re: Open practice takeaways

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Favors is a center that was masquerading as a PF because he played with Gobert

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Fair enough. I looked at that group last night and didn't see anybody that looked like an actual post defender. I'm not ready to hitch my wagon to "Jahlil Okafor - Rim Protector."

We'll be a bitch defending on the perimeter, which means feeding the bigs will be a challenge, so that's a positive.

The other thing that stood out last night was that we have ONE knockdown shooter (Redick) and everybody else that's a "shooter" tops out somewhere between "pretty good" and "not great."

A lot of the stuff I bring up might be masked if we stick with Alvin's preferred system and score 130 points a night.

Derrick Favors is the key to winning basketball
I’ll keep saying it till he makes me apologize but okafor is not an NBA player

If favors gets hurt they’ll not be winning

I think that backup minutes at the 5 is one of the more interesting questions right now. A couple of weeks ago, I thought that Okafor would get most of those minutes. Now, I think that they may go to Zion or Melli. That would result in Melli playing starter minutes. We'll see.

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Now, I think that they may go to Zion or Melli. That would result in Melli playing starter minutes. We'll see.

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100% agree
they have two years of melli relatively cheap, they are going to play him.
favors will get 30 minutes minimum, I say Melli gets 12 and zion gets the rest at 5.
if okafor gets anything other than spot end of quarter minutes or garbage time I will be very surprised

if anyone gets hurt, expect okafor to get cut and they can use the DPE. And even if they don’t need it early, the smart play will be to sign a player to the DPE for use in a trade in Feb. either way, I doubt Okafor will be any factor on the court and likely won’t be on the team past feb.

Griffin went out of his way to praise Kenrich on the radio the other day.

more likely you are half right
Melli would come in for zion at 4, then move to 5 when favors goes out and they go small with holiday/Redick/guard 3 (hart, NAW, FJ)

that gives Melli an extended stretch to get in the flow, gives favors a rest, and keeps zion out of the block. Zion could then come back in for Melli then favors in for a guard to resume the starting five.

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Okafor will be the first off the bench at the 5

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That's if they need a bigger 5 off the bench. Almost every team in the league goes small and quick with their bench; playing in space ain't for Okafor. Frankly, I'd be shocked if he sees regular minutes.

To me, they should think about subbing Zion out early- say after 6-8 minutes to get him back in v 2nd teams. He should be able to terrorize back up frontcourts with his abilities. They can put more shooting around him in some of those units and really turn on the gas.

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He's also got enough of a name and somewhat unique skill set that maybe he can net us something at the trade deadline.

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yeah...no

I definitely think we will see him start (a la Keith Bogans) if Favors goes out for any length of time or gets into major foul trouble. And his shot creation ability could be useful every once in a while since the Pels are a little light there.

But I just don't see him playing 10-15min on a nightly basis if the frontcourt is healthy because of the limitations you pointed out.

I'd much rather see Zion, Melli, Ingram split those minutes up.

melli is going to surprise people.
that was a very sneaky pickup.
also Zion is not out of shape.
that shite is hilarious

After watching the open practice, my takeaway is that Zion might instantly be the best one in one player in the league. It looks like he might be able to score on anyone by driving past them/jumping over them every single time down the court. The whole season might end up being like that Detroit vs Cleveland series when young bron scores like 35 straight points at the end of the game. Boy that would suck, wouldn’t be fair at all. Pels would get an easy title for the next decade or so. No one wants it that easy.