Managing Minutes - short term vs long term or short sightedness vs vision?

[Chr1s1anL]

Two years makes a big difference in ability to rehab injuries. The younger you are, the easier it is. That's not just big injuries either, daily wear and tear gets harder the older you get, and for athletes, the more minutes you've played.

I know all that but, your not going to see a huge difference between a 27 year old and 29 year old.

[Barolt]

Man, 2 years makes a huge difference for you eh?

Two years makes a big difference in ability to rehab injuries. The younger you are, the easier it is. That's not just big injuries either, daily wear and tear gets harder the older you get, and for athletes, the more minutes you've played.

[special1]

At some point in the playoffs, you're going to have to face Cleveland. I'd rather face them in the first round rested and healthy than in the second round exhausted and worn out. That's the ballgame. If we are going to be a team that might compete for a championship with this core, how to you want to face Cleveland and Golden State?

I disagree

Would rather face them in the second round or conference finals as they may also be worn out or have injuries to key players.


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[DanH]

Again because we've lost a guy who uses a significant portion of our offense. JV being down is going to have a similar effect to DD being gone last year in that respect.

It's Lowry who takes on the extra usage because he's the best player on the team. DD's is still about what it's been the past couple years. It sucks that we don't have a better way of distributing offense when a key guy is gone, but that's really on Casey.

I understand why it is happening, although I disagree that it is reason enough to risk his long term health. I understood why it happened last year and we were still screwed when the playoffs rolled around.

[Chr1s1anL]

He was 2 years younger, and had a 22.9% usage rate, as opposed to a 26.9% this year. And still, in 13-14 his worst months for FG% and Ortg were February and March.

Man, 2 years makes a huge difference for you eh?

[JWash]

Being a relatively new poster here, should I be as surprised as I am that almost every discussion on here ends up boiling down to 'we could fix this, but we'd have to fire Casey first'?

Tbh I'm sure some of the mods secretly hope we don't fire Casey cause it seems to be the only thing people universally (more or less) agree on here

[Barolt]

It's Lowry who takes on the extra usage because he's the best player on the team. DD's is still about what it's been the past couple years. It sucks that we don't have a better way of distributing offense when a key guy is gone, but that's really on Casey.

Being a relatively new poster here, should I be as surprised as I am that almost every discussion on here ends up boiling down to 'we could fix this, but we'd have to fire Casey first'?

[Chr1s1anL]

One thing to consider too is that its going to be hard to lower our top players minutes when Masai uses the last 5 spots on developmental players. Especially when injuries hit.

They went into detail about it in the last raptors republic podcast.

[Barolt]

Well we differ here cause I really have zero interest in being knocked out in the first round by the Cavs lol.

I have zero interest in being knocked out in the playoffs. I want to win it all, call me greedy. I don't think a tired Lowry gets us there. I honestly believe though with a healthy and rested Lowry, and a healthy Jonas... we aren't that far off from being a contender.

Maybe trading DeMar gets us there. Maybe getting 'best-case-DeMar', as Dan said in the other thread gets us there. Maybe it's just Ross being more consistent and Carroll finding his comfort zone. I feel like we have a lot of the right pieces, but more importantly if we can't win in the short term, we have some decisions to make. DeMar's athletic game is going to start to slow down as he gets older and Lowry is approaching 30. So if we're in a 5-year plan, I can't see those guys being part of it.

[JWash]

Well, that makes me feel great about the 28% usage Lowry has had since JV went down and the 29% usage he's carried since Dec 1st.

Again because we've lost a guy who uses a significant portion of our offense. JV being down is going to have a similar effect to DD being gone last year in that respect.

It's Lowry who takes on the extra usage because he's the best player on the team. DD's is still about what it's been the past couple years. It sucks that we don't have a better way of distributing offense when a key guy is gone, but that's really on Casey.

[JWash]

At some point in the playoffs, you're going to have to face Cleveland. I'd rather face them in the first round rested and healthy than in the second round exhausted and worn out. That's the ballgame. If we are going to be a team that might compete for a championship with this core, how to you want to face Cleveland and Golden State?

Well we differ here cause I really have zero interest in being knocked out in the first round by the Cavs lol.

[DanH]

I really do think Lowry's burnout last year had more to do with the 22 DeRozan-less games where he had to put up near 30% usage for us to win, than the amount of minutes he was playing. I mean the year before he actually logged 400 more minutes prior to playoffs and was amazing against the Nets.

Well, that makes me feel great about the 28% usage Lowry has had since JV went down and the 29% usage he's carried since Dec 1st.

[Barolt]

And so DD being gone for 22 games last year would not have had a similar effect?

EDIT: Also LeBron did not take 20 games off last year. He missed 13 games total last year, and the break he took last year was only 8 games long.

Except... LeBron will get those games off if he needs them this year, Lowry didn't get them last year, and we all agree he's not going to get them this year right?

Edit: You're right about the 13... somehow my brain subtracted 69 from 82 and got 20. My 5 year old had me up at 4:30am so my brain isn't fully there today.

[Barolt]

This is an entirely separate argument. Might even agree with you that maybe we do need to blow it up, but that's not the question being asked. The question being asked is should we rest Lowry more? My answer is that we can't really do that because of the way Casey has this team relying on star production to win games. If we do that, we could hurt our playoff seeding and get a very unfavorable matchup.

At some point in the playoffs, you're going to have to face Cleveland. I'd rather face them in the first round rested and healthy than in the second round exhausted and worn out. That's the ballgame. If we are going to be a team that might compete for a championship with this core, how to you want to face Cleveland and Golden State?

[JWash]

With Cleveland, a big part of the issue is that they're missing their other primary ballhander in Kyrie Irving. Also, LeBron took 20 games off last season to rest himself, and I'd expect him to do the same thing this year once Kyrie is back.

And so DD being gone for 22 games last year would not have had a similar effect?

EDIT: Also LeBron did not take 20 games off last year. He missed 13 games total last year, and the break he took last year was only 8 games long.