I was thinking about this earlier cuz I too was sad that we start three of our actual likely starters and we were getting ran off the floor by Cam Whitmore
But I convinced myself that an extra shooter (or even Beef Stew) in place of Wiseman next to Duren will be as influential as Cade being super duper star.
Loved Ivey today. He wasn’t totally blind to getting others involved and picked his spots nicely. Love Ausar in general. Dude fills the stat sheet while literally never playing as a primary option. Invaluable. Love Duren. Some Bam like tendencies blossoming there.
Everything else is a mess but when you put actual NBA players around those three I’m still optimistic they won’t be the worst team in the league anymore.
One of the concerns I have is that Ivey and Ausar together seem significantly more lethal in transition than in the half court and Cade……seems like the total opposite
Cade can pass on the run so I don’t think he’ll have trouble finding those two with hit ahead passes. (And in the half court, I think he’ll hit Ausar for some of those alley oops that Ivey didn’t see.)
I kinda like what they have. Amen, Eason and Jabari should be good defenders even if Sengun is a liability. They have some shooters in Green and Jabari (and Sengun is pretty good for a five.) Amen and Sengun are your playmakers. Smith and Green your scorers and you can have Whitmore be a chucker off the bench.
I even like their overpaying for a couple of babysitters for a few years before they have to extend some of these guys.
I would like that lineup, but it would shock me if that’s what they do. The org is very overly loyal/committed to Stewart and have put a lot of propaganda work into selling him as a stretch 4. And the organization mouthpiece, James Edwards III of the Athletic, has published this as the projected depth chart.
I dk if they’ll actually do this but makes sense to me that they should be strictly thinking in terms of lineups rather than depth charts. Even if you don’t start Ausar, need to think about how Ausar + Cade + Ivey could work. Then how Ausar + Cade/Ausar + Ivey/Cade + Ivey lineups work, then what you’d like to see with just 1 on the floor.
All of those vets they signed should be in service of making all of the Cade/Ausar/Ivey combinations doable on offense.
I’ve neglected Duren even tho I like him bc I suspect he can kind of just make it work for the most part. Like, I’ll guess that if you want Cade + Ivey + Ausar, you prob need Bojan and Stewart as your 4 & 5. But under basically any other configuration, I think he can be the 5.
Yeah, I agree with this, I think the whole season really revolves around figuring out how good Cade and Ivey (lesser degree Ausar due to youth) and what “type” of player you need to play next to that threesome, or just pairs of Cade/Ivey, Cade/Thomspon, Ivey/Thompson
He really did make like three outwardly unselfish extra passes to Ausar in game 2. Was great to see and also hilarious to watch after he just couldn’t find him wide open on the break 10+ times in game 1
