It seems that Alvin is ready to play the matchups game already.
Gentry said he is considering bring Turkoglu off the bench to keep him from mismatches against bigger post players, following his depature from Monday's game after 2:23 due to fouls he picked up against Zack Randolph and Marc Gasol.
"I will not play Hedo against a guy like Zack Randolph," Gentry said. "It's unfair to him.
"I'd rather have him in the game five minutes later where he has no fouls than to take him out in the first five minutes."
Turkoglu has said he would be open to coming off the bench.
I thought Alvin would wait a little longer on this, especially since he said earlier in the week that he wouldn't mess with the lineup yet. But a few days to think about it might have done the trick.
Of course, Hakim Warrick - at 6'9" and 219 pounds - is going to get eaten up too, but at least he's played PF his entire career.
Don't expect Hedo to eschew his PF responsibilities entirely though. There's still no one else in the current rotation ready to step in. Some have mentioned Hill or Childress or Dudley, but that's grabbing at leaking straws. None are big enough to handle the banging inside. But at least the defensive rebounding has a chance to improve there.
Channing Frye next to Lopez in the starting lineup, or against bigger foes? I've said many times that won't work either, because neither Lopez nor Frye has the lateral footspeed to defend the dribble-drive from 10+ feet out, meaning they have to back off which opens up an easy 10-15 foot spot up.
The other problem with starting Frye is you weaken the C rotation. Until Lopez improves and can handle 30 quality minutes a game, the Suns still need Frye to play the bulk of his minutes opposite Lopez in the pivot.