im sorry but i like Terry Stotts as a coach but ive had enough of him and his love for the starters. im convinced that no matter how good of a bench player(s) we have on the bench he wouldnt give them more mins. hes running our starters into the ground. if he hasnt noticed the spurs won it all because of them being well rested and having a deep bench. we have some good players and he doesnt like to play them i have noticed that if a starter isnt playing good down the stretch of a game and a bench player is he still takes them out. batum is playing horrible bball right now and doesnt give wright the confidence he needs to contribute. we play back to backs he should extend crabbe, lenoard, freeland, barton, robinson mins. and he needs to get aldridge to the basket more shoots too many jumpshots at times. when the bench players make mistakes let them play thru it. and rest the starters some times because they are playing too many mins thats how batum got hurt. i think he should sit out until he recovers. start crabbe and give wright crabbs bench mins we have alot of good players use them.
1) I'm pretty sure the starters have played less minutes than last year 2) Wright sucks for any extended period of time.
False premise == faulty conclusion. Aldridge is the only player on our roster in the top 20 in total minutes played (he's 20th) and MPG (15th). He's averaging 35.5 MPG - his lowest since the 2007-08 season, his second season in the league, when he averaged 34.9 MPG. BNM
Batum is averaging 33.9 MPG, down from 36.0 MPG last season and 38.5 MPG two seasons ago. He's seen his minutes cut by over 4.5 per game the past two seasons under Stotts. BNM
Yeah, there's no pleasing some people. When Nate was coach people were constantly bitching that he needed to play Nic at LEAST 32 MPG, and now that he's playing 33.9 MPG, people are bitching that Stotts is playing him too much. Apparently, unless he's averaging exactly 32.95 MPG, someone is going to be calling for the coach's head. BNM
If the Blazers were to lengthen the games from 48 to 60mins that would give Stotts 3 more mins per quarter to play the bench. Problem solved.
Outside of our only truly decent/good bench player (Kaman) who are all of these maligned bench players getting short shrift from Stotts? The simple fact that he's been able to shave ~3 minutes per game and maintain the record he has is pretty remarkable. As for adopting the Spurs approach, it's nice when you have a proven track record of being able to turn it up a notch and trot out 3 future hall-of-famers at the end of the season, but Portland doesn't have the luxury of knowing they'd even make the playoffs if they gave extensive minutes to guys on the bench.
Actually his aversion to the benchers is rather Nate like. His salvation is, the likeness ends with that flaw.
I agree with most of the OP. Aldridge could play 40 minutes occasionally but I think we could also give him 25 in many games and still win. I don't want Wright specifically getting more minutes but if TRob gets 10 minutes, once every two games or so, it will only make us better. Players should play. Bench players getting a decent chance would boost their confidence, get them in rhythm and give us more options in the rotation - Crabbe is a great example. Stotts should stop being so fixated on his regular rotations and start having fun with the substitutions. Having the starters Always finish the games to me proves he's fixated and not going with the flow of the game. Aldridge, Batum, Lillard etc could only benefit from playing less minutes unless it's their stat-line that matters. We have excellent bench players not getting minutes at all (Barton, Robinson). To me, that's poor coaching.
The easiest way to get everything you want without missing the playoffs is to petition the NBA and have us moved to the Eastern conference.
LA takes a lot jump shots? Are they of the low percentage type? Maybe BFW could elaborate. Go Blazers
This thread lol... Come on.... Four guys played in 82 games last year. I think they did fine. They'll be fine this year too.
I am very happy with Coach Stotts. I can see that the players enjoy playing for him and he's great with X's and O's. This team has joy. Let it be.
