McCain feels almost underutilized. Like, if you had to rank their best backup guards, would it not be
1. Mitchell
2. Wallace
3. McCain
4. Caruso
5. Wiggins
6. Joe
You take the first three in bold and JWill as the backup big... that group + their starters is a 9-man playoff rotation. Their guard play could end up infinitely better than what it was last year. i.e. That bullshyt Caruso threw up at the end of regulation, Mitchell, McCain, or JDubb are finishing that easily.
1. Wallace - He's the 6th man, basically a starter at this point he's the starter if we lose Dort. Just overall better at this point than Dort. A lot of time draws the toughest assignment, weakness is bigger guards but has gotten better at defending them. Example: last year Luka used to hunt him and now he starts the game defending Luka. Playmaking and scoring has gotten better. He should make one of the All-Defense teams this year. One of the best POA defenders in the league. 10th overall pick who would be the starter on many teams.
2. Caruso - shooting can be streaky, but his defense and his playmaking in the playoffs are too high, calming factor for the team, ability to guard small and big wings
3. Mitchell - 2nd best ball handler on the team( Shai 1st, Dub 3rd), excellent finisher at the rim, really good defender, extremely aggressive player, might be injury prone?
4. Joe - Started the season slow, but since has been on a damn heater. Vastly improved defense, improved scoring ability beside being just a pure shooter, excellent off-ball movement
5. McCain - good scoring and shooting ability, weakest defender, newest member of team. Daig has to see what lineups he works with.
6. Wiggins - Started season good, got injured earlier in season hasn't been good since, poor rim finisher for his ability to get there. Shooting has been too streaky. Good defender, but with Joe's improved defense he's going to lose the minutes battle, seems his confidence is shot. Still in rotation, he just needs to get out of his head. Would usually be 4th on list maybe 3rd during regular season.
7. Topic - needs to keep getting healthy and needs a lot of reps
To be honest you could take Caruso out of the list. He's a specialist and older. Caruso needs some reps but
needs to be fresh for the playoffs.
Mitchell is healed from the abdominal injury and just waiting on the ankle. Hopefully Dub will be healthy going forward. I suspect Daig will run deep bench lineups to experiment and keep wear and tear off Shai, Dub and Caruso.
Joe, McCain and Wiggins will get plenty of opportunities to establish pecking order.
