C. He's a PF playing out of position who shouldn't be in our starting 5.

Do you want to see what will happen if we play the same as we did tonight when we play Orlando because we've just been given the blueprint how NOT to by D'antoni and then seen it unfold with OKC.

http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=310225019

Yeah that's right they played a PF out of position against Dwight and he took them for 40 and 15, just like he will Turiaf.

Until we start playing actual C's we're screwed against the likes of Orlando.

Turiaf is clearly the weak link, I like the guy but come on, 2 points, 2 blocks and 5 rebounds in 26 mins of play, when is that ever going to be good enough and that was against JJ freakin Hickson.

Collison went 8 points and 2 rebounds against Howard, this gives you an idea of how screwed we are if D'Antoni is stupid enough to make the same mistake.

Okay Amar'e is far better than Ibaka so the scoreline shouldn't be as emphatic but Melo and Durant are equal and I can't see Billups going for much more than 18.

At this moment in time we're a slightly better OKC Thunder and that's really not what we want to be.

I'll give D'Antoni time to see the flaws and adjust them but come on he really needs to see the wood for the trees.

We don't have any real options on the bench other than Shelden Williams & he's not starter worthy either, so I have no problem with Turiaf starting games. We had a nice stretch earlier this season w/him as our starting C, I think at one point the team was something like 7W-1L for a stretch before Mozgov was reinserted. What we really should do is waive Roger Mason Jr. & sign Earl Barron to give us a little depth size wise. Finestrg suggested Marcus Cousin on another thread, seems like he would be worth a look as well he's got good size and very active in the paint.

STAT1 said:

I think with 3 guys that can score 25+ on any given night in the starting rotation, you wanna put 2 guys that will focus strictly on the D alongside them in the rotation, so having Landry & Turiaf makes sense. But our bench is a problem without a reliable 6th man scoring option. Douglas & Shawne Williams are feast or famine & Bill Walker isn't a good enough scorer to begin with to consider in that role. We would really benefit if Azubuike comes back healthy & can get back into the flow of things & be effective by the time the playoffs roll around, but that's a lot to hope for at this point.

Obviously the need for a rebounder at C is huge, but we have no options to fill that role other than Shelden & doesn't seem like MDA is interested in playing him for whatever reason I have no idea maybe he's just keeping the job open for his favorite scrub JJ Bones.

Click to expand...

I totally agree that Azu could be the guy that really helps us out as a reliable 6th man that can provide the scoring that we need while our big three are on the bench.

agreed, Azubieke will really help us once available the dude has averaged a steady 11-13 points a game and theres no reason why he shouldnt continue to. Him with TD off the bench could provide us with a lift, not to mention his defense is solid.

I'm hearing the Knicks might release him to clear a roster spot. Hope that's not the case. Just dump Roger Mason already! Buike might factor in at some point, Mason never will.

Like I said there's more to work with than people were giving credit.

Sure there are still holes to be filled but by the way the media reacted you'd think it was a meteor that hit us, not a bit of hale stone.