Players have bad games all the time, so do coaches, and Nate's first really horrific performance was last night in Cleveland. I'm sure it sounded good at the time, but with a hat tip to The Sports Guy, where was the GM of Common Sense when they got together and put Graham, Udoka, and The All Star in the starting lineup last night? The All Star is beyond dreadful, currently sporting the lowest PER I have ever seen at 3.34 (15 is league average). Graham is at 6.66 and Udoka is at 10.50. Folks, there's just no way in hell you are winning an NBA game with those three guys starting and playing like that. You could have Kobe and LaBron as your other 2 starters and you'd still suck. This should be obvious however since Zach is third in the entire NBA at 27.71 PER and Jack's better than average at 16.94 and they were still in a big hole early again last night.
Enough is enough, I know there's a learning curve and Nate's trying to develop his young guys, but Outlaw and Aldridge have to start. The starting 5 clearly should be Jack, Dixon, Outlaw, Z-bo, and Aldridge. This team has a chance to exceed expectations by a fairly wide margin, but they have to tread water until they get Roy and Joel back.
One last note about The Marcus, um, yeah, he's a lot better than I gave him credit for. His sample size is still too small to make a lot of use out of his PER (it's in Z-bo territory at 27.37), but it doesn't take any advanced stat matrix to see that the guy's pulling down 10 points and 7 boards in 20 minutes a night early in his career and is definitely a big piece of the future in Rip City.
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