Dear Nate, Try not to be such an assclown. No excuse for this guy to be averaging less than 30 minutes. His fouls per minute would allow him to play around 32 without fouling out.
^Still though, he wasn't in foul trouble in the 1st half at all or the 3rd quarter. He picked those up late in the 4th.. Absolute bullshit Nate, the game turned when Oden came back in 4th.
5 is not 6, and as Minstrel once so graciously pointed out, it is not a prudent move for a coach to effectively foul out his player instead of forcing the referees to do it. There was no reason for Greg to come out at the 6 minute mark in the first with only one foul, and even more disturbing was his substitution of Joel for Greg at the 7:22 mark in the third.
He got the 5th foul with 2 minutes left. Would the world end if he fouled out? I would rather get the max minutes out of him that I can, even if he fouls out. Hell, Nate didn't even have him in at the end anyway.
I did like that he played most of the 4th quarter, though, and only went out when Nate put in another FT shooting guard. Sure, he could have played more in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, but maximizing his effort on the court like he does may take it out of him. You can't play 48 minutes like Greg plays. Getting it up to 30 will probably take till January.
I'm happy that the grace came through. There's no good smiley for that. And yeah, I'm a little surprised at how tentative McMillan is being with Oden's minutes. He acts like Oden will explode messily if he reaches a sixth foul, and it isn't worth the risk. If I were coach (yes, I'll forward my resume to Pritchard) I'd play him normally until/unless he reached 3 fouls in the first half, then play him normally in the second half until/unless he reached 5 fouls in the third quarter. And then play him normally in the fourth quarter/overtime until he fouls out or the game ends. If Oden doesn't like fouling out or sitting down when he reaches 3 or 5 fouls, he has motivation to learn not to foul. But I think that concept is silly anyway...I think Oden is trying to avoid fouls as it is. I don't think he needs "foul quotas" to inform him that fouling isn't a good idea.
Nate wants Oden to be able to play loose in the second half (the more important half). If he lets Oden pick up his third in the first half, that means, in the 3rd quarter, if he picks up ONE, he has to sit down. But if he holds Oden back, Oden has more leeway. The goal is to have Oden playing without fear in the 4th. Larry Brown did this all the time with Smits and they got to the ECF twice in a row that way.
I believe it is bad coaching to allow a player to pick up a 5th foul in the third quarter. Don't you want your guy to be able defend in the 4th quarter without worrying about being disqualified?
Oden needs minutes. At least 30 a game. Regardless of how good Pryzbilla is playing. Oden needs to build his conditioning on the floor. He needs to learn to reserve his energy when he's on the floor.
Also, I saw a lot of Aldridge on Lopez. I didn't know what to think about that. Lopez is a big, and pretty damn strong. Not saying Aldridge is some weakling, but he's giving up a lot of strength to defend against him. Regardless, I gotta give credit where credit is do. Lopez payed great tonight.
I agree with the majority here. Greg is obviously getting better with every minute he is on the floor..He isn't learning anything from the bench. When I saw him concede a layup tonight I realized how far he has come. That may seem obvious to us as fans but when you're a 7 footer and great at blocking shots it has to be tough to let any basket go uncontested.
I don't care if Joel is good, Greg is putting up All-Starish numbers right now. We need to ride that wave.
What if Greg is/does get winded? What should Nate do then? Let the big guy learn to play until he collapses? Maybe just let him play until he can't move? What if he breaks a leg? Let the big guy learn to play with pain? Perhaps if Oden has five guys assaulting him with crowbars Nate should leave him so the big guy can learn karate? I can just hear the gnashing of teeth and retching on the board now as the other half of the fanbase blames Nate for destroying the center of a lifetime.
Come on King, you know we can't look at the box score and say that's what happened. Lopez played out of his mind tonight, kinda abused everyone actually. Didn't do too well against Oden, which makes me proud.
I agree that Oden needs more minutes. I do not agree on letting him play more than 35-40 tops. You want him fresh at the end of the season and you want to keep Joel fresh so he can help out if anything were to happen to Oden. Plus you just can't ride a big guy 45 minutes a night. His lungs won't take it.
