If injuries don't occur (Which is highly unlikely for us) some young players are just going to have to sit. I just don't see enough minutes to keep the vets happy. But that is common for deep teams. PG: Felton 32- Crawford 16 (Zero for Nolan) SG: Wes 30-Crawford 12, (only 6 for E. Williams) SF: Wallace 18, Batum 30 PF: LMA 35, Wallace 13 C: Camby 18, Thomas 18, Johnson/Smith 12
With this compressed schedule, I don't think anyone would raise a shit if they weren't given big minutes.
To me the biggest issue is Wallace. I threw him minutes at the 4 just to get him minutes. Both he and Batum need to be on the floor as much as possible. I would like to see Smith as the back up PF, but Wallace needs his minutes if Batum gets his. Nice problem to have i guess.
after what I saw last night I prefer Crawford as backup PG and maybe some SG minutes for Ewill over Nolan, if Ewill can show any decent offensive consistencty the scoring punch form that guard combo would be very nice to have in the second unit. It was only one game "but"
Much. Ado. About. Nothing. Trust me, these guys are going to be so dog-ass tired in three months they'll be begging for an 11 man rotation by the time they get to April. Nate openly talking about hopefully getting LMA's minutes down to 35 or even 30 a night is telling. In short, don't fucking worry about it ... this isn't the year to do that.
Yeah I wasn't worried about it. I was mostly wondering how you all saw the minutes being dispersed at this time. I feel more comfortable having the deph and was never a fan of the consolidation theory just to make players happy.
You have a minutes issue when you have a team loaded with lottery picks all on their rookie deals. Inevitably those guys are all playing for their next contract and it creates a ton of tension when guys have to take subservient roles when they know their livelihood depends on putting up numbers. So it's not just a silly theory, it's a real issue ... It's just not applicable to this current iteration of the Blazers because there are so few guys playing for their next deal or drafted so highly that there is an inherent expectation of playing time to goes with it.
Like I said I am not worried, but half the team is potentially on the last year of their contract. Yes these guys are not on their rookie contracts, but none-the-less some may be playing for their last big contract. So the similarities are still there IMO.
I think the concern will be in the playoffs; not the regular season. Players will be just too damn tired on this tight schedule.
I see Nic, Crawford and Felton as the only guys with anything to really "showcase" or worry about. Kurt Thomas? Marcus Camby? Craig Smith? Gerald Wallace (ETO)? Those are guys either a half-step from the NBA glue factory or are known quantities with very little to gain or lose with a slight reduction in minutes.
Absolutely. I think loading up on players so you can make consolidation trades is the way to go. I was not concerned with adding a Free agent PF two years ago to play behind LMA. Get the depth first and then you have value to trade. Trader Bob did it well. What I was not a fan of was worring about the feelings of the younger players and trading them just to avoid an "inevitable" problem down the road. The consolidation trade needs to bring back real value or what is the point? Did we really need to dump Bayless or Martell because they were getting uneasy with their roles? Not sure.
If we're playing the fast break game, our starters should play less minutes because they'll be using more energy. But don't worry, injuries will happen. This is the Portland Trailblazers we're talking about.
We traded Bayless and Martell because they were lousy and not progressing. The happy talk excuse put out there to let them exit with dignity, was that we traded them to give them a chance to play more, since we were crowded. But that wasn't the real reason.
