Now let me say something that may sound a bit contradictory - A Jefferson Millsap lineup that does not also include Favors does not work.

From what I can tell, starting matters to players. For that brief period of time at the beginning of last year when Favors started ahead of Millsap, Paul was clearly pissed and played out of his mind to get his position back, and as a veteran who had to fight for too many years to get that spot it is unfair and not beneficial to give that spot to a weaker player (right now Paul Millsap is a better player than Derrick Favors - argue however much you want I am totally convinced about that).

What starting doesn't impact is the outcome of a game (that is a bit of an exaggeration, but how many games have you watched where a team goes up like 14-2 and it still comes down to a close game at the end).

What I believe is really important is a level of flexibility within the rotations that Coach Corbin hasn't shown over the last two years. This has been beat to death on this website, so I won't go into it too much, but splitting the team into a starter crew and a bench crew just seems dumb to me - especially when the margin between your starter and your bench player is not that huge - the difference in defensive and offensive productivity between Favors Millsap and Jefferson, Marvin and Hayward, or Hayward and Foye. Players should not be punished for losing their position battle by a fraction of a point.

Why not start Jefferson and Millsap and sub in Favors at 4 minutes - yeah the game hasn't found its rhythm yet, but players who "should" start do, and lineups that *should* be played together are playing for 44 minutes a game. Those first four minutes, also, feature our two strongest offensive weapons and won a lot of games last year.

Thoughts?