A read for JVG; Morey - Fewer Minutes = Greater Success

I have recently mentioned that we should use a deeper rotation, but most ppl on the board claimed that the best teams only have a 8 man deep rotation, so we should emulate that too. I disagree. Perhaps when we reach the playoffs, that might be something we should consider, but during the regular season, when it is a marathon, it is important to keep your players fresh. At the same time by expanding your rotation, you develop younger players, and when needed, you can insert them into the lineup for match up reasons during the playoffs, instead of being stuck with one formula that either sinks or floats.

 

Popovich > JVG

Nuff said.

DD

 

Two points to make ~

1. San Antonio has a much deeper bench then the Rockets do

2. Most teams in the league run with a 7-8 man rotation, even Phoenix. Anybody after that just gets scrubs minutes.

 

Different champion teams have their winning formulas. Take the Lakers for example, when they had two dominant players they only had a bunch of scrubs around and let their stars play big time. But for the Rcokets, we have to admit although both Tmac and Yao have almost reached that level they are not there yet. Guess we still need some depth. Unluckily, Bonzi Wells is doing what is expecte of him.

 

I hear you and agree but what choice does JVG have? Tsakilidas was awful last night, just dreadful. Right now, there doesn't seem to be any way to reduce Yao's minutes without impacting the final score.

 

It is too late now to talk about a deeper rotation, every one on the bench has not played enough all year to get any experience with the rest of the team, we do not even know how they will do on the floor when they are needed. This is the time when the bench will not answer JVG call because they have nothing to offer as they were given nothing to do. It is always the players have to do so and so to get some playing time, but how do you find out if they did them or not if they do not get a chance to prove it. JVG said he needed YAO ASAP after the injury and he can get his conditioning back while playing, how come he did not treat Bonzi the same way? he told him go get your conditioning taken care of and come when you are ready. This is not a coach that is concerned of winning as much as he is with his ego.

 

Rockets minutes

S. Battier 36.7
R. Alston 36.6
T. McGrady 35.7
Y. Ming 33.6
L. Head 27.6

Not bad considering Bonzi has been a bust and Snyder only recently cracked to the rotation on a consistent basis.

 

I see nothing wrong with that. If our main guys could see no more than 3qtrs (36min) I'm all for it.

 

You might as well let it out. Stop holding back.

Play Vspan

 

Popovich = JVG

Spurs bench > Rockets bench

 

Only because Popovich PLAYS his bench.

DD

 

The whole "play your bench" thing is just a confidence thing. They do it because they know they can get away with the 2-3 games they lose by playing their bench more and still be one of the top teams in the NBA. Houston doesn't have that luxury. If we played 10 players, the 2-3 games we would lose over a season might come back to bite us in the ass.

 

ugh... I would suggest ppl look up the exact stats before they criticise JVG based on stats...

for Spurs, their minutes played so far is:

*Tim Duncan 69--- 34:23
*Michael Finley 69--- 21:06
*Bruce Bowen 69--- 30:36
*Fabricio Oberto 68--- 17:36
*Brent Barry 67--- 21:48
*Tony Parker 66--- 32:47
*Manu Ginobili 64--- 27:36
*Beno Udrih 63--- 13:11
*Robert Horry 62--- 16:36
*Francisco Elson 58--- 19:11
*Jacque Vaughn 51--- 10:24
*Matt Bonner 44--- 10:54
*Eric Williams 16--- 5:30
*Jackie Butler 6--- 6:05
*Melvin Ely 3--- 4:35

They have 9 players playing 15 minutes or more
Of players that have played more than half of the season so far (35), they have 9 players player 15 minutes or more
They top 5 players has played an average of 29:24

for Rox, we have

*Rafer Alston 70 36:36
*Luther Head 70 27:36
*Shane Battier 70 36:42
*Juwan Howard 68 27:00
*Chuck Hayes 66 21:11
*Dikembe Mutombo 66 18:06
*Tracy McGrady 61 35:42
*John Lucas 39 8:11
Yao Ming 38 33:36
*Steve Novak 33 5:12
*Kirk Snyder 31 13:48
*Vassilis Spanoulis 29 8:05
*Bonzi Wells 26 21:36
*Scott Padgett 24 8:11
*Jake Tsakalidis 10 10:00

they have 9 players played more than 15 mpg so far
Of players played more than 35 games in the season, we have 8 players playing more than 15 mpg, one less than the spurs -- with bonzi playing only 26 games for various reasons
our top 5 minutes earners average 34:02
Note that Rox' minutes are considerably exagerated because of our key injuries that allows player to get more mpg.

comparing Rox and Spurs, I believe that while we do play our starting lineups longer, it is simply not true to say Spurs have a longer rotation.

JVG's rotation is fine guys... even if vspan and novak are playing for spurs and their supposed "longer rotation", they are not cracking their top 9 rotation this season. accept that that's how everyone in the league works, and let's move on.

 

i think this whole bench thing is so over played. its just another topic for people to bash jvg about.

rockets play 8-9 players a night. thats pretty much the norm.

Also, if the rockets could still win games by cutting back tmacs/battiers/ or whoevers minutes then fine, but i dont think thats a luxury the rockets have on most nights.

 

btw, an add-on to my last post...

Popovich plays their starter less because he plays their 6-8 guys more, not because he digs into his end of rotation vspan and novaks...

for the end of bench guys, JVG actually gives them more minutes than Popovich does.

 

The incorrect assumption most people make is that you can play more players and win the same amount of games. This isn't true. You are going to lose a couple of games by playing your starters less and your bench more. Which means Houston might be battling for 5th best record instead of 4th this time of year. Would you rather have us play Utah in the first round and be slightly more tired or play San Antonio and be slightly more fresh. I'll go with the former.

 

It is a drum I have been beating for a while now. None of the elite coaches play there role players as much as JVG does (Rafer and SB minutes for example). Most play their superstars a lot (Pop is the exception)--JVG plays everyone he kind of trusts right to their max minutes over time (looks like he burned Deke out when Yao was out as well). He is even slow to pull starters for scrubs with games in hand. He does have a different philosophy than Popv, Riley, PJ on how to use the bench. He errors on trusting the guys he is comfortable with rather than using the bench to bring energy and try to change of the pace of games that are not going as well as expected.

Mike D'A and JVG do it differently, and their is major concern in Phx that he will burn his team out before they get deep in the playoffs as well.

And I don't by the "Rockets" don't have a good bench theory. SA in particular has played tons of guys much suckier and scrubbier than Snyder and Wells (legit NBA players) substantial minutes. My chief minute usage issues was not using Snyder and Wells more and cutting down more accumulated PT by Shane, Rafer & Tmac.

 

exactly. keep everyone under 36 MPG.

hayes and howard can split minutes. deke/tsak can play 12 minutes behind yao.

i'd love to see rafer split time with a guy like mike james next year. with tmac and shane getting 36mpg, that leaves 24 pmg for another bench scorer who can be signed with the MLE like mopete or hill.

i can dream....

 

#1 Popovich does dig into his scrubs. Uriah, Vaughn, Oberto, Bonner all get over 10MPG. PJ does the same with his young learning players--Farmar, Vujacic, Turiaf.

#2 There is a huge dropoff in the Spurs performance without Manu or TD in there--every bit as big as the Yao-Tmac dropoff and they are far bigger dropoffs than having SB or RA being out for us (Look at 82.games). It is clear Popovich has thought keeping their minutes down is more important than the few extra minutes of production by stretching their minutes.

So JVG does use his core more than other elite coaches (except MAD, if you call him elite). When you look at high minutes for role players, and underusage of legit NBA players who have reasonable produced when given PT (Snyder, Wells, I have much less of an issue with not playing VS, JL3 and Novak--because they have sucked)--JVG sticks out from what Pop, Riley and PJ have done to manage their teams.