[G-Man]

Of the guys on the bubble:

I think Ledo is the least likely to get minutes this year, but he is so young and raw, I'd hate to lose him in case he develops...some other team is likely to take a flier on him. So I vote to keep him.

Mekel, on the other hand, is a real point guard who can run an NBA offense, and with Felton already injured, I think we need a spare who can run the plays. But I guess in a pinch, after Nelson and Harris, we can always move Ellis over to the PG spot. But Rick wants him as a pure 2, so I think Mekel sticks.

As for Sarge, he showed me some real growth in the summer league, even though I have seen little from him in the pre-season. What I like about him is the size and muscle. Last year we got the muscle from Blair, even without the size. Now we are depending on Greg Smith. Reminds me of M'benga. I had high hopes for Smith, but he can't take a breath without drawing a foul, and that makes him pretty useless. James appears to be fundamentally sound. The main reason I'd cut him is if I believed he'd end up with the Legends and we could bring him back if Villanueva proves to be a training camp wonder.

None of those 3 guys sees anything but garbage time unless we have severe injury problems. But Villanueva, because he is a true stretch 4, and no one else we have besides Dirk and Parsons who plays the 4 can hit a 3 pointer, he could actually earn minutes in the rotation. Because he has been in such bad situations, its hard to know what he can do in a good one. His rep is as an awful defender, but when you are at the far end of the bench on a bad team, you rarely even play meaningful minutes...its all garbage all the time...pretty hard to put in max effort, when the easy thing is to just hang out and shoot 3's.

So my vote is to keep Charlie and cut Sarge. Hopefully he'll still be around if disaster strikes.