No argument here. I'm just wondering if the coach knows what the hell he's doing. Know your roster and just tank already.
so...a coach who knows what the hell he's doing...say Jerry Sloan or....Greg Popvich, would be resigned to tanking and limiting his starter minutes so he could get some burn from borderline D-league talent?
Stotts should make the bench play a whole game once, just so we can see how unbelivably crappy they are. I bet they'd lose 120-20.
If Stotts announced the novelty in advance, the Garden would sell out, and the crowd noise would propel them to a close game.
Of course you play to win, but are they? So if they're not going to win like that in the long run, what's the point in playing them 40 minutes a game? Take Batum, Lillard and Aldridge. One is a rookie who's already played nearly 400 more minutes than he did last year as a senior, one spent the summer competing in the summer olympics, and the third spent the summer recovering from hip surgery. And they're all in the top 11 in minutes played in the entire league? That's just fucking stupid.
Why is it stupid? All those rookie minutes speed development. Batum hasn't peaked yet and needs the game time to want to be the man. Aldridge is in his peak and you want to reduce his PT? These aren't aged vets we need to rest their legs for the playoffs. They are playing because the bench is useless and its even more useless to rest them for some unknown reason
Just because they're in their twenties doesn't mean their immune to fatigue and wearing down. They'll still get plenty of minutes... And it's clearly not for some "unknown" reason...
What is this "fatigue" and "wearing down" going to do, manifest itself as an injury? As we've seen, injuries and playing time aren't really mutually exclusive.
Umm... what does fatigue usually do for a basketball player? Poor shot selection, bad decision making, bad defense, inconsistency, etc. And yes, it does increase the chance of injury... If you think it's worth it to run them into the ground for a chance at the 8th seed and first round exit, then we disagree.
We won't be "running them into the ground". they are all young guys who need a lot of burn. Poor shot selection, bad decision making, bad defense, inconsistency...the things you mentioned are a symptom of not getting enough on court playing time. Lillard and Batum especially could use more PT and on court time to find their niches. Lillard is a rookie, he should be getting heavy minutes...it will only help him. Aldridge is probably the best PF in the league right now, all things considered, and we're still looking for him to improve on several things. In game playing time is the best time to do this. Batum is super athletic, he should be good to go. These guys are all young, well conditioned professional athletes. We pay these guys over $10 million a year, they should be able to play the minutes of guys who command that much money.
Spoken like someone who's never played competitive sports in his life. You don't think 35 minutes a night together is enough to work on the things you mention? Like I said, we disagree and I'll leave it at that.
Yes. We should shut them down...for the lottery! :MARIS61: I must have missed your illustrious NBA career.
Are you still learning English or something? I never once even mentioned shutting them down. How I can clearly write '35 minutes', and you take that to mean shutting them down, is beyond me. Talk about :MARIS61:
So 35 minutes max, after that Stotts should pull them out no matter the outcome, got it. Unless they're #1, #2, #3 in the league in minutes, big deal. they're probably as athletic as any player in the league anyway. Are they whining about playing too many minutes? This is a fabricated problem by a blazers fan base that likes to do nothing more than whine and complain about whatever they can latch on. Sure, the Bench is terrible. But even when they play they really aren't getting any better. So play the starters.
