Expounding on Dave's Rotation Change Suggestion

I've been thinking about rotations since reading Dave's call for a new starting lineup.  I completely agree that a change needs to be made, as it has always confused me somewhat that we never seem to start our best lineups -- big surprise that we keep getting off to slow starts.

A quick look at The Popcorn Machine shows that in the past few games, there are a few patterns worth noting:

1) The least surprising -- we suck at the beginning and improve dramatically towards the end of games.

2) We have very different lineups during those two times -- the starters are usually not the same as the finishers.

3) Our "early suck" lineup is usually Oden, Batum, Sergio, Roy and Aldridge, while our "late not suck" lineup is usually Aldridge, Roy, Bayless, and two of the three of Outlaw/Przy/Rudy.

4) Oden has been playing like crap -- we are almost always playing better when he is off the floor.  To a lesser extent, this is also true for Sergio and Batum.

I am of the opinion that stopping these slow starts is of primary importance to this team.  Without Blake, we are really struggling to pull that off, in large part because the skill sets of his backups are very different from his.

In order to accomplish this, I would recommend one of the following starting lineups:

Bayless, Roy, Outlaw, Aldridge, Przybilla

OR

Bayless, Rudy, Roy, Aldridge, Przybilla

I think that option 1 is more likely, personally I'd go with option 2.  The bottom line is that five of our six best players  need to be on the floor to start the game, and right now none of them are named Greg, Nic or Sergio.

That leaves for a nice second unit lineup of Sergio, Rudy, Nic, Aldridge and Oden, or Sergio, Roy, Nic, Outlaw, Oden.  There are some other permutations that could work as well.

Allow me to conclude with a few caveats:

1) This is a dramatically different team without Steve Blake.  In order to maximize the combinations of players on this team, we need to rethink the way we put our lineups together.

2) This is not an indictment of Greg, Sergio or Nic.  I think they are all very talented, and especially Greg and Nic have a lot of room to grow into being important contributers to this team.  But right now, without Steve, it's not happening.  Also, this isn't to say that I think Bayless is better than Sergio or Przy is better than Greg.  It's just a matter of fit without Blake's steadying influence.

3) I understand the cries for player development over winning, that we're destroying Greg's psyche by sending him to the bench.  First of all, if Greg is going to be the franchise cornerstone, he needs to learn early that sometimes he will need to take some lumps in order to benefit the team.  He's not fully developed yet, and it's not all about him.  Right now our best lineup doesn't involve him, but I'm sure that will change by next season.

4) Finally, let's not forget that even with all of our crappy first quarters, we are one of the eight best teams in the NBA right now.  I'm confident that we will weather this no matter what, and of course there will be more tweaks to make once Webster returns from injury as well.  But some tinkering now might mean the difference between a first-round exit and a shot at the Conference Finals.

Keep your heads up, Blazer fans, and let's hope that some kinds of changes happen in the starting lineups SOON.