Sunday Poll: Playoffs, Development or Lottery Balls

I agree with you, Jordan. Player development is the most important thing: to contend in the future, these guys have to develop now.

In this case, player development done as it should be would probably lead to a Top 5 pick. I would be perfectly OK if it did not, which would mean that the young guys are playing at a very high level relative to their experience and expectations.

What I do not want to see is a lot of minutes played by the following players, in approximate order of how often they see the floor:

1) This space left intentionally blank for the unrealistic possibility that Collins would actually plant the Albatross on the bench.
2) Bill Green should never see the floor. HIs minutes should be taken 100% by Meeks.
3) Jason Kapono should rarely see the floor. His positional minutes should be taken by Thad, and his “designated shooter” minutes should be played by Meeks.
4) Andres Nocioni. His minutes should also mostly be played by Thad, although I like him better than Kapono. At least he tries to play defense and rebound. He may see the floor a little.
5) Lou Williams. I hesitate to reduce the minutes of such a popular player, particularly a future MVP, and one who is only 23 years old, but he needs to settle into a role and just play that role. Lou should be paired only with Jrue or Turner, never with Meeks. I believe Lou is a small scoring SG who can be a secondary ballhandler (the role that Iguodala would play in the starting lineup as far as ballhandling, with Jrue as the primary handler), and should be paired with a primary ballhandler who can play defense and match up with larger players (this assumes Turner can play D). It’s not that he shouldn’t be part of the rotation, it’s that he should be fit into an overall concept where he only has to do what he does well.

My rotation would look something like this (assuming Collins doesn’t put The Albatross where he belongs):

Jrue
Turner
Iguodala
The Albatross
Hawes
-—————————-
Thad
Speights
Meeks
Lou
Nocioni
-—————————-
Kapono
Bill Green

I know people don’t agree that Meeks needs more burn than Lou. But they don’t know what they have with Meeks, and they have a pretty good idea who Lou is at this point. We are talking about maximizing player development, not maximizing winning games.