It's not a bad article, but not exactly a revelation. Various of us have been saying similar things over the past year or so, that the roster needs to be "honed" from a talent-laden but disparate roster to one that is carefully maximized to exploit its best players.
One thing not exactly addressed in that article, but is related to it, is the desire many people to have a nice backup at every position, often thinking of it as a "unit." With discussion of how to balance the "second unit"...who's the scorer on the second unit, who provides the defense, etc. I know I've occasionally fallen into that trap, myself, but I think it's a mistake.
The reserves are not a unit. Except in garbage time, you virtually never pull the entire starting unit and put in five reserves. There's always a mix of starters and reserves and the foundation is: starters stay in as much as possible (because they should be the team's best players) and reserves come in only when necessary to give the starters rest, and that will happen at different times for different positions.
So, it really doesn't matter how well-balanced the "second unit" is. And it's not even important to have a perfect backup point guard, a perfect backup shooting guard, a perfect backup small forward, etc.
The reason this bears mentioning is because one shouldn't resist trading Rudy Fernandez out of concern for who will back up Roy. If, for example, Fernandez, Outlaw, Blake, Webster and Przybilla were all traded for upgrades at small forward and point guard, and Portland could sign David Lee, it would seem to leave the team thin, without a backup center and backup shooting guard.
However, since you don't bring in an entire "second unit," it's actually not a problem. You have two players (Bayless and Batum) to back up three positions. Assuming that the Blazers' starters at PG, SG and SF average 33 minutes per game (conservative), that leaves 45 minutes left at the the three positions. That's 22-23 minutes each for Batum and Bayless...hardly over-working them. Similarly, if we assume that Aldridge and Oden give an average of 30 minutes per game (lower, to account for uncertainty over the minutes Oden will give), that leaves 36 minutes left over. Which means that if Lee essentially backed up both positions, he'd get de-facto starter minutes, but not more than he can realistically handle.
And thus with five good to great starters and three talented reserves, you very effectively account for every minute. Obviously, you need to fill out the rest of the roster with players, but they would be scrubs who play mop-up and emergency minutes that will crop up. The point is not that 8 players will play every moment of the season but that you can effectively apportion the vast majority of the important minutes to your 8 very good players. Which means that a significant portion of Portland's depth is superfluous and shouldn't be considered hard to trade due to leaving a position "not backed up."
Just another part of honing.
. You think that simply swinging will be enough, Dave was saying that it is time to shape the metal, give it form and definition. While I find it ironic that you missed the point, I am also not surprised.
