Quote Originally Posted by uh_no View Post
It comes down to what muprhy and rasheed bring to the table. If murphy is a stud, he gets most of the minutes at the 3 and mop up at the 4, and hairston gets squeezed. Dawkins mops up at 3 and takes minutes at the two, with seth. Sheed gets squeezed.

If rasheed is a stud, he'll get minutes at the two splitting with seth, and at 3 with andre. Hairston gets most of the rest of the time at the 4, maybe some at the 3 if he can knock down the midrange jumper, and andre might get squeezed out here (along with alex)
I don't think it's quite as simple as you make it. First, I see you're leaving Michael out, which based on the rumors sounds possible but is certainly not a given yet. But for the purposes of this post I'll follow your lead and leave him out.

Anyway, I think you're being too quick to give all the backup C minutes to Marshall and too quick to give all the PG minutes to Quinn and Tyler. Where I think this exercise should start is with Mason, Ryan, and Seth. I believe by the end of the season Mason and Ryan will be playing 30 minutes each (absent injury or foul trouble). It's not a gimme that Marshall plays the 10 minutes Mason is off the floor, because for 10 minutes Ryan could man the C spot adequately. So for now let's say Marshall, Josh, and Alex will split 20 big man minutes.

Seth should also play at least 30 minutes at SG. I think Tyler and Quinn will split 35 minutes at PG. My guess is we will start the season with around 20 mpg for Tyler and 15 for Quinn, and end the season with 25 for Quinn and 10 for Tyler. Although if Quinn's D doesn't advance and/or Tyler's O blossoms (neither of which seems especially likely, but both certainly seem plausible), we could find those late-season estimates reversed.

With so many small guards, I doubt Andre plays much at SG. If Rasheed's D is as good as people have been saying, he's going to play at least 10 or 15 minutes, taking the 10 SG minutes left over by Seth and the 5 PG minutes left over by Quinn/Tyler. (If Rasheed isn't ready to play any PG, Seth could slide over there for 5 minutes, giving Rasheed 15 mpg at SG.)

There's also the possibility that Seth and/or Rasheed play a lot at PG, which would reduce Quinn's and/or Tyler's minutes and boost minutes elsewhere, but at this point at least this seems unlikely to occur.

Of course, if Rasheed isn't ready at all (which I tend to doubt, but you never know), then Quinn/Tyler/Andre/Alex, and maybe Seth will all play more minutes than I am giving them here.

If Rasheed is very ready, at least on the defensive end, then I see him getting more than 15 minutes. Assuming he (or Seth) aren't eating too many PG minutes, perhaps he could steal an extra 5 minutes at SF, against teams with smallish SFs or SFs who aren't offensive-minded and/or won't post him up.

Andre and Alex are, like Rasheed, more or less wild cards. I could see both of them playing as little as 10 mpg or as much as 25 mpg. If they both deserve 25 mpg, then Andre could play all of his at SF while Alex plays 10 at SF and 15 at PF, leaving 5 mpg for Marshall and Josh to split. If Andre's minutes shrink, then Alex could play more SF and less PF, giving more minutes to Marshall/Josh; or Tyler or Rasheed could play more SF minutes, although obviously that wouldn't work against every opponent due to size reasons. If Marshall or Josh breakout and deserve 15 or 20 minutes (unlikely in my mind, but possible), then either Alex, Andre, or Rasheed will get their SF minutes squeezed accordingly, with one of them probably shrinking near (or even below) 10 mpg.

If it plays out the way I've outlined, the minutes shake out as follows:

Tyler 10 to 20 ---] 35 combined
Quinn 10 to 25 --]

Seth 30
Mason 30
Ryan 30

Josh -----------] 5 to 20 combined; my projection = 10 combined
Marshall --------]

Rasheed 10 to 20 --]
Andre 10 to 25 -----] 55 to 70 combined; my projection = 65 combined
Alex 10 to 25 ------]


Obviously it's very early and there are approximately 8 bzillion variables that might change between now and November. But in a world without {g} and with no additional recruits, that's my best current take on how it might shake out.