I'll dispute it under the logic that they haven't had enough time on the court to break a sweat, let alone get double digit anything except for Mo, Wright and Freeland. I think after the allstar break we'll see more of Leonard, Barton, CJ, Crabbe and Robinson. Claver seems to be the odd man out these days. Like I said, we don't know what we'll get from most of our bench yet.
LaMarcus Aldridge, 37.1 Damian Lillard, 36.1 Wesley Matthews, 34.0 Nicolas Batum, 35.7 Robin Lopez, 30.2
Ah, that makes sense, and is a good point. My brain must be sluggish from too many Christmas goodies.
I think the issue is that many people don't think that the amount of minutes being played qualifies as "too many".
This is true I guess I am just shocked more people don't think having 4 of the top 40 players in MPG is too much I mean there are 360 active players in the NBA. 150 starters, and we have 4 of the top 40 of them in MPG. Seems excessive I guess if you don't think so, then we will have to agree to disagree
Lma is 11th in minutes, Killard is 20th, Matthews is 39th, batum is 23rd and Lopez is 85th. Houston has 2 players in the top 10: harden #3, parson #9 Clippers have 3 players in the top 30: griffin 16, Paul and Jordan are 28 and 29. What's the problem? Their season is over too?
I think the number of minutes LMA, Nic, Wesley, & Damian are playing qualifies as too many...or at least well above ideal. I think the fact that three out of the four of them were laid up at the end of last season can be traced at least in part to the number of minutes they were logging. It's down a bit this year, but not enough. They're young, so it's not as big of a deal as if they were older guys, and they're used to playing those minutes, but I'd like to see them down in the low 30's. That said, the real question is what can be done about it? It's been pretty apparent for a long time that, even though the bench is better, leads still tend to evaporate when the starters go out of the game. Maybe Olshey can pull off a trade that would bring in another seasoned player. Moving Robinson probably would make the most sense, trading potential for experience. Other than that, the bench is just going to have to grow into being a larger contributor. I'm hoping that the experiment with giving Leonard more minutes is successful in spacing the floor better so that the offense doesn't take such a hit when LMA goes off the court.
I'm glad those other teams have starters who have to log that many minutes. The fact that they do does not mean our players should too. If Harden, Griffin and Paul hold hands and jump off a bridge, will you and Aldridge jump off a bridge too?
I would prefer our bench could hold a frikkin lead so our starters could get more rest and not be worn down and nursing nagging injuries leading into the playoffs. I believe the more minutes played increases the probability of being worn down and nursing injuries (both major and minor).
Part of the reason our starters log more minutes as a group is our starters are our 5 best players. Many teams like OKC have guys such as Sefolosha and Perkins in their starting lineup that are limited role players; then they play other players in the 4th quarter. The Clippers played Crawford in the 4th quarter when he came off the bench. Many teams have one of their 5 best players coming off the bench. But we close out games with our starting unit. Last season the Blazers had many games the starters were playing an exhaustive 40+ minutes then 32 minutes the next game when we got blown out. This season minutes have been more evenly distributed, which is easier on players, even though average minutes per game may be only slightly less than last year. When the season is young as it has been up to now or when the Blazers have lots of days off as they have these few weeks right now the minutes are not a big concern at all. March will be a month where starters minutes could be a concern. The team doesn't have more than one day off at a time, has three back to backs, and two long road trips. I don't think playing 34-37mpg puts a player under the ago of 30 at a higher risk for injury. It can cause them to be fatigued and less effective in the minutes they are on the court. So ideally we would like to see the bench play better and then the starters can have fewer minutes. That could improve the per minute efficiency of the starters. I wouldn't worry about it until the end of February and into March. After that the schedule is cake the last two weeks of the season so there is no concern about minutes then.
Dude, you are becoming very Kingspeedy lately. When did I say "season over" I said I thought it would catch up with them at some point. Seriously, I think some of you make shit up in your head as reality
I don't know if I should be worried because I don't know how many minutes of hard practice per day each of the player's average.
It's closely monitored... if the players need rest they do very little at practice and its low intensity. The bench players are the ones who practice hard.
You've been saying this team will not make the playoffs, struggle to say healthy or barely make the playoffs all season. I've stayed the same as well. You can call me what ever you like, I just don't think like you do. This team is special and like any team, we are an injury away from a key starter to lose many games. Every team is. What I'm saying is we are no different than any team. We have heavy minute producers and we have low minute reserves. We aren't the Lakers with a bench that gets more minutes than the starters, but the lakers aren't even in the playoff hunt right now. Understand?!
Casey and Freeman talked about this extensively on their podcast today. Suspect its mostly a point brought up by skeptics to explain away and diminish the Blazers hot start. Most national writers didn't pick the Blazers to make the playoffs so saying their starters won't be able to hold up is a way they can validate their failed predictions.
