Roster doesn't matter, eh? So if there's no backup C, play Kirk at C instead? I mean, the choices were pretty bad without Asik. Boozer ended up our backup C his last season here.
So, I saw K4E's question while reading the site unlogged in at lunch, and I'll just say this: Science. Same way we know how what a proper dosage of Tylenol is for a child vs for an adult. Smart people studied the numbers and the outcomes and my educated guesses, and others studied those numbers and those outcomes and now it seems the league is coming to some consensus. He seems to want one solid number like 33.5 minutes or something for every single player. That's silly. Even with medicine there are people who fall on both sides of the too much/too little line the recommended dosages outline. Peoples basic biology, their constitution, their diet, how they sleep, how they react to stress all play a role too. Everyone is different. You start with a baseline (I don't know what it is, the leagues experts do) and adjust on individual basis from there. Some can play longer with little wear. Some won't meet the baseline and will need to keep their minutes under it. The important thing is to try. I may not be able to avoid cancer or heart disease in my old age, but I'm eating right and exercising right now to give myself the best possible chance.
I'm fine with science, but the science has to be actually good. From what I've seen, there is no causal relationship between playing time and injuries. No more than there is between population and global warming. You can plot the two on a graph and they look like a fit, but one doesn't cause the other. At least directly. The evidence is really behind Thibs saying things like "Kareem played 40+ minutes most of his career." And Kareem was healthy. All the greats play big minutes for many seasons over the course of their careers. To boot, the Warriors won by playing their best players HUGE minutes in the finals. If you want to win, you play guys like Jimmy Butler as much as possible and guys like Kirk as little as possible. It's common sense, and that common sense is insulted by the smears.
We had one of the elite coaches in the history of the NBA. Not K4E's nor my mistake of creating a terrible work environment for him.
How about a rule of thumb for any player? How many minutes is "too many?" Did Joakim Noah play too many minutes in his career? (that seems to be somewhat the jist of the tweet in the starting post) Did he this season? Last season? If so, how many should he have played in order for him to be at optimal health right now. Or is it rest days in between performances that are important? Genetics certainly comes into play, how important is that? Nutrition? Also, inheritant in being a professional athlete is that you are going to likely harm your body long term in exchange for large sums of money. If they are going to have a 82 game season with a playoff round and the contests are supposed to be hard fought, is there any way to really get through a basketball career and not have several of the players degrade? You claim "science." Can you provide journal articles that backs any of this up? Where is the science? Ultimatley what people are talking about here is a risk / reward model of playing NBA players throughout the regular season. Things that you would want to tweak is expected wins in the regular season based on how you play players and some metric for fatigue / probablity for injury when playoff time comes around and probablity of making it thought the playoffs healthy and productive, along with several other factors I'm not thinking of as I quickly type. Inuriy history, current body state (injury / fatigue), genetics, nutrition, playing style, etc. So much of the analysis is "the warriors won, look what they did" but the Heat and Celtics won several titles in the last few years while playing their guys minutes at were at the top of the league leaders, so I'm not convinced. And it seems like the warriors were tanking a few regular season games here and there and having Iggy wear a fitbit to bed. All interesting things to do, sure, but I'm not really convinced that any of it had much to do with them winning the title this year. If it had an impact, I'm not sure it was a large impact. ---- Did Jimmy Butler play "too many" minutes last season? If so, around how many should he have played? What are you basing that number on? He seemed to play great in the playoffs, why was that? If its that he'll degrade over time due to the "heavy" minutes, when will he start derading due to this and by how much? I imagine Jimmy appreciated all those minutes since he put up monster numbers and gained league wide respect, and will be paid accordingly.
This is weak sauce. Stop apologizing for Thibodeau and admit what he's about. The only reason Noah logged as many minutes as he did is that Thibodeau doesn't give a damn about conserving his guys. He admitted to as much many, many times. No team likes its back up bigs. They're usually terrible. Thibodeau arguably has had as much or more depth along his front line than any other coach in the league. Taj Gibson was in contention for six man of the year the season before last and can cover both positions. It is what it is.
Taj isn't a center. He played the kind of minutes management apologists argue players should play. Less than 30. Strike shortened season. Noah didn't miss but two games. Asik was the backup. The data says when he has a roster of capable backups, he plays them plenty/ In case you're wondering, Rose played 37.4 MPG the season before (won the MVP), and 36.8 during Vinnie's last season. Deng played 38 that last season, too.
Out of 30 coaches, how many advanced past 1st round 3 of 5 seasons? Best Bulls record as coach in the PaxSnake era.
A most unbalanced coach. Good at cranking out regular season wins. Great at defense. Poor at pacing his team, and at caring for their health.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/the-bulls-just-fired-one-of-the-best-coaches-in-nba-history/ The Bulls Just Fired One Of The Best Coaches In The NBA FiveThirtyEight > _GB Thibs is about winning NBA basketball games and getting them to do better than expected, both in the regular season and the playoffs. Health care is up to the medical professionals and front office. Once minutes restrictions were imposed, they were adhered to. Are the Bulls a dramatically unhealthier team than other NBA franchises? The Rose injury was bad, but other than that, it seems like normal NBA wear and tear. Playing NBA basketball can lead to injury.
Coach Fred gave Iowa State fans a giant Joakim Noah knee to the balls in the NCAA tournament last season as his parting shot. Let's hope things go better here for the Bulls.
I'm going into this coming season assuming that Noah will never again be able to shoulder a NBA starting center's role. Wouldn't be surprised if Gasol and Noah share the center duties with Gasol getting the lion's share of the minutes.
