How?

Click here.

We dropped Michael Beasley (23.1 mpg last year) and replaced him in the rotation with Dante Cunningham (23.6 mpg).

We dropped Wes Johnson (22.6 mpg last year) and replaced him with Chase Budinger (23.5 mpg).

We dropped Darko Milicic (16.3 mpg last year) and replaced him with Greg Stiemsma (13.7 mpg).

If you clicked on the link above, you'll notice a bunch of interesting things. Things like WS/48, for example. All three new guys are in the positive, all three guys we let go are in the negative this year. That difference in WS/48 totals up to a net of +1.8 WS (+1.3 for our guys, -0.5 for the guys we let go). That's how we could be 3-4 instead of 5-2.

What a difference a year makes, huh?

That's the main part. Other tidbits I noticed:

- 261 minutes played for the old guys this year, 402 for the new

- old guys have only taken 19 FTA's this year, new guys 34

- Here's one tidbit that perhaps sums it up nicely: despite playing 141 more minutes this year, the new guys have only attempted 10 more shots than the old guys (almost entirely made up of Beasley's FGAs).

- That works out to a .345 FG% for the old guys, and a .496% FG% for the new guys.

The story of this team so far this year is the production of the bench/depth. I think nothing illustrates the dynamic of this team as much as this compare and contrast.