Bell is a great defender, but shouldn’t be getting the bulk of the minutes given his injury and the fact that he generally can’t create his own offense. As long as he can play he’s still a quality starter, but there’s no reason not to play Henderson when the team needs some spark on offense.

Creative small-ball lineups work against certain teams, but I don’t like playing Wallace at the 4. I think we need to see more minutes for D.J.at the point (rather than the 2 guard) with Henderson playing alongside him at the 2. Keep Wallace happy and SAFE at the 3 and let Ajinca/Brown take the reserve minutes at the 4.

Henderson, Ajinca, and Brown all need more playing time.

And the Cats management did too. We’re overloaded at guard. But this is apparently the way Jordan, Johnson, Brown, and company wanted it. It’s not like they looked at one another when Flip announced he was ready to play and thought, “Willickers! How did THIS happen?”

Well, on either Friday or Saturday, we’ll find out what the decision makers were thinking. Maybe it’s all part of some master plan by basketball masterminds and we’ll be posting here on Saturday night saying, “WOW, WHAT A GREAT IDEA! These guys really knew what they were doing!” Maybe they will come up with a combination that will leave the Hawks in shambles. Maybe the Cats will win 105-82. And maybe, just maybe, Elvis and Michael Jackson will duet the National Anthem to start the night off.

All I know for certain is that if DJ Augustin sees his time reduced by so much as a minute we’re in trouble. Of course, the way things have been shaping up so far, if Tyson Chandler is on the court for more than 18 minutes, he’s either going to run up another 5 fouls or provide us with maybe enough offensive spark to light a birthday candle.

It’s conceivable that we went guard heavy in the hope that some would step up the game well enough to make some decent trade bait – and I’ll admit to a bit of ignorance to the state of some of the contract status in the backcourt, but I just don’t see us grabbing a developing player like Henderson just to turn around and package him off to some other team.

The one thing we haven’t talked about amidst all the Felton bashing and hand wringing over Chandler’s nightmare start, is that the powers that be looked at this team on paper and knew (largely because of Larry Brown’s system) that they’d be strong on D. It’s also obvious they were looking to Diaw, Wallace, and Chandler to provide the offensive spark. We’re quickly learning that Wallace can’t do it alone. Right now our problem isn’t in the backcourt, it’s with our play in the lanes and at the rim. Our lack of offense is forcing Felton to make crap shot selections and force passes to players that simply aren’t cutting or showing any motion in the first 18 seconds of the possession. He hasn’t ever been the greatest decision maker, but this season it’s being compounded by our total lack of flow. We’ve also done a pitiful job with screens and picks.

Our emerging problem is one that wasn’t properly recognized by management when the team was assembled for this season – we need stonger inside players. The rest of the world sure as hell knew it judging from the reactions to our draft selections! Without depth up front, we’re stuck with long jumpers and last-second hail Mary shots. NOBODY is posting up well, and we spend too many possessions with our forwards standing around waiting for someone ELSE to do something.

Is it possible that there will be drastic improvement once Chandler is back up to full form? Could it be that our starters are just off to a collective slump at this early stage? Sure it is. But I don’t believe the problem is going to suddenly fix itself and going small with 3 guards on the court simply isn’t going to work all the time – especially against a lot of the Western Conference teams.

Maybe this would be better off with a thread of its own, and as I said, I’m a bit ignorant on our contract and trade options so I don’t feel qualified to start the thread myself. But…

What do we have to seriously offer trade-wise at this point? Who can we market around without having to gut ourselves further by unloading one of our few players that is actually producing for us?

Is there anyone on the free agent market that can really help this team? I don’t think there are a lot of helpful options there this year.

I’d love to see some serious dialogue on this – I’m a student of the game itself, but I don’t pay as much attention as I should about potential trade-bait beyond looking at our salary cap restrictions and knowing that Bob Johnson is adamant about the team payroll being kept as small as possible until the attendance revenue picks up. It would be an education for me to learn more about what our exact options might be.

and I didn’t see anything personal in your post.