We all have seen how much better the bench unit plays than the starters this season, but what is the solution? Leave aside the matter of ego and money and that there is no way the team starts bringing Julius and RJ off the bench, and pretend Thibs actually had the juice and player buy-in to just swap the roles of the two five-man units. Would our bench mob be nearly as effective playing primarily against other teams’ starters? Would Obi be able to hold up defensively if he had to start out against guys like Sabonis and Tobias Harris? Quickley is tenacious and effortful on defense, but if he’s matched up against guys like LaVine every night?

But since the full five-for-five switch is definitely not happening, what can Thibs do? Again, Julius and RJ are not sitting. And in general, they are not the big culprits here, even if RJ remains streaky and Randle still has some frustrating habits on offense. If Noel and Mitch are ever healthy at the same time, I certainly wouldn’t object to a switcheroo there. But it feels like it’s a backcourt thing. Would swapping Burks for Fournier solve anything? Would IQ be as effective playing without Rose? And would some of the Rose/Randle synergy problems we saw last season return if they were primarily playing alongside one another?

Brian and/or Mike, it may be time for some more all-poll content, regarding which bench guys you would start and vice versa.

Wizards are an actual surprise. God, Westbrook sucks.

cybersoze:
If somebody had come to me wanting to bet that Bulls and Wizards would be leading the eastern conference 12 games in, i think i’d have bet a lot of money against it. And here we are…

You know when I watched the Knicks play the Wizards in preseason I thought they might be better than expected and wrote post saying they could be similar to the Knicks of last season. But I didn’t expect that goodness to land them at the top of the conference.

Just start the bench, this NBA shit is easy

the other side to this is kind of amazing. our starting 5 has played 205 minutes together, most in the league despite mitch missing a game. and they are -14.4 / 100! it has a defensive rating of 119.3/100. worst of any 5-man unit to play at least 35 minutes together.