Geez, the day this site gets 100 posts in a preseason game thread I know I'm in trouble...Notice to management participants. We need to keep the threads coming.
I just can't believe we have a game in the books. While I don't read much into preseason it is all we have, so lets take this opportunity to overanalyze the petty stats and read tons into a boxscore...
Kevin Durant was sub-par. Do you think Ron Artest may have been hyped to guard him? Being matched up against arguably the leagues best defender in your very first NBA game is noteworthy. Lets make sure to note an asterisk next to his stats when we reference them.
That said we're only one game into the "Kevin is a shooting guard" experience and without seeing a minute of it live I already question whether it is the right thing to do. Can Delonte West or Damien Wilkens start at the SG spot with KD at the SF? Does it make sense to consider that option? I simply love what Delonte brings to the table and either of those guys provides some defense to balance out the young roster. If you started Watson, West, Durant, Collison, Swift you have some decent defense in the backcourt protecting Durant a little bit. Put Ridnour or Wilcox into that same lineup and it works as well.
As I see the lineups last night I begin to imagine the options of "what could have been." Part of me envisions that, had we not gotten the lucky ping pong ball we would have still drafted Jeff Green. Last night we potentiall would have rolled out Ridnour, Ray Allen, Rashard Lewis, Jeff Green, and Swift. Would you be more or less interested?
How about the "local draft product" theory. If we had number 5 don't pretend that there wouldn't have been a huge public clamour for us to draft Spencer Hawes. Now I don't think the team would have fallen for that, but just imagine us sitting here trying to save the team with last years team, minus Lewis, and Hawes sitting on the IR. OUCH!
Glad to be wrong about Swifty starting. Sounds like he had a good game. If he can play 25mpg and bring in 8-10 points and 8-10 rebounds per night what does that do to our team?