Analysis: McHale and his negative impact on our players' confidence

I think we should step back a second before accusing all the NBA players of being wimps.

Notionally, consistent minutes is as much about rhythm as it is about "confidence". And I think I would use confidence not simply in the sense that players have confidence in their abilities, which is one part of it, but also confidence in their shot at any particular game or stretch of play time. That often comes and goes and can be undermined in any particular game by disruptions in rhythm/game play, which is where I think inconsistent rotations really affect players. And inconsistent real time play may translate into larger confidence issues if the team keeps losing a la "we can't win" type mentalities.

It may very well be that coaches may be tempted to do more experimentation in rotations when a) team is young and b) team is losing. Conversely, that might be a factor in why losing teams stay losing teams - the lack of stability at playing time.