Zach's a SG

[Lipoli390]

Given Sam's comment the other day and the way Zach played tonight against Indiana, I thought it was time to give this conversation its own thread. By the way, just in case you missed it, Zach had 26 points on 50% shooting and only 2 turnovers playing primarily at the SG position.

So yes, Zach is a SG. And I think it's clear he has the potential to be an outstanding possibly elite SG. Could he eventually develop into a PG? Perhaps, but he's not one now and it would be a long road for him if he ever got there. Right now only one person I'm aware of thinks that Zach's only chance of becoming a great player is as a PG. That one person is the stubborn, defiant Sam Mitchell.

Sam's assessment of Zach seems caught up in Sam's old-school, misguided obsession with size. Sam's thinking is narrow and really disappointing.

First and foremost it's about talent. Size is one factor, but then you have speed, quickness, overall athleticism and skill. And it's not like Zach is a lot shorter than most other SG. As for weight, it's a given that, at age 20, Zach will put on at least 10 pounds of muscle in the next couple years. Oh, and there's that 44" vertical along with the draft combine's best time in the agility test measuring lateral quickness.

Second, it's the mix of players. To the extent Zach is slightly undersized for his position, as our starting SG he'd be playing with a PG who's a great defender with above average length, a top defensive SF and a very good (eventually great) defender at center. That mix works well for Zach.

Finally, it's a small-ball League today. It's mainly a game of speed, quickness and 3-point shooting. Zach has all three attributes. In time, I see him becoming our best three-point shooter. Watching him you can tell he's a natural as a shooter.

As for Zach's size, I remember a rail thin unathletic SG named Reggie Miller leading his team to championship contention and that was at a time when size was more important than today. In any event, Zach's size is in line with SGs around the League. Zach is 6'5, 190. Consider the following:

Clippers - Jamal Crawford 6'5, 195
Clippers - JJ Redick 6'4, 190
Spurs- Manu Ginobili 6'6, 205
Thunder - Dion Waiters 6'4, 220
Grizzlies - Tony Allen 6'4, 213
Grizzlies - Courtney Lee 6'5, 200
Suns - Brandon Knight 6'3, 190
Suns - Archie Goodwin 6'5, 200
Blazers - McCollum 6'4, 200
Wizards - Bradley Beal 6'5, 207
Pelicans - Eric Gordon 6'4, 215
Heat - Dwayne Wade 6'4, 220
Hornets - Jeremy Lamb - 6'5, 185

As you can see, LaVine's length is right on par with League SGs, including those on playoff teams. And although Zach is on the light side of the weight range for SGs, he's not that far off. Moreover, at age 20, he's bound to add at least 10 pounds of muscle over the next couple years. So LaVine has the edge on speed, quickness and athleticism. It's a wash on length. And LaVine is currently on the light side compared to his opponents.

So if Sam would actually look at the facts, he would see that his analysis is simply wrong. And he would go with his initial impulse to start Zach at SG. That's what Flip intended to do. Flip admitted publicly this summer that Zach's not a PG. Flip also said that to win in this League you need another ball-handler on the court with your PG. That was the role Flip envisioned for Zach. If Sam isn't smart enough to figure it out on his own, he should put Zach back in his natural SG position out of respect for Flip.

[m4gor [enjin:6667447]]

yea, when it comes to length and jumping the closest guy to him is probably Oladipo, have never heard anybody saying that he is too small to play SG .. I suppose we will have this kind of discussion every few games as long as Sam is a headcoach .. i believe tho that playing him at PG is not going to hurt his development as he still needs to improve ball handling .. i would also love to see him develop floater as he still shies a bit from contact around the rim and floater would help him tremendously

[bleedspeed]

CONTEXT - On this team LaVine is a PG. Rubios' minutes have been limited most of the year and I am sure his hamstring has not been 100% yet forcing Sam to have LaVine at PG because he is the second best option right now for someone that can start and play 30 minutes a night. I think Sam is annoyed with stupid media questions and having to answer to guys like Jerry. He needs to work on that because otherwise I think he is a damn fine coach and how he deals with the media hurts his image.

[Tactical unit]

Amen Lip Amen I really don't understand how people can even consider him as a PG. It's painful to watch him at PG you can tell he's over thinking and not in attack mode, and then there's the TO's while at PG the TO's soar. I'd much rather watch A. Miller and Tyus at the position if that means playing Zach at SG!

[bleedspeed]

The solution is trading Martin for a PG. I hope Milt can make it happen. Or just cut Rudez and sign Ridnour.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

I expected that the "Why doesn't Sam understand that I'm smarter than him" brigade would be out in force after Zach's fine performance next to Andre last night :) ! I/m afraid that you guys are going to continue to be disappointed, because we aren't going to face many backcourts with two 6'3" guys like we did last night (we will when we see Portland next). The good news is that we learned last night that Sam is flexible enough to adjust his rotations when the opponent puts an unusual lineup out there.

You can look at ESPN height and weight data (if Zach is 189 pounds, I'm 7'2"!), or you can look at what is happening on the court. I think Sam sees what I see...that this team is physically overmatched usually when two skinny guys like Zach and Wig are asked to "play up" against bigger competition. Maybe they will put on some weight in a few years and be able to play up, but right now they get bullied against bigger opponents. Sam gets that winning is dependent on creating matchup advantages in four key areas...height, strength, speed and talent...the more advantages you can create in these key areas, the better your chance of winning. That's why he is going to generally want Wig and Zach at SG and PG, although he will adapt against teams like Indy and Portland.

There are teams that will try to get by with smaller guys at SG, but they are not generally going to be championship teams. Monte Ellis is a marvelously talented player, but there's a reason he has only played 27 playoff games in 12 seasons...his teams always seem to be too small. Reggie Miller was successful and rail thin, but that was 25 years ago...and he was the greatest shooter of all time and taller at SG than 90% of his opponents.

I know posters here and on rubechat tore their hair out when Sam spoke on Chad Hartman's show about why he likes Zach at PG and Wig at SG, and I could hear the screams in living rooms when Jim Peterson spent 5 minutes during the third quarter last night making the same argument. There's no question that Zach is still more comfortable at SG than PG...at an inexperienced 20 years old, he is still learning the most difficult position in the NBA. But his PER of 16 shows an enormous leap over last season, and already his stats rank him higher than the average NBA backup PG. Sam's trusting him with 20-25 MPG against players who don't physically intimidate him has a lot to do with the progress he has showed this year.

I admit that this issue is personal to me because situations dictated that I had to "play up" in both high school and college, and I hated being shorter and lighter than my man every night...it's grueling and frustrating. I hope and expect that Sam will stay the course and continue to put these two budding superstars in situations where they have a physical advantage over their opponent. His strategy has been a big contributing factor to our improved 4-5 record this year, despite our Iron Horse starting PG missing 1/3 of the games so far.

[Monster]

I'll be right back I need to get some popcorn to watch this. Lol

I think people are taking Sam too seriously. He played Lavine at SG last night because he was playing well and he had a good matchup and Martin would have gotten hacked and no calls. Sam will play Lavine it's pretty clear to me he believes in Zach's talent more than anyone else here. People seem to forget that.

There will be plenty of chances for Zach to play SG minutes where he will have good physical matchups. As it's been said teams go small often because the shorter player happens to be better than the longer player and Zach may be one of those guys. Tons of teams employ combo guards as SGs off the bench Zach will get to play against those guys in addition to other starting SGs. LST Zach was 181 lbs at the combine and he clearly looks to have added some muscle over the offseason...so no you aren't 7'2". Lol He needs to get stronger but I am not that worried about that long term. Short term him playing at PG does give him some advantages and that's part of Sam's point. Same thing with Wiggins at SG it makes sense to a certain extent. Part of what makes this all work is that Prince has been a very solid contributor as a SF and I am not sure what the Wolves record would be without him.

One other thing. Martin has struggled at times this year. It's starting to look like we have the depth to not have to rely on as a scorer. Miller probably won't play quite as good as he has the last couple games but he actually does give you a scoring dimension because of his old man game. His defense probably isn't much different than Martin's although it seems like Martin is putting in the work/effort on that end. If this team can ride Martin when he is hot and Sam can sit him at the times he is not or when he isn't the right player for the situation (not always easy to know when that is but Sam got it right last night) that could be a good thing. Will Martin be ok with that? Idk we will find out. If Zach keeps playing well and Rubio is healthy Martin will be sitting more often.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Lip, Well thought out post.

LST, It's OK for us to question Mitchell. As Lip said, Flip declared once and for all in both words and actions this offseason that LaVine is not a PG. Signing Andre Miller and trading three second rounders for Tyus Jones made it pretty obvious what Flip thought. So are you questioning Flip's judgment?

Yes, Zach's box score-oriented stats are up this year (PER and WS/48) and that's a good thing. But all one has to do is look at how the team performs with the oldest player in the league running the offense or a PG that can't shoot and you instantly recognize the massive gap in skills - a gap that can't be attributed to simply lack of experience. It's lack of instincts too, something usually honed in elementary and secondary school, when the brain is still forming.

The answer here is to trade Martin and make LaVine Wiggins' backup at SG, where he's far more likely to go up against similarly-sized backups (or smaller in a lot of cases). I'm really hoping that happens this season.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Q, I'm completely fine with questioning Mitchell...I'm holding him accountable for us being last in 3-point attempts. He needs to show more leadership in that area. I did notice less reluctance last night from Belly, and I wonder if Sam is encouraging him to pull the trigger every time he is open...he should be.

But yes, if Flip really did think Zach was a SG (although his actions last year don't substantiate that), I do question his judgement. I always found Flip to be a likable guy with a good offensive mind, but I also thought he neglected the defensive side of the ball too often...by the way, I think most message boards tend to spend 90% of their time talking about offense also. I prefer Sam as a coach because he is unabashedly a defensive guy...he made that clear from the first day of practice. And I've always been a defense guy. And while Flip deserves some of the credit for our defensive improvement by bringing in Towns, KG and Prince, Sam deserves most of the credit for insisting on a defensive culture and setting up rotations designed first and foremost to stop the other team.

This debate is going to continue throughout the year, I expect, but it's a good one. I like the fact that at least we have a debate here. Over on rubechat, the consensus is that Sam isn't capable of even feeding himself!

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

LST, I'm not even making an argument that Flip is better than Mitchell. I've been open-minded about Mitchell and definitely appreciate the defensive mentality. It's on this specific issue (Zach at PG vs. SG) where I quibble with him, along with most everyone else.

My point was that Flip, who is just as much of an expert if not more so than Mitchell when it comes to player positions, viewed Zach as a SG. He only played him at PG last season in the name of development. After he saw how awful he was, he realized it was no long term fit and proceeded to bring Andre Miller and Tyus Jones on board.