Pendragon12 said:This is a bad, lazy take.AG 2000' said:Enzo The Baker said:
The fact that Marco is getting minutes ahead of Walker is egregious. Marco is a corpse on defense especially in transition. In addition to the turnovers last night, our defense was pretty bad.
It's not even surprising to me. Pop's always been a 'culture/korporate knowledge' guy, over youth.
It's ridiculous at this point that Marco is taking minutes like this though. Marco should be someone you put in and if he hits his first couple of shots you keep him in. If not, he gets pulled right away. Because he's a turnstyle defensively and if he's not putting the ball in the hoop at the offensive end, he's not doing jack to help.
But Pop would rather soap box about Trump these days than take a hard look at what's left of the old guard and what they contribute.
Marco demands defenders to stay close to him along the perimeter. He moves constantly off the ball on offense, and does so very well. By being Marco, he creates much needed space for others to operate.
Does that make him a net positive when he's not hitting? No. But the spacing is likely better right now with Marco on the floor than Lonnie, because Lonnie is another mid range guy. Lonnie is important to our future, absolutely, and I expect he will get some minutes and potentially relegate Marco to the bench/spot up minutes by season's end, but Marco has a purpose right now that Lonnie can't fulfill.
A whole bunch of this.
I think by the all star break Lonnie will be playing more minutes than Marco. And while Marco is an awful defender, Lonnie isn't exactly a lock down guy. Tons of potential, but he still has a tendency to get lost when he'd off the ball. Pop will work him in and those rotations will get easier and easier for him, but it's not worth getting this fired up over after one game.