"Because he's gonna have the ball in his hands so much," Rivers said during media week, "he has to have an understanding every night of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to get, and he has to be able to communicate that through everybody on the floor. In fact, Rivers has outright said he is going to hand the keys of the offense to Simmons and get out of the way. Simmons can slide up when Harris hits the bench, and I think it'd be a good idea to have him defending stretch four types in the middle stretches of games so that he can take some plays off or potentially get more active in passing lanes.Īn important note: Simmons is in the forward bucket because of his defensive assignments, not because I see Rivers taking playmaking duties out of his hands. A lot of people have expressed concern about the lack of "power forward depth" but that's a non-issue with the way the game is played today. There are defensive concerns with a combination like Milton-Maxey (predominantly on Milton's end of things) but I can easily make the case that the problems are at least as bad with a guy like Korkmaz or Joe on the floor in Maxey's place, with less dynamism off of the bounce to boot.Īgain, I think there's some overlap between these two groups, but this time I think the malleability is on the defensive end of the floor. My question at this stage is how small Rivers is willing to get in the backcourt. They don't have a real-deal creator in this group, but that's not as big of a deal on a roster with Simmons and Embiid. Even within that trio, there's a difference between Maxey's finishing (strongest at the rim) and Curry/Milton's finishing (strongest beyond the arc). Curry, Milton, and to a lesser extent Maxey fit within both buckets as guys who can be expected to create some for others and will finish lots of plays themselves. Philadelphia has a lot of guys who straddle the line between the two archetypes, which is both a gift and a curse. Of this group, I would say Walton is the only guy you'd consider a "true point guard" and I don't think he'll make it past camp cuts. a distributor or a scorer) and how that impacts the sort of players put around them. ![]() What's important to know is whether a guy is a play creator or a play finisher (e.g. In fact, guard descriptors are pretty useless in a general sense. These two position groups are being lumped together because the positional alignment doesn't necessarily reflect how they'll be used for this team. Any additions/changes to the framework of that deal, while still possible, have not been revealed yet.) Guards (A quick note before we get going - this assumes the Al Horford for Danny Green/Terrance Ferguson swap will go through as planned on December 8th. And as always, while others have their own rules for positional designations, I live by one basic belief: you are who you are able to defend. Consider this your cheat sheet as we head into the year, and feel free to pair it with my thoughts on how the rotation might shake out under Doc Rivers. If you haven't been making your own handy depth chart at home, I figured I'd do you a solid and put together one myself.
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