The Greg Popovich Minutes Plan vs. The Tom Thibodeau Minutes Plan

Harden's efficiency did fall off dramatically in April. Shooting percentage tanked and turnovers went through the roof.

The one thing that always stuck out to me about the Jeff Van Gundy era was how many minutes he piled up on McGrady and Yao during the regular season and how he NEVER let the young guys get in the game and develop and get them early in blowouts to rest our big guns. I hated that. It always felt like McGrady and Yao were running on fumes by the time we got into the playoffs. Thibs is a chip off the old block in that regard. So, give me Pops routine in a heartbeat.

Rockets have already indicated they are going to hold Howard's minutes to about 30 per game. That's the right amount to prolong a guy's career and keep him fresh for the playoffs and least likely injured. Injury rates increase with fatigue.

We've got enough depth on this team that keeping Dwight and James to 32 or less should not effect our W-L record one bit.

 

Even if Harden's minutes don't go down, two things will work in his favor: (1) Rockets have more talent so he shouldn't have to carry the load as much on offense and (2) He has a year under his belt being "the man". That firsthand experience should help him be bettered prepared for the coming slog. I don't expect his efficiency to dive next March and April again.

One thing Harden did at OKC well was move without the ball and score easy points. We should see more of that next season. Coming off picks, pin-down screens, backdoor plays, etc where he doesn't have to isolate and create his own shot.

 

I agree with CH & A_3PO. IMO, no Rocket should average more than 35 mpg. We have the tools to make that happen. Dwight & Asik take care of the 5. The 4 is a committee position any way. Parsons, Casspi & Garcia man the 3. Lin, Beverley & Brooks operate the point. The only concern I have is Harden at SG. However, with (as A_3PO mentioned) more of a post game and the outside shots of Garcia, Parsons & Brooks; I think Harden's minutes can be held to 35.

 

when I first read the title I thought it's about cell phone plans......

 

If I remember correctly, his minutes were limited because of
a) foul trouble
b) not giving them anything on offense
c) too many turnovers
d) low intensity

From the games I saw it was mainly c & d that caused him to be on the bench. Maybe this is from selected memory.

I think Howard should log around 32 min until he is 100%. Even if he is at his peak, he shouldn't go over 36, it will be diminishing return past that point.

I agree with others, Harden logged too many minutes last year, should keep him around 36 on the average.

 

Have to be TT plan for the first few months until we see how everything goes. Luckily we're so young, it won't wear on us as much.

 

I think McHale's rotations and handling of player minutes will improve this year as he has more experience with the players on his roster, and can make better decisions based on this experience.

 

Actually, Asik has always had stamina issues. He actually lost something like 20 pounds in order to play more minutes for us. 30mpg was probably his limit.

 

I believe Harden's conditioning will have to improve for him to sustain more than that. At the same approximate age (c 2002-2003), Kobe averaged 41.5 min/game. His conditioning was obviously better, but Phil still rode him pretty hard.

 

I believe that the Rockets organization will develop a mpg plan for the rotation. Calculating performance as a function of various minute per game scenarios is much to easy and obvious for Morey and his staff to miss. I can almost visualize the slide presentation right now.

However, as next season progresses such plans are obviously going to be "living documents".

 

Playing a player more than 3000 minutes in the regular season is seldom a good thing if you want to win a championship.

Teams that play their star players more than that are usually not contenders because they don't have enough talent to win with their stars sitting too much.

 

Excellent points, A_3PO. He has to know after experiencing going from being the 6th man for the Thunder, to not only full time starter, but a starter logging what is in today's NBA some serious minutes, that he needs to pace himself. The great players want to be on the floor, and complain, sometimes bitterly, if they're taken out, but if it has an impact on his performance as the season is winding down and playoff positioning is paramount, not to mention impacting his play in the post-season, then pacing himself during the year has to be one of his priorities. I hope McHale feels the same way.

Of course, some of us remember players like Elvin Hayes being on the floor well over 40 minutes a game, year in and year out, and he was also playing excellent defense. Do guards expend more energy than bigs, minutes being the same? I wonder. Hayes averaged about 44 minutes per game his first 7 years in the league!

 

I'm a big fan of the Spurs' approach. They didn't do it just for the old guys -- the most Parker has ever averaged was 34 minutes, and that was 4 years ago.

Aside from preserving the health and freshness of the main rotation players, they have a longer rotation, and therefore more guys they can plug in as the situation demands and have faith they'll perform. Of guys that played in over half the games, 8 played 20+ minutes with 4 other guys getting 10-15 in spot duty. That gives the coach a lot of flexibility come playoff time to mine the bench when you need to throw out a different look and still be confident in the quality because they've been battle-tested all season.

Of course, to do that, you need to have 10-12 players who are all good enough to be worth putting on the court, and have roles for them with specific duties to fulfill. There's no point in playing a 10th man spot duty if he's going to do the same sort of thing the backup was going to do, only a little worse. He has to do something different and with decent quality. Do we have that? Does Caspi give you something Garcia doesn't? I do think we have that in the PG rotation, with Brooks offering an offense-generation skillset Beverley doesn't offer (whereas Bev brings defense Brooks can't).

 

Obviously all minutes per game are not created equal. As a teams pace increases the minutes will take a greater toll. Also high usage handling the ball on the perimeter is more exacting than weak side alignment at the three point line. There are probably many more examples. But Harden's minutes are probably hard minutes almost any way you look at them. Goes a ways towards explaining Harden's lack of defensive effort at times last season.

 

How long are we planning on keeping Harden and Howard? If it is for the long haul, then we should be worried about cumulative wear and tear, and giving the body time to heal after each game.

Harden should have a couple minutes lopped off not just for his performance at the end of this year, but for his performance at the end of his contract. Our guard rotation should be good enough to pick up a couple minutes slack, especially knowing Asik or Howard will be back there on defense, so we won't have to score quite as many points with the bench.

 

That's too many minutes.

 

I think Spurs have it right. This team is deep enough that we should be able to rest our starters more this year.

 

Something in the middle. We're young and we need to build chemistry, so we shouldn't rest them too much.

At the same time, you don't want to wear the guys out come playoff time. We have depth, use it. And not every game is of equal importance (no need to play the starters during a blowout, for instance).