Give some time to test Rashard Lewis at SF?

To preserve Jamison for the playoffs and to keep his motor for the next 2 years, I’d play him less than Washington has. So, I still see Anderson getting 12-15 minutes of burn. With this post-trade lineup, I’d just about platoon the 2nd unit and maybe load Howard with more minutes than Gortat (and probably more evenly split time between Jameer and Hinrich). With this team’s depth somebody is losing time, just the way it is. (see also Brandon Bass/Marcin Gortat with current lineup). And yeah, I could be happy flopping Hinrich and Jameer so Jameer starts.

Yea, I think it’d make sense to start VC at SF and play him against other SF’s, or have Rashard play more minutes at SF instead, so he and Ryan can get out together more and Bass can have consistent contributions. I’d prefer to start VC at SF and have Barnes and Pietrus focus on opposing SGs to improve defensively. Im not so sure how Rashard would do defending 3’s but like the chemistry and offense it should bring by getting Ryan and Bass in there more. I just don’t know if it’s worth starting Shard at 3 for, and Im only saying it because of how bad this slump is going.

The numbers point the other way, so I want to see it. In the 39 minutes Shard has been at SF this year, those units are an average of +6.58 (106.58 vs. 100 OFF/DEF rating). But the same sizes are sooooo small.

To get the above #s, I took all the 5-man units from this season that have Lewis, a center, and another PF to assemble the list of Lewis at the 3. See here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgZvYHyE1zECdFYwMmZ1aThfMWNoeGhzNTFlRk5jV3c&hl=en

So, you’d say Shard is slower than Hedo? ‘Cause Shard at the 3 with Jamison or Anderson at the 4, it looks a lot like last year’s [winning] team. And without the trade, sliding Lewis to the 3 is a better option to try to replicate last year than putting Ryan at the 3 (by far). SVG has tried Lewis at the 3 with Nelson 0.05 minutes all season!

Annnd, Lewis’ per 48 numbers for this year at 82games are higher at SF than PF….again, small sample size.

Annnd, Ryan’s numbers at PF have been better than Lewis so far this year. So, what do you do with that? IMO, last year worked pretty well for the Magic. Howard-Anderson-Lewis-Pietrus-Nelson looks a lot more like last year than Howard-Lewis-Barnes-Carter-Nelson (‘cause Carter is chucking instead of setting up Lewis, et. al) and therefore should be tried. (Yes, I know Shard can’t handle and distribute like Hedo, so what? Try it anyway.)

Carter can either produce or suck it up when he’s benched. Somebody needs to change their game (Carter) or change their place in the lineup (ie. Carter again, or Pietrus defense #s are> Barnes at SF).

And while I’m mentioning last year, imo, one of the things we are no longer doing very well is closing out on 3pt shooters. We are getting skunked at our own game.

Well, in a much more realistic scenario (and to your joy), someone suggested to me that the Magic should take Jameer out for a month or so. He argues that Jameer is coming back too slowly because his speed is not catching up yet and severely hurting him on defense. More worrisome is that he argued the knee injury comes back to full health on it’s own accord, whether or not you’re playing on it, and in fact, the chance of Jameer getting seriously re-injured has never been higher than now so he should be taken out for a month for more rest and low level rehabbing so that his knee can get fully better.