Roster diversity = Logjam
One thing Sam Presti likes is guys that can play multiple positions; guys that are diverse and athletic and that sometimes even defy the conventional norms for what a player should be built like for a given position on the court. Players he’s acquired in the last few years like Desmond Mason, Kyle Weaver and Thabo can all play the 2 and 3, and Weaver can also play the 1. James Harden can play the 2 for sure, but in college he handled the ball an awful lot leading me to think that he may see some minutes as a sort of combo guard. Kevin Durant has played the 2 and the 3 and the 3 seems to be his natural position now, but he may evolve into a great option at the 4 down the road with a game like Dirk Nowitzki. Jeff Green has the body of a 4 but the game of a 3 for the most part. Where does Serge Ibaka fit? Can he play the 5? Etan Thomas is a natural 4 but has spent a lot of minutes in his career at the 5. Oh the possibilities.
The problem with all this roster diversity is that it lends itself to logjams. On the Thunder the Shooting Guard, Small Forward and the Power Forward positions seem to be the most logjammed from my perspective.
Clearly Russ Westbrook is the unquestioned starter at Point Guard going into the season and he will command starter’s minutes. I would be shocked if Livingston didn’t get nearly all the remaining minutes at the Point Guard slot and Ollie will be left with mere occasional scraps. But last year Livingston got minutes at the 2 and 3 and I think those minutes will be much harder for Livingston to get with the logjams at those positions.
Thabo was last years ending starter at the 2 guard position but there is no guarantee he will start this year. Presti used a #3 pick on Harden and it wasn’t so that Ollie would have somebody to talk to on the bench. Both Harden and Thabo are going to want and deserve to see minutes as the 2, but the logjam is just as tight at the Small Forward spot making Thabo’s prospects of minutes at the 3 less than a sure thing.
Kevin Durant will obviously be the man at the 3, but it’s also probably Jeff Green’s best position as well. They are both players that deserve to be on the court for the Thunder this year.
The Power Forward spot is packed with options: Collison, D.J.White, Green, Serge Ibaka, Etan Thomas….
The Center spot is much like the Point Guard spot in that there seems to be a clear cut starter in Nenad Krstic with the scraps going to Collison, Thomas and maybe Lord Byron Mullins. Who knows what crazy rotations Coach Brooks will cook up. We probably won’t get our first real clue until later in the week when the team begins scrimmaging and Royce (the newest member of the credential carrying media) tells us who is in blue and who is in white.
I thought I would take a few minutes and hammer out my rotations and minutes that I would like to see as a starting point for the season if I were coach for a day. There is a little wiggle room in the final calculations and an injury throws the whole thing out the window but there is some logic behind what I lay out:
Point Guard
* Westbrook is the starter and I would like to see him at about 32 minutes per game, all of it at the point. Not that he’s not capable of playing some SG, just that it is already a logjam.
* Livingston opens up the season as the backup PG and getting about 12 minutes per game.
Shooting Guard
* In my world Harden opens up the season as the starting SG and gets about 28 minutes here.
* Thabo is the backup and gets about 18 minutes.
Small Forward
* Kevin Durant is obvious here as the starter and I would like to see him at around 36 minutes per night, which is down a bit from the 39 mpg he played last year, hopefully keeping him fresh for the deep playoff run :O)
* Jeff Green gets the remaining 12 or so minutes at the SF spot, the rest of Green’s minutes will come at the 4.
Power Forward
* Nick Collison is my starter at the PF spot. I would like to see him get about 20 minutes here.
* Green is the first PF off the bench and I would like to see him get about 20 here in addition to his SF minutes, equaling about 32 mpg.
* D.J. White gets the table scraps at the PF spot, just about 8 minutes.
Center
* Nenad Krstic is the starter here and I would like him to get 30 minutes a night.
* Etan Thomas is his backup getting just 8-10 minutes per night.
* Collison slides over and gets a few scrap minutes at the 5, hopefully as much as 10 minutes here which would give him 30 minutes per night. 
Again, there is wiggle room of about 4 minutes per night at the PG spot which can be filled in a number of ways. If Westbrook is having a great night and dominating his matchup you give the minutes to him. If he seems to be especially turnover prone or ice cold, give Ollie a shot. There is also about 4 minutes of room at the 2 guard spot, and I am sure coach will find some of those minutes for Kyle Weaver, but for now he is unfortunately the odd man out in this scenario.
The reason I went with the lineup like I did has more than a few angles to it. First I wanted to pair Collison and Krstic as the starting bigs. They were a +9 per 48 minutes as a player pair last season, and the team was 1.57 points per 48 better defensively with Collison in the game and 1.22 points better defensively with Krstic in the game.To me they are a natural pairing. Krstic has a finesse offensive game with a lot of outside shooting and Collison has a power game, mostly staying under the basket and getting himself open for easy baskets around the rim. Pairing Krstic with Green was -8 last season per 48 in 808 minutes, and then you would have two finesse offensive players side by side instead of a more balanced inside/outside finesse/power frontcourt with Collison and Krstic.
I also want to see Etan Thomas as the first Center backup because he also has a power game. He’s a banger and a position guy, which I think would balance out the frontcourt similarly when Green comes in for Collison at the PF spot. So you would have Krstic/Collison and they would be subbed by Thomas/Green. After a few minutes of that it will be time for Durant to get a breather whereby Green slides down to the SF spot; here is where D.J. White gets a few minutes at the PF spot until it is time for Collison to get back in.
Green’s PER is identical at the SF and PF position offensively, but he is much better defending the SF spot, which is where I want to see him get more than a third of his minutes.
Also contributing to my decision to bring Green off the bench in my ideal lineups is to have a bit less focus on the perimeter game. If Green was the starter and played most of his minutes with Durant, Westbrook and Harden, that would be four guys who like to shoot a lot of jumpers. But if you pair up Green off the bench with guys like Thabo, Livingston and Etan Thomas I think it could be more about working for good shots closer to the rim. Green can have a lot more shots paired with these guys than with the former.
And I chose Harden to start over Thabo because he can break down defenses with the dribble. In my scenario he would be with Durant, Westbrook, Krstic and Collison. That would give us two or three guys who can break down the defense (Harden, Westbrook and Durant), three guys who can shoot (Harden, Durant and Krstic) and a nice mix of acceptable defense.
It’s not perfect. There is no room to develop Ibaka or Mullins, Weaver is a casualty of being a combo wing man on a team full of them. But nearly the first words out of Brook’s mouth at media day were about improving the defense. The Krstic/Collison pairing would definitely be a defensive upgrade over Krstic/Green and it’s better offensively as well. More than one team has had one of their best players coming off the bench for matchup purposes; Ginobili comes to mind in San Antonio and J.R. Smith in Denver to name a couple. I think the start of the season would be a great opportunity for Brooks to call Green and Thabo into the office and tell them that they need to be a part of a great bench mob for the betterment of the team.
Westbrook was at 42% for inside shot percentage but his FG% was quite low so it doesn’t count for as much positive impact as it might first sound. His inside shooting was equivalent in effectiveness to a 32% 3 point shooter. In other words, nothing special. Then. Let’s see what he does with his inside FG%, his inside shot rate, his 3 point and mid-range game and passing…
If you are spreading the floor with jump-shooting bigs a lot, often 2 at once, and Westbrook isn’t finishing much and Durant isn’t using it that much and you end up average on team inside game and the worst on mid-range game and worst on 3 point game then you didn’t accomplish enough with that strategy.
As much as DJ White and Ibaka both seem to love the mid-range and seem to have been chosen with that as a high priority skill requirement, I hope they try the inside game more than Green and Krstic and with effectiveness.
3 of the conference finalists were in 9 with the lowest team mid-range frequency. The Cavs a bit higher than average and I think that hurt them some. Thunder were 3rd highest.
From every mid-range location the team shot less than 40% FG%. Get a wide-open look or have to take one, understandable. But anything contested and yet “voluntary”- instead of passing around more in search of something better when there is time- is usually a bad bet unless the other team are good thieves. It needs to work about 50% or more often to justify and never does on average.Some mid-range is inevitable, unavoidable, a product of good defense of the high FG% zones. Even Orlando shot 32% from mid-range. But the Thunder shot 49% from there.
Totally unrelated to training, but slightly interesting. I was looking through some screenshots of 2K10, and I came across a screenshot of the 66ers roster. Most of the guys were computer-generated fakes, but there was a power forward named D. Hardin on the roster. That is either a coincidence of massive proportions, or DeVon Hardin is in the game. I’m inclined to think that Hardin is actually in the game, which is kind of cool.
Keep Krstic and Collison at last season’s minutes and you have another 10 minute block to offer Ibaka or split with Mullens or add to White’s time or even Thomas’. If Krstic and / or Collison play 30 they better be fresh and doing ok or better.
With more shots from Livingston, Harden, Durant, Green, White, Ibaka and Krstic, all who like or probably like the mid-range, they could easily move to #1 in mid-range frequency. Especially if they are not being told to not do so and to move boldly the other way. Detroit and Toronto are the only “competition” ahead of them and not the right company to be in. True, some good teams aren’t far behind but they have other strengths and are pushing their luck doing the mid-range thing as much as they do.
A bit surprised Hardin isn’t at least in Thunder camp or explained why he isn’t.
I think he was in Greece some last year. Not sure where he is now. This site doesn’t say
http://www.devonhardin.com/
and if they don’t know, who does?
He is still on his Greek team roster but it hasn’t been updated since April.
Somebody covering the team on the ground could ask and try to get an answer. If they think it is worth a sentence.
I smell some smart thoughts of the week in here. Good discussion.
To get Mullens 200 minutes you’d have to give him 5 minutes every other game or 10 minutes every game the last 20. If you don’t how is he going to be ready for much duty (anything close to 500 minutes or above) in 2010-11?
If Ibaka doesn’t get 400 minutes how much will he learn? His time is very hard to guess right now. But it might clear up pretty quickly- one way or the other. Or it could reverse sharply at some point- either direction.
Steven Hill is in Chicago’s camp.
@Royce
I feel worthy of a smart thought.
Here are a couple of guys I think we could get dirt-cheap:
Hilton Armstrong: He’s a young center with an expiring deal. I can see Presti trading for him just to see if he is any good. The good thing about him is that we would probably be able to get him for free. New Orleans has plenty of bigs, and would probably be willing to give him up in exchange for a 2037 second-round pick.
Hilton got some decent, if inconsistent minutes last year after Chandler got injured. His minutes fluctuated so much that it is difficult to get a read on him by simply looking at the numbers, although he consistently blocked shots, something we desperately need.
Josh Boone: Boone is an interesting player. He averaged nine points, seven rebounds, and a block in twenty-five minutes per game in ’07/’08. Then, Brook Lopez came along and his minutes dropped like dishwasher that has been thrown out of an airplane. Judging by his numbers from ’07/’08 and his numbers from games last season in which he played big minutes, he seems to be a younger, taller Nick Collison.
I’ll admit, I know nothing about him. I know that his favorite movies are Saw and Independence Day, (So he has horrid taste in movies.) and the only time I’ve ever seen a game in which he got big minutes was two years ago against Golden State, and the only thing I remember about that game was that Nellie successfully used the Hack-a-Shaq on him. But all that aside, he seems like he would be a decent pickup.
I’m not entirely sure what we would have to give up to get Boone. I doubt that NJ will compromise their cap-space by resigning him after the season, so one of our second-round picks next year might be enough, but I’m not sure.
Personally, I’d prefer Boone because he has proven that he is a decent player in the past, but like I said, we could probably get Armstrong for free, so he would be okay too.
Boone is probably the better of the two. Both meet the legit 6’10, good athlete, pretty quick criteria. That type looks attractive for defense. And yet both disappointed on D at least last season. Both were UConn and got good instruction. They probably aren’t going to get better- unless they got boat loads of time and attention. Boone isn’t quite 25 yet and neither is Armstrong. They’ll probably be courted for back-up $2 mil a yr deals. Might find better, many teams do worse.
Both can run well I believe. Can’t say any the 3 vet centers this team has excel at that. Ibaka of course would. People mention Kemp. Might be worth mentioning Amare. As pie in the sky.
Boone is the far better defensive rebounder and far less turnover prone. Out of Maryland area. Might know some folks in common with Green or Durant.
@Royce
Discussion? Crow’s been talking to himself for a while now.
@Anonymous
A little comment consolidation on Crow’s part would be great. Makes reading these things more than a little difficult.
yea to be honest i don’t even read crows comments, no offense, so many comments that feel like your doing a research paper, and the fact that i have yet to hear him say anything humorus or get even chuckle
c’mon crow lets hear some random humorus banter! that is oklahoma or thunder related… hehe
Excellent points. It looks to me like Presti kind of shares my view that there are really only three positions on the floor. Point guard, wings, and post players. It’s more nuanced than that, but I generally believe that shooting guards/small forwards and power forward/center are pretty interchangeable. As the NBA progresses to the more uptempo style, which is going to happen because the league always tweaks the rules to benefit whatever sells the most tickets–and D’Antoni ball is the biggest draw right now, versatility is going to be very important.
As for the rotation: Scott Brooks likes to keep the rotation short. He generally played only 8-9 on any given night. Some guys are going to be left out. I think Ibaka will either spend some time in Tulsa, or else be on the inactive roster a lot. Mullens probably the same. Weaver and White will be with the big team, but play sparingly.
I think you’re spot on at PG, but I do suspect that Livingston and Westbrook will share SOME time on the floor. I imagine that Sefolosha will begin the season as the starter at SG, but eventually plays less than half the game with Harden (assuming he stops getting a minor injury everytime he steps on the floor) and Livingston taking the rest. I can’t argue with your SF prediction, but I would be shocked if Green isn’t the starter at PF playing about thirty minues/game there. Krstic will play about 25 minutes at center, with Collison rotating with him there and playing PF when Green is giving Durant his five minutes a night to rest. Thomas will get less than ten minutes, when healthy.
Comment consolidation would be nice, sorry. But if that is the worst thing happening, I fail to see it as a big issue. Whether it is a new post or not they are just a string of usually short paragraphs. If I am talking to myself sometimes it is because I have things I want to say. Sure it would be nice to get more direct feedback on content and have discussion but I can’t control who comments back. Notice I have almost always commented on other people’s stuff when I can or when asked. If you don’t want to comment on my stuff, that’s fine but then don’t say it is me talking to myself, it is you choosing not to engage in discussion. I could tell some jokes but frankly I am not interested in doing so. I am not seeking laughs, just interested in basketball.
But have it, I’ve scratched my comment itch one more time and I’m out for awhile and some day for good.
A string of comments happens because I am trying to do other stuff at the same time. I’ll add a comment then move back to other stuff. And I occasionally have computer issues and lose stuff so I say it and move on.
I can see some might find it intimidating or distasteful but I am sorry I can’t help that. I can’t wait around to take a turn every hour or few hours or once a day. Everyone has unlimited access to send a comment in at any time.
No real logjam. Comment or don’t. You focus on yours.
Mine are mine.
But as I said, have at it, uninterrupted. Til I want to add something.
The logjam idea is a very interesting take on Presti’s whole scheme. On one hand, having someone able to move and switch on just about anyone else could be a boon on the court. On the other, it may mean sacrificing something important at a necessary position (I’m looking at you Jeff Green).
We have logjams at positions that, inevitably, still aren’t very good. We have a bunch of 2s, but the best of the bunch is a rookie. We have a bunch of 4s, but it was one of our weakest positions last year relative to our competition. We are “set” at the 5, but Krstic isn’t a center that can take this team places without a dominant 4. It’s nice that we have a dozen guys who can play the 2-4, but not so much that only Durant is a quality starter there.
My personal starting five would be the same as Joe’s. My hope is that Westbrook’s finishing will improve greatly and that many of his turnovers can be turned into kickouts to Harden and Durant. I don’t want to ask much of Harden, but I would love for him to take and hit open threes. No one respected our outside game at all last year, and our SGs had a terrible habit of taking 2 steps inside the 3 before bricking a shot. Harden doesn’t need to take over anything, just make those shots he predecessors could not. Durant needs to become a superstar. Collison needs to bang bang and bang some more down low. Krstic needs to either improve his mid-range game or focus on taking 10 footers. Green needs to come off the bench at 110%, and Brooks needs to take him out before he fades. Green was great for short stretches in games, Brooks absolutely has to utilize that or else Green needs to be moved for someone more suited to the 4/5, and less suited to the 3.
@Crow
Don’t worry Crow, I like you. Maybe I’m a bit of a nerd but I enjoy your stats and the way you present the topic at hand.
I totally agree with your point about the midrange game. While most people agree that Westbrook needs to improve his J (so do I), the larger issue in my mind is his decision making when he drives to the hoop. I think for the purpose of the team that he would be better emulating Magic than Jordan, and by that I mean he doesn’t have to take over with scoring but can score as needed while making great decisions to get the others involved. I’d rather see him drive and dish any day than attempt an 18 footer. Now if he actually develops Jordan’s tendency for making those shots, that’s a different story. Regardless, I think Westbrook holds the keys for this team. If he makes a big leap this year then the Thunder will be in the playoffs.
I try not to worry too much whether folks like me or not, something I continue to work on, but thanks johnnyco.
I agree with you that Westbrook would be wise to get the most out of drive n dish by studying the masters about how and when to dish. He probably does some but how much and whether it is enough of a focus we will see. I get the impression that Baron Davis makes some impression on him as a UCLA forebearer and as a summer pickup ‘mate. Pluses and minuses to that. A dual threat guy can be a good thing. But Baron hasn’t always blended it well.
Durant at SG gives OKC its best lineup, allowing the team to benefit from Green’s versatilty; he needs more time on the court. Harden’s development will benefit from coming off the bench, though I think he’ll contribute as a rookie. Kristic at center makes most sense, with Collison starting and playing primarly at PF.