Minnesota Sports Forum

This is among lineups that have played at least 15 games together. Food for thought with all the negativity being floated around. Perhaps if our bench didn't blow every lead the starters' built this year, we wouldn't be over analyzing the need to ditch our foundation.

What I would like to see: Keep the starting 5.

-Have Pek and Martin sub out in the 1st quarter so they can carry the offensive load with the 2nd unit. Pek shouldn't play more than 28-29 minutes anyway.
-Keep Dieng coming off the bench with regular minutes, so he can keep up his frantic level of energy, and then slide into the starting lineup when Pek inevitably gets hurt.
-Use Martin as an overpaid scorer with a reduced role (since nobody is taking that contract on), finding someone who can play defense to take his crunch-time minutes.
-Try to trade Barea for whatever this summer and use the mid-level to find a backup Point Guard or 3&D wing.

We need 50+ wins to hope Love stays. I don't think we'll get there by blowing anything up

Our first unit played really well this year. But they also didn't seem to drop off much after Pek went down. Somehow we have to significantly improve out bench, and it just seems to me that trading Pek for a solid producer is a better option than keeping him for limited minutes.

If Pek suits up for 3/4 of the games and only plays 28 minutes, we'd be paying him almost $7,000 for every minute he's on the court! To put that in perspective, Miami pays LeBron about $6500 for every minute he's on the court.

True, but to be fair LeBron is probably worth several times the max and he took less to go to Miami. Comparing Pek to other centers is probably more fair. Hibbert, Bogut, and Splitter play less than 30 minutes. I think you're right that Pek is a bit overpaid, though

kms789 wrote:True, but to be fair LeBron is probably worth several times the max and he took less to go to Miami. Comparing Pek to other centers is probably more fair. Hibbert, Bogut, and Splitter play less than 30 minutes. I think you're right that Pek is a bit overpaid, though

Yeah, that's a fair point.