With the Point Guards, there appears to be a defined rotation. For the Small Forwards, there is The Man and everyone else. Even for the Shooting Guards, we have a good idea of who is going to play and how much. But for the Power Forwards...the phrase "total crapshoot" comes to mind.
Hakim Warrick is the presumed starter, Darrell Arthur is the rookie, Antoine Walker is the mercurial veteran in a contract year and Darko Milicic is the enigma. Marc Iavaroni included Rudy Gay in that group when we interviewed him, but after this comment that Chris Herrington posted, I'm not very confident that we'll see #22 manning the 4 anytime soon:
“We’ve got a lot of [power] forwards on this team, and I’ve told them: If I have to play your position, something is wrong.”
Really, the PF position is one of the glass being both half full and half empty. Guys are either good on offense (Warrick and Walker) or on defense (Darko) or talented, but completely unproven and inexperienced (Arthur). No one appears to be a complete package in the mold of presumed starters Mike Conley, O.J. Mayo and Rudy Gay. That means that any of those four players could garner significant playing time this season. That is both intriguing and maddening at the same time.
The Players:
Hakim Warrick - The Syracuse product is well known by Grizzlies fans as he enters the 4th year of his career. He has proven to be a skilled scorer with his solid mid-range game and impressive dunking ability. He's an average rebounder for his size, nabbing 7 boards a game as a starter last year and has extended his range out to 18 feet on his jumper. The areas of his game that prevent Hak from being a surefire starter in the NBA are his complete lack of passing skills and his poor defense. I know that I get accused of picking on him from time to time, but Javaris Crittenton played 61% fewer minutes than Hak last year (678 total minutes to 1754 minutes) and Critt only fell two assists shy of matching Warrick's total for the year, which was 53. I understand that PF's aren't expected to pass the ball as much as guards, but most starters at least average a dime per game. Even Darko Milicic averaged a higher number than that while playing with an injured thumb the majority of the season. For Hakim to remain a starter under the new defensive-minded coaching staff, he's going to have to start doing more than just scoring and rebounding.
Darrell Arthur
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