“I better make better passes to travis and martell and jerryd so they get better looks, better shots . i can make the team better by making the players around me better so hopefully we can trade them for someone alot better, hopefully making the team better still.”

he might be saying to himself " its not important whether i am better at guarding steve or whether stevo is better at guarding me, i would probably be better at guarding myself with my high bball iq and knowledge of how i would play the game."

With a line-up of: Blake, Roy, Batum, LMA, Pryz. We essentially have two and one half scorers. Roy and LMA each count as one, Blake, who isn’t great at creating his own shot but is very good from outside, counts as a half.

As we learned in the series against Houston, a good defensive team can make life very difficult on a team that has two players who are not a real offensive threat. On nights when Blake, Rudy, and Travis were hitting their shots, this worked fine; but when they weren’t, we often got in a deep hole.

Seems to me that part of the idea of bringing in Miller is to make the team less reliant on jump shooting as it primary means of scoring. Obviously the team has a ton of shooters and that will always be important, but you want to have other ways to score on the nights the shots aren’t falling. Last year that meant Roy trying to take over using isos and setting up teammates off of isos.

This year, both Roy and Miller are capable of scoring on their own and capable of finding teammates. Miller is a tremendous low post scorer. Most PGs in the league, especially the little water-bugs that are currently in vogue, simply can’t stop him down low. Teams will be forced to bring help, and Miller is very good at finding the open man. Miller is much better at the pick-and-roll than Blake, and he is one of the best lob passers in the league.

I understand how important Blake’s shooting was to the team’s success last year, but over time, I just can’t see not having Oden and Miller in the starting lineup. with Oden and Miller in the starting line-up we go from two and one half offensive threats to at least having four threats on the floor. Whether of not we decide to go with Webster or Batum as the fifth starter remains to be seen.

Regarding the second unit, my hope is to see Rudy having some real success as a playmaker for this unit. If he does that opens up the possibility of Bayless getting significant time at PG, sharing the playmaking with Rudy but defending the opposing PG. Imagine Bayless, Rudy, Martell, Trout, and Pryz in the second unit. If Bayless has figured out his shot, he is going to be a huge load to defend. Bayless would have three excellent three point shooters that he could set up with his penetration. Pryz can clean the glass and patrol the middle.

We need some sort of long range plan at the point. Miller is short term. Blake is solid but limited both as a creator and a defender. Moving Andre into the starting line-up, and having Rudy take over some of the playmaking duties for the second team clears a path to develop Bayless and see if he can be the long term answer at the point. If it works, we can trade Blake and maybe Travis to get a stud back-up 4-5. That would be insurance in case Pryz decides to opt out next summer, give us full value for Blake and Travis’s expiring contracts, and clear room to develop Cunningham as a 3-4.

It makes a lot of sense to me, what do the rest of you think?