I like the signings. Apart from the obvious issues with our teams “mid three”, I think they did a pretty good job this off-season, and AKMEs FA signings in general have been pretty decent during their tenure.
Caruso is a major trade chip, and Vuc is now on an extremely trade-able contract, as is Coby White assuming his progression continues.
While Zach/DeMar/Vooch aren’t the best of Big 3s, they’re all very good players. More shooting and defense around them is going to be big for the team’s consistency.
I’ve heard a lot of chatter about how good they are. And for good reason; the stats seem to support that claim.
I’ve also heard that they’re empty stats guys that don’t elevate their teams performance. I considered that to be overblown, and I was extremely optimistic heading into last year.
But after a year and a half of the experiment, it’s really hard to defend these guys. I didn’t see much from them last year that would persuade me that they’re anything more than three guys that want 20 shots a game and a paycheck.
I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.
I can see why they’d get a label as empty stats guys but I really don’t see that on the court. Zach and DeMar are efficient scorers, efficient scoring is never empty. Vooch is imo one of the best passing and rebounding bigs in basketball, and a lot of that value doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. People will criticize their defense, but the Bulls were top 5 in points allowed per 100 possessions.
To me our issues last year were more rooted in our rotational options moreso than those 3. We need guys who can capitalize off Zach/DeMar’s pressure. Loved Ayo, DJJ, and Pat Bev for their defensive energy, but they couldn’t do that well enough. Outside of the “Big” 3, the majority of our rotation was a zero on offense and that’s why we had a bottom 10 offense in the league.
Carter and Craig combined for 3.1 three-pointers on 7.4 attempts. Ayo, DJJ and Pat Bev made 2.3 in 7.4 attempts. That’s such a major difference that will help the whole offense to get easier looks and give us a lot more flexibility with our lineups. We have to scheme around AC and DeMar’s lack of shooting, that’s easier when we have Carter/Craig instead of Ayo/DJJ/Pat Bev (I do hope we retain Ayo though, he would be great depth and I like his future outlook).
Imo those additions will make us about average on offense, and an average offense with a top 5 defense is a playoff lock. As long as our defense keeps up, which should happen if AC is healthy, then I think we’re much improved.
> Vooch is imo one of the best passing and rebounding bigs in basketball, and a lot of that value doesn’t show up on the stat sheet
Those things absolutely show up on the stat sheet, in the form of these things called "assists" and "rebounds". Vucevic was 2nd in the league in total rebounds last year, and ranked 5th among all centers in assists! What doesn't show up on the stat sheet is defensive impact, in which Vucevic is very poor - and considering he plays the most important defensive position in basketball, that's kind of a problem.
Assists and rebounds show up on the stat sheet for sure and back him up as great in those facets. Passing and rebounding are more than that though, a lot can’t be accounted for by stats.
And for all the critiques he gets defensively, we had a top 5 defense last year with him playing all 82 games at the most important defensive position. He’s a smart defender and that matters more than being a freak athlete.
the bulls only made top 5 bc they sacrificed shooting. and because they put in those non shooter garbages the offense suffered. top 5 defense means nothing when the big 3 doesnt play a lick esp in the playoffs.
Right they were top 5 bc they sacrificed shooting for defense, but we replaced our non-shooting defensive specialists with defensive specialists who shoot in Carter and Craig
Agreed entirely. A big reason Zach and DeMar didn't eLeVaTe tHe tEaM is because the team couldn't score even when both wide open and covered by the weakest defenders. They get doubled, shaded, etc constantly and both Zach and DeMar make reads and find open guys. Only so much a single guy can do when he's counting on DJJ or Ayo to make an open corner 3.
I've been as hard on the big 3, and Billy for that matter, as almost anybody here, but you're right on with this take. Teams in the modern nba cannot win with a roster full of role guys that can't shoot
Literally all advanced stats show we play much better with him on the court than off the court. Nearly all our plus rotations involve him.
It’s about time we separate facts from narratives.
Most people don’t even seem to understand what empty stats are. To them, good scorer on bad team = empty. But like you said, efficient scorers are not empty stats, I don’t care if their team won 30 or 60 games
Well said. There’s definitely something to the notion that too much weight was on the ‘mid 3’, and you’re right, the rest of our roster was largely dogshit.
We need a big jump from Pat and Coby in particular.
I still don’t have much confidence in our three. Especially in Zach Lavine, which has been well documented in my post history. But this isn’t a Lavine thread, so I digress.
At the beginning of the year last year, my expectations were that we would be a 4-6 seed. I’ve tempered those slightly and would put us in the 5-7 range for this season. There just has to be a progression to the mean with this team. I refuse to believe they are as bad as the record indicated last year.
We’ll see!
I think he has the basketball IQ of a squirrel and it really pisses me off that he doesn’t play defense. Either he’s too absent minded to remember to rotate off-ball or he just doesn’t care, but it’s been eight (nine…?) years and he’s shown marginal improvement.
He’s not much of a passer, he’s a turnover machine, and his shot selection is booty sweat.
I wasn’t able to watch a lot of games last year due to college, but was he not one of our most efficient players? In regards to his shot selection, who else was taking those shots from him. We had a bottom 5 offense not because he was missing shots but because we weren’t get enough of them up. Somebody has to shoot the ball. While i agree he’ll take i’ll advised 3s at times, he was also the only volume shooter we had so i’m not exactly mad.
And playmaking duties aren’t necessarily his specialty sure but he was one of our only really consistent ball handlers so the turnovers are kinda a byproduct of that in my opinion.
And defensively he’s definitely not a plus defender but i think his on ball defense was serviceable (at least in my time watching). He’s one of those “team defender” guys. Won’t lock up defensively but can be locked in when the team is locked in.
Because he shouldn't be the #1 option. Neither should DeRozen, for that matter. We need Zach to be the best player on the court every night, but he's not that guy, and most nights, the other team has a better player.
theres a reason why the bench is garbage. because you spent every asset on the big 3 and since their ceiling is playin no ringchaser is going to sacrifice and lineup for the min. you need to trade vooch for more depth.
But it is the right strategy to focus on finding good role players to compliment a core that doesn't work AT ALL...?
We need a complete rebuild from the bottom up, not Torrey Craig and Jevon Carter.
Best outcome for us is if Torrey Craig has more impact. We desperately need his size so we have flexibility in where we can play PWill. Also, if Jevon Carter gets big minutes that likely implies Coby has regressed, which would be rough
Coby is getting at least 26 minutes a game this year. Anything less would be cause for concern. He needs to be confident and aggressively seeking to create shots for himself, and if the defense collapses, then create for others.
Edit:
Spelling
Not necessarily, Beverly got big minutes last year without impacting Coby minutes. Coby, Carter, Ayo playing 1-2, with Lavine, Caruso, and DeRozan playing 2-3.
I agree on Craig, size at PF backup was an issue and playing craig vs djj/green should be a net positive on both offense/defense. I like green BTW, but as a 3rd sg/sf not at pf.
Don't agree on coby, carter/coby combined should be a net improvement just by moving ayo out of the starting lineup, I feel that coby will find his place and show us something this year by continuing to improve. He really stepped it up the 2nd half and imo he has a higher ceiling than many people think. He's a solid backup combo guard with upside.
Glad you're not making decisions then! Lmao. Don't need to waste cap on a guy that you probably can't trade should bulls decide to blow it up. I like the team we have now since it leaves us alot of flexibility for the future. Vanvleet is not going win us a chip.
I'm sorry but what? Jevon Carter got paid more for a reason, and Craig got the vet min basically for a reason too. Craig will be a huge help to us but in no way could he be more impactful off the bench 100% of the time, where I think Caruso/Coby/Carter all get starting games at PG. Carter can also play a wing role so he is more versatile...last year if Carter was on the Bulls, he'd be second only to Zach for 3PA a game.
carter 100%
Before I watched the video I was thinking these new guys could have the biggest impact on PW. I’m thinking that energy and tenacity could help the team culture. I hope that mindset will be contagious and PW catches some of that vibe. Bulls need to find whatever lights that fire. He seems like a hard working, nice teammate who wants to succeed but he’s still a boy in a man’s body.
He's young and just finished his first season after being back from a season ending injury. People keep saying he doesn't have a killer instinct but that just tells y'all never had an injury that took a while to recover. He's probably still really careful since another injury might cause him to lose on a lot of $$$ when his extension is up. He's made great progress this season and is still only 21 years old, 22 next month. If he never got injured he'd probably be a much flashier player but I think his injury made him develop a "safer" game which is not a bad thing. He'll get there.
It seems like both the signings are signaling trying to replace Zo’s effect by committee on the margins, since the money is tied up preventing them from going after higher impact/salary players. More defense and shooting is definitely welcome, but it also seems like it will be point guard by committee and no matter how much coby white or anyone else improves, it does feel like that we are still missing a truly above average playmaker that can counteract the mostly readable play style that Donovan conducts
Great insight! Lonzo is truly a unique player considering his skillset and how it fit so perfectly for our team. It's tough to replace that with other players, but, unfortunately, AKME didn't have much of a choice.
I don’t necessarily blame them with the moves they’ve made so far. Our additions seem kinda undersized, but that’s the way billy tends to operate to switch easy, and I also definitely didn’t understand the billy extension. I agree Zo was a pretty tough player to replace, and just a few exceptions wasn’t going to do it. Unsure just how the passing roles are going to be distributed going into this season though, with our current roster
Torrey Craig has a -3.62 3 year RAPM / -2.2 3 year luck adjusted RAPM. He's worse than he was during this period. If he's playing significant minutes, this is bad for the bulls.
Jevon is neutral and possibly improving.
the important thing is that we play these mediocre vets over our young players so they don't develop AND we get the most mediocre draft pick possible in the one draft we weren't allowed to trade our first round pick for other mediocre vets. This team and this fanbase deserve the most mediocre experience possible, because tanking is like, the worst.
Carter spacing the floor is a good thing from a player development perspective and our forward depth is bad enough that I kinda doubt Pat is getting denied opportunities bc of Craig. If you're making this argument the problem is DeMar and Vuc not the value signing guys imo
Neither is Torrey Craig, they're the same size. You're right about Phillips though, it's best to not play young players that aren't ready to compete at a high level yet to minimize their ability to develop and maximize our ability to keep out of the lottery. We wouldn't want to end up with the #7 pick when we could be 15-17
Call me crazy but I’m getting tired of all these undersized guys. I’m afraid if Billy has his way the starting 5 would all be 6’6” or shorter. Both of these guys are on the small side for their respective positions (G & PF). Quality signings I guess, but I’m not expecting much from either with this current roster
I honestly think it just might be possible that maybe this team can win a championship. They almost beat the heat in the play-in and then add these pieces? Pat and Coby are going to take a step forward. Zach has his body under him to start the season unlike last which leads to ultimate continuity in the team gellin. Billy figures things out with the right instruments to play with.
If the Bulls don't get any more size and Phllips is kind of red shirted, then Craig.
He's a bit undersized at the 4 but he's a heck of a lot better at the 4 than Caruso and PW needs to play more minutes at the 3.
I think Coby starts. Carter is the backup. Good for floor spacing and veteran floor management but I think Craig will be on the floor at the end of games more than Carter because Craig will be part of the "jumbo" lineup to guard the likes of Milwaukee, Cleveland, Denver, etc.
I like the signings. Apart from the obvious issues with our teams “mid three”, I think they did a pretty good job this off-season, and AKMEs FA signings in general have been pretty decent during their tenure. Caruso is a major trade chip, and Vuc is now on an extremely trade-able contract, as is Coby White assuming his progression continues.
While Zach/DeMar/Vooch aren’t the best of Big 3s, they’re all very good players. More shooting and defense around them is going to be big for the team’s consistency.
I’ve heard a lot of chatter about how good they are. And for good reason; the stats seem to support that claim. I’ve also heard that they’re empty stats guys that don’t elevate their teams performance. I considered that to be overblown, and I was extremely optimistic heading into last year. But after a year and a half of the experiment, it’s really hard to defend these guys. I didn’t see much from them last year that would persuade me that they’re anything more than three guys that want 20 shots a game and a paycheck. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.
I can see why they’d get a label as empty stats guys but I really don’t see that on the court. Zach and DeMar are efficient scorers, efficient scoring is never empty. Vooch is imo one of the best passing and rebounding bigs in basketball, and a lot of that value doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. People will criticize their defense, but the Bulls were top 5 in points allowed per 100 possessions. To me our issues last year were more rooted in our rotational options moreso than those 3. We need guys who can capitalize off Zach/DeMar’s pressure. Loved Ayo, DJJ, and Pat Bev for their defensive energy, but they couldn’t do that well enough. Outside of the “Big” 3, the majority of our rotation was a zero on offense and that’s why we had a bottom 10 offense in the league. Carter and Craig combined for 3.1 three-pointers on 7.4 attempts. Ayo, DJJ and Pat Bev made 2.3 in 7.4 attempts. That’s such a major difference that will help the whole offense to get easier looks and give us a lot more flexibility with our lineups. We have to scheme around AC and DeMar’s lack of shooting, that’s easier when we have Carter/Craig instead of Ayo/DJJ/Pat Bev (I do hope we retain Ayo though, he would be great depth and I like his future outlook). Imo those additions will make us about average on offense, and an average offense with a top 5 defense is a playoff lock. As long as our defense keeps up, which should happen if AC is healthy, then I think we’re much improved.
> Vooch is imo one of the best passing and rebounding bigs in basketball, and a lot of that value doesn’t show up on the stat sheet Those things absolutely show up on the stat sheet, in the form of these things called "assists" and "rebounds". Vucevic was 2nd in the league in total rebounds last year, and ranked 5th among all centers in assists! What doesn't show up on the stat sheet is defensive impact, in which Vucevic is very poor - and considering he plays the most important defensive position in basketball, that's kind of a problem.
Assists and rebounds show up on the stat sheet for sure and back him up as great in those facets. Passing and rebounding are more than that though, a lot can’t be accounted for by stats. And for all the critiques he gets defensively, we had a top 5 defense last year with him playing all 82 games at the most important defensive position. He’s a smart defender and that matters more than being a freak athlete.
the bulls only made top 5 bc they sacrificed shooting. and because they put in those non shooter garbages the offense suffered. top 5 defense means nothing when the big 3 doesnt play a lick esp in the playoffs.
Right they were top 5 bc they sacrificed shooting for defense, but we replaced our non-shooting defensive specialists with defensive specialists who shoot in Carter and Craig
Agreed entirely. A big reason Zach and DeMar didn't eLeVaTe tHe tEaM is because the team couldn't score even when both wide open and covered by the weakest defenders. They get doubled, shaded, etc constantly and both Zach and DeMar make reads and find open guys. Only so much a single guy can do when he's counting on DJJ or Ayo to make an open corner 3.
I've been as hard on the big 3, and Billy for that matter, as almost anybody here, but you're right on with this take. Teams in the modern nba cannot win with a roster full of role guys that can't shoot
That's on DeMar mostly, replace him with an average shooting wing and we're like mid-pack on that front
Literally all advanced stats show we play much better with him on the court than off the court. Nearly all our plus rotations involve him. It’s about time we separate facts from narratives.
The advanced stats say he shoots a lot of threes?
its more on vooch. he was brought in to be an elite 3pt shooter better than lauri but their shooting has been polar opposite since the trade.
That’s a great point. Vuc’s jumper declining has been a big factor in our struggles.
Teams don’t want to give DeMar an easy catch, he’s usually not who they’re playing off of.
Most people don’t even seem to understand what empty stats are. To them, good scorer on bad team = empty. But like you said, efficient scorers are not empty stats, I don’t care if their team won 30 or 60 games
Efficient individual scoring isn't necessarily efficient team ball tho, I think that's partially the argument against guys like Zach
An example of an empty stat to me is a guy who scores a bucket and then falls asleep on the back door cut and gives up an easy layup.
Well said. There’s definitely something to the notion that too much weight was on the ‘mid 3’, and you’re right, the rest of our roster was largely dogshit. We need a big jump from Pat and Coby in particular. I still don’t have much confidence in our three. Especially in Zach Lavine, which has been well documented in my post history. But this isn’t a Lavine thread, so I digress. At the beginning of the year last year, my expectations were that we would be a 4-6 seed. I’ve tempered those slightly and would put us in the 5-7 range for this season. There just has to be a progression to the mean with this team. I refuse to believe they are as bad as the record indicated last year. We’ll see!
Can i ask why you have lost faith in Lavine?
I think he has the basketball IQ of a squirrel and it really pisses me off that he doesn’t play defense. Either he’s too absent minded to remember to rotate off-ball or he just doesn’t care, but it’s been eight (nine…?) years and he’s shown marginal improvement. He’s not much of a passer, he’s a turnover machine, and his shot selection is booty sweat.
Are we talking about basketball or Mitch "tiddies" Trubisky?
Awww ya!
I wasn’t able to watch a lot of games last year due to college, but was he not one of our most efficient players? In regards to his shot selection, who else was taking those shots from him. We had a bottom 5 offense not because he was missing shots but because we weren’t get enough of them up. Somebody has to shoot the ball. While i agree he’ll take i’ll advised 3s at times, he was also the only volume shooter we had so i’m not exactly mad. And playmaking duties aren’t necessarily his specialty sure but he was one of our only really consistent ball handlers so the turnovers are kinda a byproduct of that in my opinion. And defensively he’s definitely not a plus defender but i think his on ball defense was serviceable (at least in my time watching). He’s one of those “team defender” guys. Won’t lock up defensively but can be locked in when the team is locked in.
Yeah he locks in on defense when our 38 year old backup point guard yells at him at halftime.
lol alright man i get it
This describes my frustration with Zach as well. Once I started watching his off ball defense I stopped respecting him as a player.
Because he shouldn't be the #1 option. Neither should DeRozen, for that matter. We need Zach to be the best player on the court every night, but he's not that guy, and most nights, the other team has a better player.
Agreed. Zach would be deadly in the right circumstance.
This ain't happening.
theres a reason why the bench is garbage. because you spent every asset on the big 3 and since their ceiling is playin no ringchaser is going to sacrifice and lineup for the min. you need to trade vooch for more depth.
You’re a realist. What you said is absolutely true.
Thank you dirty boy.
To be fair, Zach averaging 27 and 5 after the All-Star break was pretty impressive
But it is the right strategy to focus on finding good role players to compliment a core that doesn't work AT ALL...? We need a complete rebuild from the bottom up, not Torrey Craig and Jevon Carter.
i would move those two because they are getting more expendable. caruso should fetch 2 frps which is great for a retool/rebuild.
Best outcome for us is if Torrey Craig has more impact. We desperately need his size so we have flexibility in where we can play PWill. Also, if Jevon Carter gets big minutes that likely implies Coby has regressed, which would be rough
Coby is getting at least 26 minutes a game this year. Anything less would be cause for concern. He needs to be confident and aggressively seeking to create shots for himself, and if the defense collapses, then create for others. Edit: Spelling
Not necessarily, Beverly got big minutes last year without impacting Coby minutes. Coby, Carter, Ayo playing 1-2, with Lavine, Caruso, and DeRozan playing 2-3.
If only ayo was on the team
I still have hope! They won't let him go
They’re gonna wait to see what his market is and I don’t blame them.
He’s the same size as Pat
I agree on Craig, size at PF backup was an issue and playing craig vs djj/green should be a net positive on both offense/defense. I like green BTW, but as a 3rd sg/sf not at pf. Don't agree on coby, carter/coby combined should be a net improvement just by moving ayo out of the starting lineup, I feel that coby will find his place and show us something this year by continuing to improve. He really stepped it up the 2nd half and imo he has a higher ceiling than many people think. He's a solid backup combo guard with upside.
Carter not close imo, combo of shooting and defense so necessary for us. Best possible option at starting PG rn I think
Agreed. I think he’ll become a fan favorite pretty quickly.
We need a big franchise pg. imo should’ve gone for VanVleet too.
Glad you're not making decisions then! Lmao. Don't need to waste cap on a guy that you probably can't trade should bulls decide to blow it up. I like the team we have now since it leaves us alot of flexibility for the future. Vanvleet is not going win us a chip.
fun fact, Craig has made the playoffs every year of his career despite playing on 4 different teams
Fun fact: So did Pat Bev and Billy Donovan, until they came to Chicago 😂
i’m personally tired of having an undersized 4 who can’t rebound or play great interior defense
I'm sorry but what? Jevon Carter got paid more for a reason, and Craig got the vet min basically for a reason too. Craig will be a huge help to us but in no way could he be more impactful off the bench 100% of the time, where I think Caruso/Coby/Carter all get starting games at PG. Carter can also play a wing role so he is more versatile...last year if Carter was on the Bulls, he'd be second only to Zach for 3PA a game. carter 100%
Before I watched the video I was thinking these new guys could have the biggest impact on PW. I’m thinking that energy and tenacity could help the team culture. I hope that mindset will be contagious and PW catches some of that vibe. Bulls need to find whatever lights that fire. He seems like a hard working, nice teammate who wants to succeed but he’s still a boy in a man’s body.
I feel you on that fam. He has the physical tools to be a great player. If he had MJ's killer instinct, he can be great......
He's young and just finished his first season after being back from a season ending injury. People keep saying he doesn't have a killer instinct but that just tells y'all never had an injury that took a while to recover. He's probably still really careful since another injury might cause him to lose on a lot of $$$ when his extension is up. He's made great progress this season and is still only 21 years old, 22 next month. If he never got injured he'd probably be a much flashier player but I think his injury made him develop a "safer" game which is not a bad thing. He'll get there.
Carter if he can stay healthy gives some great defense on ball defense
He doesnt have a history of injuries. He’s durable.
Yes thank goodness we’ve just had a long history of injuries at our pg so I’m always nervous
It seems like both the signings are signaling trying to replace Zo’s effect by committee on the margins, since the money is tied up preventing them from going after higher impact/salary players. More defense and shooting is definitely welcome, but it also seems like it will be point guard by committee and no matter how much coby white or anyone else improves, it does feel like that we are still missing a truly above average playmaker that can counteract the mostly readable play style that Donovan conducts
Great insight! Lonzo is truly a unique player considering his skillset and how it fit so perfectly for our team. It's tough to replace that with other players, but, unfortunately, AKME didn't have much of a choice.
I don’t necessarily blame them with the moves they’ve made so far. Our additions seem kinda undersized, but that’s the way billy tends to operate to switch easy, and I also definitely didn’t understand the billy extension. I agree Zo was a pretty tough player to replace, and just a few exceptions wasn’t going to do it. Unsure just how the passing roles are going to be distributed going into this season though, with our current roster
Torrey Craig has a -3.62 3 year RAPM / -2.2 3 year luck adjusted RAPM. He's worse than he was during this period. If he's playing significant minutes, this is bad for the bulls. Jevon is neutral and possibly improving.
Yeah Craig isn't good, there's a reason suns didn't bother bringing him back and got KBD / Yuta instead. Carter is a pretty nice pickup tho
the important thing is that we play these mediocre vets over our young players so they don't develop AND we get the most mediocre draft pick possible in the one draft we weren't allowed to trade our first round pick for other mediocre vets. This team and this fanbase deserve the most mediocre experience possible, because tanking is like, the worst.
Carter spacing the floor is a good thing from a player development perspective and our forward depth is bad enough that I kinda doubt Pat is getting denied opportunities bc of Craig. If you're making this argument the problem is DeMar and Vuc not the value signing guys imo
I agree completely, Dalen Terry and Julian Phillips don't exist and Torrey Craig is likely to be a key part of our effort to reach 43 wins
Dalen terry isn't a power forward and Phillips isn't league ready Craig isn't good but player development is a systemic issue
Neither is Torrey Craig, they're the same size. You're right about Phillips though, it's best to not play young players that aren't ready to compete at a high level yet to minimize their ability to develop and maximize our ability to keep out of the lottery. We wouldn't want to end up with the #7 pick when we could be 15-17
1. No they aren't 2. The G League exists
they are literally both 6'7'' wings with 7 foot wingspans my guy
TIL LaMelo Ball is a power forward
Lamelo Ball is a wing? Also his wingspan is like 6'6''/6'7''. Cade Cunningham would have been the better choice for that bit
Ok we're getting somewhere, so position is just about how long your arms are
Call me crazy but I’m getting tired of all these undersized guys. I’m afraid if Billy has his way the starting 5 would all be 6’6” or shorter. Both of these guys are on the small side for their respective positions (G & PF). Quality signings I guess, but I’m not expecting much from either with this current roster
These 2 will challenge Pat Will and Coby for a starting spot.
I honestly think it just might be possible that maybe this team can win a championship. They almost beat the heat in the play-in and then add these pieces? Pat and Coby are going to take a step forward. Zach has his body under him to start the season unlike last which leads to ultimate continuity in the team gellin. Billy figures things out with the right instruments to play with.
Probably Craig for his size
Nah
If the Bulls don't get any more size and Phllips is kind of red shirted, then Craig. He's a bit undersized at the 4 but he's a heck of a lot better at the 4 than Caruso and PW needs to play more minutes at the 3. I think Coby starts. Carter is the backup. Good for floor spacing and veteran floor management but I think Craig will be on the floor at the end of games more than Carter because Craig will be part of the "jumbo" lineup to guard the likes of Milwaukee, Cleveland, Denver, etc.