Everything Bench Beauties

[DanH]

Pascal, Scottie and Fred are all playing PG for this team. It's a matter of depth after those 3 guys. All of which play at the same time (ie, start). So things should work out for the most part when everyone is healthy. Do some staggering.. try to get guys around 36mpg. But if we want to try to achieve better than that (ie, get to 33-34mpg) then we need more play makers / ball handlers. And that requires more time for Dalano and Flynn unfortunately.

If you have to have one or two of Fred/Pascal/Scottie out there at all times it becomes tough, especially if one is hurt or away for a game.

We have depth.. but a lot of our depth is at the traditional forward spot. Guys like Thad, Porter, Khem and Koloko can't replace what Scottie, Pascal and Fred can do. OG and Gary can't do it either unfortunately.

I don't think the team has any interest in doing "better" with minutes loads near 34 MPG. They still like loading guys up so their conditioning is there for playoff rotation minutes where they'll be playing 40 every night. If we had the extra vet bench guard, I'm not sure they get a whole lot of time on the court, and if they do, I suspect they end up off ball a lot so Scottie can get reps. Sure, when injuries crop up that guy would help, but I think management preferred to see Dalano and Flynn get another shot in that scenario.

[planetmars]

We had maybe the deepest team in NBA history. It was an absolutely insane roster.

We had that big trade mid season so that makes it harder to look at the minute break down that season. We had some good depth, but it wasn't that deep. Otherwise Jeremy Lin wouldn't have ended up averaging 18mpg in 23 games. McCaw had 13mpg in 26 games. These are guys that shouldn't have played at all. We traded Delon so these guys had to play, even though we had Kyle and Fred and Kawhi all being able to handle the ball. Pascal was more of an off ball threat that year, but he was already showing huge improvements with his handles.

Nurse needs ball handlers on the court. You can call it a flaw or crutch but it is what it is. If he loses trust in his two young guards early, then I wouldn't be shocked to see our 3 best players lead the league in minutes again. And he's also not been the most efficient coach in the league when it comes to dishing out playing time.

[planetmars]

I don't think the team has any interest in doing "better" with minutes loads near 34 MPG. They still like loading guys up so their conditioning is there for playoff rotation minutes where they'll be playing 40 every night. If we had the extra vet bench guard, I'm not sure they get a whole lot of time on the court, and if they do, I suspect they end up off ball a lot so Scottie can get reps. Sure, when injuries crop up that guy would help, but I think management preferred to see Dalano and Flynn get another shot in that scenario.

That overplaying to help their conditioning for the playoffs is a weird strategy when you lose in the first round anyway, and mostly because one of your most important players was unplayable due to injury from being overplayed.

Let's hope they don't try that strategy again this year.

[DanH]

We had that big trade mid season so that makes it harder to look at the minute break down that season. We had some good depth, but it wasn't that deep. Otherwise Jeremy Lin wouldn't have ended up averaging 18mpg in 23 games. McCaw had 13mpg in 26 games. These are guys that shouldn't have played at all. We traded Delon so these guys had to play, even though we had Kyle and Fred and Kawhi all being able to handle the ball. Pascal was more of an off ball threat that year, but he was already showing huge improvements with his handles.

Nurse needs ball handlers on the court. You can call it a flaw or crutch but it is what it is. If he loses trust in his two young guards early, then I wouldn't be shocked to see our 3 best players lead the league in minutes again. And he's also not been the most efficient coach in the league when it comes to dishing out playing time.

If we suffer major injuries to the core like last year, and Dalano and Flynn disappoint when called upon, yeah, we might end up with heavy minutes again. I don't think that's particularly likely, considering at least we aren't entering the year with Siakam already injured (which last year is what drove Fred's early minute and role load that likely led to his own injury concerns).

Really not ready to just assume that will probably happen.

Nick loved Pat McCaw for some reason, explains him playing. It wasn't a lack of depth. We had Serge, Fred, OG and Norm coming off the bench. Could very much afford to run out some spare parts because there was so much front end quality to establish a successful bench unit.

[DanH]

That overplaying to help their conditioning for the playoffs is a weird strategy when you lose in the first round anyway, and mostly because one of your most important players was unplayable due to injury from being overplayed.

Let's hope they don't try that strategy again this year.

I mean, I hope they don't do it with Fred again, though they only really ran him into the ground earlier in the season when Siakam was out or rusty and we had no functional depth. The Siakam side of the experiment seemed an unmitigated success.

[Kagemusha]

That overplaying to help their conditioning for the playoffs is a weird strategy when you lose in the first round anyway, and mostly because one of your most important players was unplayable due to injury from being overplayed.

Let's hope they don't try that strategy again this year.

Is there some type of bonus for wins among head coaches?
Coz i don't see any sense to the overplaying strategy either.

[golden]

We had maybe the deepest team in NBA history. It was an absolutely insane roster.

At the very least, a strong argument for greatest defensive roster of all time.

I mean OG had his appendix removed just before the playoffs and nobody even noticed he was missing.

[planetmars]

If we suffer major injuries to the core like last year, and Dalano and Flynn disappoint when called upon, yeah, we might end up with heavy minutes again. I don't think that's particularly likely, considering at least we aren't entering the year with Siakam already injured (which last year is what drove Fred's early minute and role load that likely led to his own injury concerns).

Really not ready to just assume that will probably happen.

Nick loved Pat McCaw for some reason, explains him playing. It wasn't a lack of depth. We had Serge, Fred, OG and Norm coming off the bench. Could very much afford to run out some spare parts because there was so much front end quality to establish a successful bench unit.

Nick loving McCaw doesn't explain why Lin got 18mpg. He was a buyout on a vet min. The dude didn't need to see the court at all.. but was playing quite a bit and was really bad when he did.

His love affair for McCaw likely comes from him being able to handle the ball. That's the most rational explanation. McCaw also didn't turn over the ball. He was basically useless from a fan perspective, but Nurse probably liked that part of his game.

[G__Deane]

Is there some type of bonus for wins among head coaches?
Coz i don't see any sense to the overplaying strategy either.

Aside from prestige of winnng, division/conference, COY, future contracts, playoff seeding and yah, likely bonuses, why would you play your best players the most minutes? Oh, and the players wanting to play more minutes....

In hockey, why do they skip the 4th line and double shift centres and put the best guys on the PP?
In baseball, why do the best hitters go at the top of the order where they get tons of extra AB's over the course of the season?

[DanH]

Nick loving McCaw doesn't explain why Lin got 18mpg. He was a buyout on a vet min. The dude didn't need to see the court at all.. but was playing quite a bit and was really bad when he did.

His love affair for McCaw likely comes from him being able to handle the ball. That's the most rational explanation. McCaw also didn't turn over the ball. He was basically useless from a fan perspective, but Nurse probably liked that part of his game.

McCaw couldn't really do anything on offence, it was definitely not handling the ball or playmaking that he was on the court for. He never turned the ball over because he never ran any offence. In theory it was for his defence, although that was also terrible. Can't really explain it.

Lin was used I suspect because that was part of the signing, that he'd get a shot. Sure didn't get one in the playoffs once it mattered.

[planetmars]

McCaw couldn't really do anything on offence, it was definitely not handling the ball or playmaking that he was on the court for. He never turned the ball over because he never ran any offence. In theory it was for his defence, although that was also terrible. Can't really explain it.

Lin was used I suspect because that was part of the signing, that he'd get a shot. Sure didn't get one in the playoffs once it mattered.

This is all your perspective.. mine is that Nurse wants ball handlers on his team.. and if he can't find one he trusts he'll just go with the guys that can.. even if it means overplaying them.

We'll see what happens this season. But I bet if Banton and Flynn aren't seeing the court.. our 3 best players will be averaging over 37mpg again.

[DanH]

This is all your perspective.. mine is that Nurse wants ball handlers on his team.. and if he can't find one he trusts he'll just go with the guys that can.. even if it means overplaying them.

We'll see what happens this season. But I bet if Banton and Flynn aren't seeing the court.. our 3 best players will be averaging over 37mpg again.

Well, he clearly is willing to play ball handlers who are terrible, you provided that evidence with the chip run year. The key is having good enough players around them that it doesn't kill you. We had zero depth last year (or the year before really) so couldn't survive guys taking minutes off. This year projects to be better in that sense.

[TrueTorontoFan]

so again jae crowder anyone loll

[planetmars]

Well, he clearly is willing to play ball handlers who are terrible, you provided that evidence with the chip run year. The key is having good enough players around them that it doesn't kill you. We had zero depth last year (or the year before really) so couldn't survive guys taking minutes off. This year projects to be better in that sense.

There are terrible ball handlers and then there are terrible ball handlers that Nick trusts. He doesn't trust Flynn. He was relegated to the G-league when he was healthy. Not quite sure on Banton. Let's see if that changes this year or not.

He played Armoni Brooks quite a bit down the stretch. And he played him over Flynn who was our own first round pick.

As for the depth I think that's a tad overrated considering neither Thad or Porter are going to help reduce our play makers minutes. Siakam was back in the fold by game 20.

Fred still averaged about 37.8mpg from games 20 through to game 40 before he got hurt himself. Why play so much if Pascal is back and healthy? Scottie was also playing those games (he missed may 3 games in that stretch). And that's not including the 53mpg game against Miami that went into 3OT.

[SkywalkerAC]

We were a lot more desperate for Fred's shooting last year I'd say. Plus Scottie was still figuring things out as a rook.