I thought this might warrant its own thread. On 610 this morning Morey was taking calls and someone mentioned that since we don't have a superstar, why not take advantage of our depth and use a wider rotation with more frequent substitutions. Here are some things Morey said (paraphrasing): This is about as explicit as Morey can/will get to prodding Adelman to try something. Or maybe DM is just throwing it out there as a lark. In the Heat game we were successful when we got out and ran, in the half court it was much more difficult. Morey specifically said that the Heat made their comeback in the 3rd because he thought our players were gassed (hint hint RA). The fact that players as good as Ish and Jeffries can't even dress speaks to our depth. I doubt they would be in street clothes on any other team.
Interesting comment. When Wade was going off, I would have liked to see Battier switch over to gard him. Then have Jefferies gaurd Bosh/James and have Chuck on James/Bosh. Martin would be scoring along with Aaron or KL at the point.
This is why I love Daryl... I, and half the chat room last night, said the same thing. The starters stayed in the game about 2-2:30 minutes too long. When they are going all out like that you have to limit the stretches they play in (imho - and apparently Morey's too) There were a lot of rotation changes I would have made last night.. but I'm not a possible Hall of Fame coach with thousands of nba games under my belt either So I'll defer to Rick on this one for a while longer.
We already play a ten-man rotation. No one plays the whole team. Even Hubie Brown's grizzlies used eleven, which was a really wide rotation.
I understand why Morey would like to see it, but I don't think Adelman would be too thrilled with the idea. He likes the rotations right now, and plus that would require a lot of extra in-game management on his part.
Morey did not say he wanted to see it, he was commenting on something a caller suggested. Morey said it was interesting and that is what they do in Europe..... He said the only instance he could recall of that in the NBA was when Shane was in Memphis with Hubie Brown..... DD
If Morey did want RA to try something (not saying he does), he couldn't just come out and say so explicitly.
Agreed. From his perspective, a longer rotation would be intriguing. He wants to see how the players he brought in perform on the court, he wants to "showcase" those players for potential trades, and he also would like a strategy that takes advantage of the unique depth he has assembled. I just don't think Adelman would go for it, and ultimately its his decision.
There are surely game specific examples where rotations can be questioned, but using a large rotation regularly doesn't seem to make much sense to me. The only reasons to do it are to (i) combat short and long-term fatigue, (ii) combat potential injury, (iii) spot situations to match-up better against your opponent. Generally, though, the reason you see shorter rotations come playoff time is because your starters are your starters for a reason - they're better than your bench. You still have to have some bench. Some of your starters may not be that much better than your bench, or may be having off games, and very few can really play the full 48 minutes every night, even if in the deciding game 7, as fatigue certainly becomes a factor. But I see little reason to regularly use a 12 man rotation.
I think Adleman left the 2nd string in there too long at the beginning of the 4th QTR... I kept wondering where the heck Lowry and Martin were at.. I know the 2nd string were playing well but you could tell they were getting winded... Maybe opening up his rotation would help..
I totally agree. What made me sad about it is that everyone on the roster brought their A game. A 12-man rotation, to me, would have made sense last night.
Give me a break. 12 man rotation is stupid. Morey always plays the politician on the radio and acts like its an interesting idea even though inside he probably thinks the idea is idiotic.
We cut hit them with line changes like in hockey. Run the Rick Pitino press all game long, 48 minutes of hell.
I wonder if Adelman heart Morey's talk on 610 and will continue to experiment with a 10-man rotation? He went pretty deep with 10 guys getting over 20 min for the Raptors game.
Maybe I'm the only one who thinks like this, but from what I understood from DM's comments he means players IN the rotation, not everyone getting significant minutes. I think what DM's trying to say is that most NBA teams only have 8 good players, with the players at 9-12 being glorified practice partners. With us though players 9-12 might be just as good as 5-8, so rather than limiting himself to a fixed 8 man rotation RA should be more willing to experiment and take advantage of the team's depth. For example. Chuck Hayes is the starter, but in games where a layup drill is going on Hill/PP/Miller should be getting some time. Or C-bud is the official backup SF, but in games where he's playing like crap he should be benched and T-will should make an appearance. At the end of the game as much as 12 players could have seen PT, however the concentration of minutes will still be on 8-9 guys, except those 8-9 guys would vary depending on who performed well. As durvasa said though, this is just wishful thinking on DM's part. No way RA does this kind of active management, its way too much work for him.
12 Man rotations can work if the players all understand the system and their roles in it. For this team I don't think it really works because our 2 PGs have such different playing styles that every player has to adjust to change at the PG spot.
This would create multiple problems: 1. It would be difficult for any real chemistry to build between all the different combinations of players you would see in a 12 man rotation. 2. Rick would be working constantly and would probably have to sacrifice some aspect of his in-game coaching simply in order to keep track of all the players he is taking in and out. 3. How do you deal with a player who is having a hot game while playing a 12 man rotation? There are only so many minutes to go around. I don't think this is realistic, which to me says that we are in desperate need of a trade that ships out multiple quality role players (we apparently have several to spare) in exchange for one or two star players (we may or may not have any depending on our view of our team)
Check out the box score from last night's game: http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=301231010 The Rockets played 10 players, with the minutes for all 10 players ranging from 22-26 minutes. I cannot recall ever seeing so many players with such an evenly balanced allocation of minutes before.
I think it would be fun to see the entire second unit start the game every now and then. Just as a reward for their effort and recent good play. Maybe get a little good natured competition going on between the first team and second team.
That would be fun but that's not going to happen. IMO Morey just wants to showcase his players before the deadline. While we do have a deep roster and he is correct that our 9-12 is as good as other teams benches. The rotation will tighten up as the playoffs approaches. I'm guessing the Rockets could be hitting their stride at just the right time.