Please for the love of God get Martin off this team. He brings nothing to the table that can't be replaced. Martin for Courtney Lee just makes too much sense for both teams. Bazz is officially out of my rotation until he learns to be a team player.
The current Kmart don't make sense for the grizzlies.I honestly think no team will touch him outside of an exchange of a bad contract or 2nd round pick. Martin is not the easiest guy to play with on both ends. To get the most out of him, you need to make him a focus of your team's offense. Reduce his role then we get the current martin. If Sam has balls then he should just bench martin and shorten the rotation. Playing too many guys hoping one catch fire is not a good plan.
worldK wrote:The only lineup change I see is martin out of the starting lineup. I don't see Sam starting lavine. I want lavine to start but I don't see Sam doing it because he will be contradicting himself and make himself look bad.
I think he starts bazz in place of martin. Sam will never bench Wiggins,towns,rubio and kg. He tried prince,martin and now I'm guessing he starts bazz tom.
If he's too proud/stubborn to start Lavine over our worst rotation player in Bazz then he needs to be fired tomorrow.
I'm all for firing him tomorrow. He is a bad coach. We needed monster games from rubio,wig and towns to win most games this year.
I listened to Sam's post-game comments driving home from a terrible Wolves performance tonight. Unlike many of his pressers, I found tonight's comments quite measured and thoughtful. He didn't fight with the press, but instead talked about what he was displeased with. And the main thing he was displeased with is the same thing I was mostly displeased with tonight...our horrible perimeter defense. After a depressing game, I was heartened to hear Sam say there would be lineup changes in light of the recent poor defensive effort.
Anybody want to venture a guess as to why we ranked in the top 10 in defense and were 4-2 after our first 6 games, and why we have now lost 7 of our last 8 games and rank near the bottom defensively? Anybody? Anybody? Buehler? After the 6th game, Rubio got hurt again, and as the losses began to mount up, Sam inserted Kevin Martin into the starting lineup in an effort to get more offense on the court. And our defense has been a disaster ever since that move. We're scoring more points, to be sure...but defense wins ballgames and the futility of our defense with #23 on the court far offsets the additional offense he provides. I will be very disappointed if Sam doesn't revert back to the lineup that was so successful at the start of the year: Rubio, Wiggins, Prince, KG and Towns.
Maybe it's just me, but I much prefer first quarters that end with 22-17 leads like they were at the start of the season rather than the 32-26 deficits we're seeing with Kevin in the lineup. Going back to the original successful lineup works because:
1) It puts our best defense on the floor from the start of the game, and doesn't allow the opponents offense to get in gear and their confidence to build.
2) It forces our budding offensive stars Towns and Wiggins to be active offensively and handle most of the scoring from the start, which hopefully carries through to the rest of the game.
3) It allows our weaker defensive second unit to line up against the other team's reserves who will be less able to exploit our defensive weakness, while still providing some potent offensive firepower from Martin, LaVine and Shabazz.
It's very simple really. It worked at the start of the season, and it will work now. Sam is too hard-headed to admit he made a mistake in taking Tay out of the starting lineup, but I do expect him to make this simple lineup change tomorrow.
Please for the love of God get Martin off this team. He brings nothing to the table that can't be replaced. Martin for Courtney Lee just makes too much sense for both teams. Bazz is officially out of my rotation until he learns to be a team player.
The current Kmart don't make sense for the grizzlies.I honestly think no team will touch him outside of an exchange of a bad contract or 2nd round pick. Martin is not the easiest guy to play with on both ends. To get the most out of him, you need to make him a focus of your team's offense. Reduce his role then we get the current martin. If Sam has balls then he should just bench martin and shorten the rotation. Playing too many guys hoping one catch fire is not a good plan.
Martin has always made sense for the Grizzlies. The one thing they've lacked for years is perimeter scoring which Martin provides. Martin is a better Vinsanity right now. You can play Martin in between Conley and Allen and he can be the number 1 scoring option of that group. Memphis is on the brink of blowing it up and getting Martin could give them the boost they desperately need for the offense. Meanwhile we need perimeter defense on the second unit where Lee comes in. Their wing rotation of Lee/Allen/Green/Barnes desperately lacks shooting again this year which Martin is at least still above average from 3 at 36% which is considerably higher than those other wings.
worldK wrote:The only lineup change I see is martin out of the starting lineup. I don't see Sam starting lavine. I want lavine to start but I don't see Sam doing it because he will be contradicting himself and make himself look bad.
I think he starts bazz in place of martin. Sam will never bench Wiggins,towns,rubio and kg. He tried prince,martin and now I'm guessing he starts bazz tom.
I'm a big Bazz fan, world, but Sam isn't going to promote him after his worst game of the year...he was dreadful tonight. With his post-game comments about needing more defense, I think you're right that Martin will be benched. But I can't see him putting Bazz into the starting lineup after his defensive futility tonight.
I don't know, LST, I think we are about to see Miller getting the backup PG minutes, and Zach as the starting SG. Basically what we thought we were going to get at the beginning of training camp...
Khans I don't think grizz will want martin. As you said, they are in the brink of blowing it up and martin don't make sense for them now. Lee, as a 3 and d sg has more value than martin who is in a season long slump. A martin for Lee swap doesn't make them better.
The bench should be prince/bjelica/dieng/Miller/bazz.
Martin gets dnps from now on. Simplify things and make Wiggins/lavine and towns the top 3 options on offense. Build the offense around those 3 and their development should be the main focus.
60WinTim wrote:I don't know, LST, I think we are about to see Miller getting the backup PG minutes, and Zach as the starting SG. Basically what we thought we were going to get at the beginning of training camp...
Sam may lose me as his only advocate on this board if he does that, Tim. I agreed with his comment tonight that our defense needs to improve, but more minutes for Andre Miller doesn't help our defense at all...it makes our defense even worse. Moving Zach to SG also forces Wig to play SF, and as Britt Robson said in his most recent Wolves article, he loses a lot of his defensive advantage when he moves to SF. I'll be really surprised if Sam makes that move.
Lavine is the best player not starting right now on the team. He's earned the spot. That's it. Nobody else on the bench has played better than him and is deserving of the starting spot more. He's at minimum the 4th best player on the team right now. I don't care who loses the minutes or gets the DNP's between Bazz, Prince and Martin or how it will affect our bench. You win more games because of your starting 5 than your bench. It's time to stop thinking about everyone else and time to start thinking about Zach. Wiggins is just gonna have to suck it up. It's time to stop creating lineups for offense and defense for the starting 5 and just put the 5 best guys on the court and let them play.
