The issue with Royce is that his initial value as being a surprise player on a cheap contract that he well outperformed, coupled with being a somewhat opposite type player as the rest of our rotation, has created a bit of a blindspot as we've continued to advance his role in a way that has had drastically diminishing returns. Royce was not a starter/closer while Crowder was here because Crowder fit that role, even if they are very different players. When we traded for Conley and signed Bojan, we all had this assumption we'd be running that Rudy / Bojan / Ingles / Mitchell / Conley lineup, but Quin defaulted to moving Joe to the bench, inserting Royce in the starting lineup, and never really playing that lineup as any kind of main feature at any point that wasn't injury-forced. We saw Joe become much less effective off the bench and we posited several theories for that. Joe's most effective year, last year, was more a result of being able to play so well as a started, as he started nearly 45% of his games. Royce's appeal is that he's a defense-first guy who can hit good percentages from deep as a release valve and that he is low usage amongst many other high-usage guys. This works fine when he's a 20 mpg guy coming off the bench and not closing games. When you advance his role to 30+ mpg and start and close with him, the returns don't just diminish but they start going the other way. But it's again a blindspot because nobody else has a defensive reputation and since our offense is good we applaud his low usage. We've also got a sentimental attachment to him, because he's ours, that makes us feel somewhat sacrilegious about suggesting anything other than a defense for him. It drives us to being very black and white on the issue, and if I were to suggest that his role is not as hard to replace as we think, it would likely make a number of people uncomfortable and knee-jerk to think it's unwarranted Royce-hate that's gone goo far. If you were able to replace Royce with Covington (or Smart), these would both be legitimate upgrades that can push us over. If you obtain Covington but still allot the 30+ minutes per game for Royce, those diminishing returns from that spot will drastically mitigate the effectiveness of that deal.
This is still our window and we need to maximize it. I don't know what that will ultimately look like, but our biggest challenge still won't be perimeter defense alone, it's going to be mental toughness and focus and Quin's inability to stop the bleeding. There really isn't an emotional leader, either. For as much as we all hate Derek Fisher, I do believe he had an impact on that team that was very important. Maybe we could get that from a Smart but I don't know. We're not getting it from Quin, Rudy, Donovan or Mike. They all provide valuable things in that regard, but nobody really provides the extra oomph.
