Posted this on another thread...
I want to suggest something without getting killed for continuing to beat a dead horse, and since this feed mentions "Andrew White's Return," I think it's fitting...
One of the most anticipated things about the start of this season was how incredibly deep this roster was going to be. I remember going to one of the exhibition games at the beginning of the year (albeit an exhibition) and with about ten minutes left in the game, Self took all five players out and put an entirely new set in. I thought, 'ok, here come the scrubs.' Not so. Not a single one of the five coming in was an Evan Manning, Justin Wesley, or Niko Roberts. And I couldn't help but think, that's something we can legitimately do this year. Incredible.
Now, one third of the way through the season we are locked into an eight-man rotation. With the starters being: Tharpe, Embiid, Selden, Wiggins and Ellis. Our three off the bench are Black, Mason, and Traylor. Sure, there's a Lucas sighting every once in a while, and sometimes even Greene or White get a couple of minutes, but for the most part that's our rotation.
Now, go back to the beginning of the season when we were all giddy with anticipation of this roster's depth. Imagine a game like the one on Sunday where we have White and Greene in the game (I'm sure the basketball aficionados will be critical of suggesting something like this as it would mean that Greene would be playing the three, and Wiggins would be out of the game with Perry playing the four or Wiggins being forced to play the four), Embiid gets doubled in the post and is able to kick it out to the perimeter where we're able to move the ball efficiently around the perimeter to the open shooter and drill the open three. Maybe this is just my delusion, but the prospect of being able to do things like that is why we were all so excited at the beginning of the year.
Clearly, suggesting lineups like this come at the cost of other player's minutes. As @dylans pointed out in a post earlier today about out team's PER, some of our starters are leaving much to be desired. I'm sorry to pick on Wayne Selden, but he is a player averaging 26 minutes and has one of the lowest PERs (10.5) on our team. And before anyone jumps to point out to me that Greene is at a 5.7 PER, take into consideration that he is averaging 6 minutes a game, and hasn't even appeared in 4 of our games. The same can be said for Andrew White who is at a 17.6 PER and averaging 8 minutes a game. The statistics are there to provide the evidence. As Jesse Newell has continued to point out, Selden's defense is not as good as everyone seems to think; as @HighEliteMajor pointed out yesterday, it may be a bit of a Red Herring. Also, let me be clear, because I know this argument is not popular with some who believe Selden is the better option, I'm not suggesting that Self bury Selden on the bench, but 5-7 (if not more) of his minutes can be distributed to someone else because I can't help but think if we are able to nail some threes in games where we have really struggled to shoot, we beat SDSU and Villanova.
The same argument can be made for Lucas over Black. Lucas has played less than a third of the minutes that Black has and has almost half the amount of rebounds as Black. In his limited time, Lucas has performed very well. Again, I'm not suggesting that we bury Black on the bench, but giving Lucas some more time may help us in games where we get killed on the boards.
This team lacks confidence. But this is two-sided. The bad news is the lack of confidence is contagious. The good news is, the spread of confidence, or swagger as HEM put it is also contagious, and a deafening and raucous AFH doesn't hurt either.
I could probably go on, but my first day of graduate school awaits! Let me know what you guys think.
RCJH
