Thursday, December 10, 2015

And now Green is gone

They are saying he will be back in five weeks, but I am not going to hold my breath that he comes back at all, at least not with any effectiveness, especially given his history. Mentally I am assuming he is done.

What does this mean to the team? First of all, it means we will struggle on the boards. In rebounds per minute played, Green was better than Ruttley, Shoshi or Woods - considerably better. He did not play many minutes, but while he was in there he did something well that this team does not do well at all. Second, we will be forced to play really smallball a lot. There will be times when the tallest person we have on the court is 6-6, and even 6-5. It is OK to play smallball, because in certain situations it works well, but it is not good to be forced to play that way. It takes away one of the coach's options. Third, depending upon what course Coach chooses to take, it may mean that Isom will be forced to play out of his natural position. Fourth, it may mean that Shoshi will have to play more minutes than he can play at full effectiveness.

Can we win without Green? Of course. We have not lost yet, and he only played in five of seven games. We will win most of our games without him.  But what it does is to cut down on our margin for error, and that is never good, especially come tournament time.

No comments: