Harden, the Lakers and the Week Ahead

Sits and Starts

Point Guard

Sit Damian Lillard: He had a relatively easy first week and now gets a real challenge against Darren Collison, Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook.

Start Darren Collison: looked good against both the Lakers and Jazz and gets the rookie (Damian Lillard), the weary (Kyle Lowry), the old (Raymond Felton) and the short (Kemba Walker).

Shooting Guard

Sit Monta Ellis: only three games including match-ups against Tony Allen and Courtney Lee on the second night of a back-to-back. He may make up for it though with a trip to Washington to pick-a-part Bradley Beal.

Start Tony Allen: Should see lots of minutes and rack up the steals picking the pockets of attackers of Gordon Hayward, Ellis, James Harden and Dwyane Wade.

Small Forward

Sit Carmelo Anthony: Only two games and likely to be heavily double-teamed with Amar’e Stoudemire out. Thaddeus Young held him in check in the pre-season and should again. Will have to deal with Shawn Marion in the other.

Start Matt Barnes: I am unsure of how the playing time will distributed between he and Caron Butler, but he played 27 minutes on Friday. He gets C.J. Miles, Stephen Jackson, Sasha Pavlovic and Kyle Korver/Anthony Morrow and should see plenty of minutes in each except SAS.

Power Forward

Sit Andrea Bargnani: has yet to find the range and it doesn’t get any easier against @Serge Ibaka, @Elton Brand (second night of a back-to-back) and Thaddeus Young.

Start Kris Humphries: will see a ton of boards against the Kevin Love-less T-Wolves, the helter-skelter Heat, and two games against the smaller Glen Davis.

Center

Sit Samuel Dalembert: sandwiches @ Emeka Okafor between the tough Marc Gasol and Kevin Garnett.

Start Nikola Pekovic: is the man in Minnesota with Kevin Love out. The soft Brook Lopez and Nikola Vucevic in early in the week make up for the more difficult Roy Hibbert and Joakim Noah.

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Thanks to Gonzo D Great for the photo of DeMar DeRozan in traffic.