Take a look at this lineup and tell me whether or not it is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever seen in your life:
PG: Shane Larkin (doing good so far)
SG: Donald Sloan (sure, two PG lineups are relatively normal)
SF: Markel Brown (um)
PF: Wayne Ellington (playing him at this position might have something to do with why he scored zero)
C: Bojan Bogdanovic (what)
That’s the sort of lineup where you expect everybody involved to fail. This is why the Nets acquired the talents of Henry Sims: so they wouldn’t have to play people out of position at center. But Sims only got fifteen minutes of court time. This can’t be attributed to tanking because the Nets have no draft picks to tank for. Maybe they just really, really wanted the Pacers to clinch the playoffs? I hate the Bulls too, but I don’t think I hate the Bulls enough to play the Waynemaker at power forward.
I get why the Nets have shut down Lopez. They have to build around him. If he rebroke his foot the Nets probably wouldn’t win another game in this decade. But just because certain players are shut down doesn’t mean you get to play Bojangles at center.