What's new
By:

The case for starting Shaq

infection

infection

Well-Known Member
Staff member
2018 Award Winner
2019 Award Winner
2022 Award Winner
First, let's go ahead and get the "lols fringe nba player on minimum contract u want start him. lol" out of the way. Second, let's get the "they won't bench Mike Conley" out of the way, too, because yes, we know that's true, but this thread is "the case" for starting Shaq, not the "Quin is going to start Shaq" thread.

The lineup I'm looking at is as follows:

Mitchell
Shaq
Ingles
Bojan
Gobert

This is a limited lineup that plays the first 4-5 minutes before a sub. So what's the point? This starting lineup has a good balance with having two legit scoring threats and three legit three-point shooters. Ingles can play more of a role of a distributor without being negated by Conley. Bojan and Mitchel can pick up the offensive load, and Shaq can be a low-usage guy. Offensively, this unit is still good, and it allows Ingles to unlock more of his Ingles capabilities. Shaq still plays limited minutes in total, but he's on the floor to start the game due to defensive effort. The argument can certainly be that Royce should be starting because he's proven within our system and a defender, as well as being low usage, but I think starting Shaq helps more with setting the tone defensively as a disruptor, doing a better job at throwing the other team's starters out of their rhythm, and then allowing a pretty stacked bench unit to come in and destroy the other teams. I do like what this does to the makeup of the bench:

Conley
Clarkson
Royce
Favors

You can plug in a number of 5th men into that lineup, and most of those 5th men will come from the starting 5, but that's a better starting lineup than a number of teams in the league.

Getting some early defensive energy, deflections, a guy going after balls, I think keeps Gobert engaged and sets a tone for Ingles and Mitchell in terms of intensity on that side of the floor. Shaq gets minutes against the guys we struggle against (Booker, Chris Paul, Murray, Lillard, Curry, Morant, Walker, Young, Lowry, Irving, Harden). We come out with a strong first punch and then we've got some massive offense coming off the bench. We still have two legitimate scoring threats going up against bench units with Royce and Favors locking down the D.

But in reality, the starting unit would quickly phase into other units as I'd bring Conley in after 4-5 minutes.
 
I would love to see Conley coming off the bench but I dont see Shaq as the person who takes that spot.
 
Jazzfanz? Never seen such hype for a minimum signing. He will soon be jazzfanz enemy#1. There’s no way he will live up to the hype he’s received here, there’s no way he lives up to the expectations we’ve put on him.

he shouldn’t start, period!! I’m not even sure he should play over Oni. I would’ve also liked to see the jazz invest more in Brantley.

why the hell aren’t we making a case for starting Oni or actually playing Brantley.

Hell, we couldn’t wait to dump Rubio who is a starting caliber pg but can’t shoot, now you want to make a case for starting Shaq, someone who’s barely been in a rotation and might be a worse shooter than Rubio with less skills.

the case for not starting him is he is a great fit next to JC and supports Favors well on defense, and adds athleticism to the bench.
 
I have no problem bringing Conley off the bench, but that means Mitchell is our starting pg, as he should be, but I also don’t like the idea of our starting sg not being able to shoot the ball.
 
This is pretty much the case I laid out at the end of last year for why Oni had a path to the starting lineup. Using these same ideas, I think he may have just as strong or stronger case than Shaq AT THE MOMENT. Certainly subject to change, of course.
 
Why don't we let Shaq recover from his injury and figure out the Jazz's system, and then we can all evaluate how he works in this system (as opposed to Boylen's frenetic blitzing system)?

In theory, I see the point of him as a starter (to help point-of-attack/backcourt defense), but replacing him with Royce seems like filling one hole just to create another (3/4 defense, rebounding).
 
infection said:
First, let's go ahead and get the "lols fringe nba player on minimum contract u want start him. lol" out of the way. Second, let's get the "they won't bench Mike Conley" out of the way, too, because yes, we know that's true, but this thread is "the case" for starting Shaq, not the "Quin is going to start Shaq" thread.

The lineup I'm looking at is as follows:

Mitchell
Shaq
Ingles
Bojan
Gobert

This is a limited lineup that plays the first 4-5 minutes before a sub. So what's the point? This starting lineup has a good balance with having two legit scoring threats and three legit three-point shooters. Ingles can play more of a role of a distributor without being negated by Conley. Bojan and Mitchel can pick up the offensive load, and Shaq can be a low-usage guy. Offensively, this unit is still good, and it allows Ingles to unlock more of his Ingles capabilities. Shaq still plays limited minutes in total, but he's on the floor to start the game due to defensive effort. The argument can certainly be that Royce should be starting because he's proven within our system and a defender, as well as being low usage, but I think starting Shaq helps more with setting the tone defensively as a disruptor, doing a better job at throwing the other team's starters out of their rhythm, and then allowing a pretty stacked bench unit to come in and destroy the other teams. I do like what this does to the makeup of the bench:

Conley
Clarkson
Royce
Favors

You can plug in a number of 5th men into that lineup, and most of those 5th men will come from the starting 5, but that's a better starting lineup than a number of teams in the league.

Getting some early defensive energy, deflections, a guy going after balls, I think keeps Gobert engaged and sets a tone for Ingles and Mitchell in terms of intensity on that side of the floor. Shaq gets minutes against the guys we struggle against (Booker, Chris Paul, Murray, Lillard, Curry, Morant, Walker, Young, Lowry, Irving, Harden). We come out with a strong first punch and then we've got some massive offense coming off the bench. We still have two legitimate scoring threats going up against bench units with Royce and Favors locking down the D.

But in reality, the starting unit would quickly phase into other units as I'd bring Conley in after 4-5 minutes.
Click to expand...
You just caused DL and Quin to have strokes.
 
I see the idea... they’d never do it.

I’m obviously a big supporter of the Shaq... but I do not ant to see how it works prior to making a judgement like this. I think the starting lineup we used with Ingles and Royce and no Conley is the lineup I’d most want to see if we made a change.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top