What are your thoughts on OG this year? He hasn't been playing as well (despite the career high last game).
I know he has had personal issues with his father dying, which is unbelievably tough for such a young guy (he's only 21, I think). But I think the problem lies elsewhere.
Last season, Casey had OG playing at the 3, while Nurse has him playing most games at the 4. We have Danny Green starting at the 3, Norm who fits in that spot, and until the recent trades CJ was interchangeable with Norm as backup. OG was starting at 3 last year.
So about that career high the last game. He was playing most of the game at 3. He excels there. He's able to move off ball more and he can lock down just about anyone in the league who plays that position. The problem is we still have Powell and Green in those spots. I would like to see Nurse play OG at the 3 more, but then what do we do with Norm? Here's what I see as the lineups:
Starters
Lowry, Leonard, Green, Siakam, Ibaka
Bench
Lin, Van Vleet, Powell, Anunoby, Gasol
In my opinion Van Vleet, plays better off ball, so he should be a shooting guard most of the time. The trouble with that is his height makes him easily exploitable on the defensive end.
I'm not sure how to get Anunoby into that 3 spot. You can't bump Powell further down the roster. He's been on fire lately. And you can't move Powell to shooting guard because the team is spoiled for guards.
I think what might end up happening is that Powell (maybe a some other assets) will get traded while he's hot (read: valuable) for someone to cover the bench power forward position. OG then moves to the three for the bench and whomever they pick up takes up the four.
You know, it would be nice if Boucher could play the four but he's a center all day. He's not fast enough to cover the guys in the league who play the four.
So going forward, I think one of the Raptors' biggest issues is not using OG to his full potential and having a mismatch of players to their most effective positions. I'm confident that Gasol will eventually be the starter and Ibaka will be coming off the bench, but this still doesn't address the problem they have with OG being out of position and not having a proper spot for Norm in the rotation. Norm's place at the moment is hurting OG's game, but it's improving Norm's. It's a messy problem, I think.