Couldn't find the right thread to post this in. Morey just retweeted an article from SI that analyzes the 3 top benches in the league….Houston, Boston and Chicago. What's interesting is the article makes pretty definitive statements about who will be coming off the bench: Beverley KJ/Terry/Thornton Brewer DMo Capela http://www.si.com/nba/2015/10/13/nba-bench-rotations-bulls-celtics-rockets-nikola-mirotic-isaiah-thomas-patrick-beverley I think this is what most of us expected, though the article seems to indicate that DMo may break into the starting lineup because he can play with Dwight (as a floor spacer and creator).
Beverley Thornton Brewer DMo Capela vs Kemba Batum Hairston Zeller Jefferson or Jackson Caldwell-Pope Marcus Morris Ilyasova Drummond or Marshall Stauskas Covington Noel Okafor Not sure we'd win all of them, but they would be close.
On the topic of DMo - I like him off the bench because he can play either big spot. He's just a much more versatile player than Jones (not getting into the debate of who's better) .... but with Capela playing well thats a non-issue on nights Dwert plays. Its the nights that Dwert takes off where it matters. You still have a very solid 3 big man rotation with Capela & Jones starting and DMo playing starters minutes behind both of them.
That article also says that dmo is better served as a 5. Which i disagree with completely It also says that chicago has a top3 Bench which is hillarious. With no good backup pg a no defence rookie at the wings and two injured old players in the frontcourt. Ok.
I tend to agree RE: DMo, though I think he matches up ok with most backup centers. Chicago isn't too bad, but I would agree that they aren't in the same league as Houston. Brooks Hinrich Dunleavy Mirotic Gibson
portis is also killing it for them in preseason. along with mirotic and mcbuckets, they've got a great young core coming off the bench.
You can't have a top 3 bench league wide by banking on a potential breaking out bymultiple rookies. Which may or may not come and which is hypothesized by three preseason games played against teams who use camp bodies and play no defence because they don't care. Otherwise the state of the sport is in a dire situation. There are benches of other teams much better than that. (mirotic will be a starter and so will Dunleavy when he comes back). A bench of Kirk Hinrich, Snell, McDermott,Portis/Taj, Joakim-I have no knees and can't finish an uncontested layup-Noah is not top 3 in the league. examples of better benches (Boston and Houston are clearly better) Atlanta (Shroeder,Bazemore,Sefolosha,Muscala, Splitter) Miami (Chalmers,G.Green,Winslow,McBob,Birdman) Sacramento (Collison,Bellineli,Casspi,whatever,Koufos) Toronto (CoJo,Ross,J.Johnson,Scola, Biyombo) Minny (T.Jones,K.Martin,Muhammad,Bjelica,Dieng (Pek maybe later) And more teams. That's why in my opinion the article quoted by Morrey has many problems and we shouldn't reach any conclusions because he quoted it except that he agrees that Houston has a great bench unit.