The counter to this is that all our bigs besides David Lee (depending on how you feel about Sullinger) can shoot the 3. So there is a chance that we could play 2 bigs and still space the floor.
The difference in my mind is that the small ball lineups from last year produced well defensively behind a switch everything defense. I expect consistently going with lineups of 2 bigs (especially when only one of the bigs is really a plus defensively) to really hurt the defense.
We don't have evidence of a large sample of decent 3 point shooting from any big. Maybe that changes but I wouldn't rely on it. I think the switching kept our defense good enough to outgun teams on the other end, personally. I think Amir Johnson will help us defensively at either C or PF, but the issue will be that Evan Turner and Isiah Thomas won't have space on the other end and I don't know if they can make plays in really tight spaces.
Well, I think our most ball-dominant guard will be coming off the bench when there are three point shooters in the frontcourt.
That's part of the reason Stevens brought Thomas off the bench last year, I believe, and will continue to do so.
Smart, Bradley, and Turner will probably benefit from playing with bigs who are better at scoring inside and grabbing offensive rebounds.
Like it or not, Turner is still on this team, and he really gets loosy goosy with the ball, which is fine when he's got Crowder spreading the floor for him.
Offensive rebounding is a good point, but I'm not sure if it holds true for every opponent, because if Crowder drags a big out of the paint, we should create offensive rebounding opportunities for the other forward for teams that rely on bigs to rebound and don't have big enough wings.