heh...nice to see your developing a sense of humor about it Problem is, and I really think NIKE has covered this ad nauseaum, is that with Bonzi and Kirk coming back into the rotation, Luther will lose some of those SG minutes he is used to getting and will play more actual point ( with Tmac controlling the ball mostly..ie.. point forward) than before. Luther brings too much good to the court to allow Span to take away the backup point duties that I think VG will assign to him. Ive said it before...and I dont want it to get lost amongst all the other talk...but I am actually a big fan of the style SPan plays, I just have watched enough NBA ball over the years that I realize that the odds of a Euro rookie coming in and making an impact immediately is pretty much a longshot. IF we were fully healthy and were handily winning the games...ID be right there with you asking "What could it hurt to play him some every game?" but we arent. and until he gets with the program...he is playing exactly how much he needs to be.
Last game, JVG could have put in "the scrubs" 6 minutes earlier than he did. I think it could be useful to get them a few more minutes - give Novak some confidence so that he gets more comfortable, try out KillBill a bit more, etc. I'm not a JVG hater, I'm just saying...
exactly, he doesnt have to wait till the lastminute of the game to put in the bench when there is a huge lead. 4-5 more minutes would do no harm. Also, everyone is saying dont fix it if it aint broken. Last time I checked, the rockets are the 5th or 6th seed in the west. There is always room for improvement. I know Yao is hurt and it is tougher, but why not try some changes for 5 minutes
That's your opinion. You have to realize that the Rockets built that lead entirely in the 3rd quarter -- who's to say the Blazer's don't have a similar run in them? We nearly came back from a similar 4th quarter deficit earlier this year vs. the Lakers. It's not impossible. I think those minutes were extremely productive for the Rockets - Luther was handling point guard duties, and if we don't acquire a point guard at the deadline, he's our backup PG for the year. Likewise, I thought those minutes were helpful for Bonzi. Bonzi's played with these guys less than Spanoulis and Novak. Bonzi got some time playing with Battier and Head, and some more time functioning as the playmaker. Do you think developing Spanoulis and Novak's game this year is more important than developing Head's point guard comfort zone and Bonzi's role with the team? I take the latter. I guess it just comes down to whether you choose to look at what did come of it, or what didn't come of it.
If you were watching the game, the Blazers had given up. Plus, if they were really going to make a run, you could have always put the starters back in. But if you watched that game and ask "who's to say the Blazers don't have a similar run in them" when they were down by about 25 with 8 minutes to go, and their whole body language was showing they had given up...I'd have to disagree that they had a similar run in them. That is not necessarily the alternative. When you are up by 20 going into the fourth quarter, and up by about 25 with 8 minutes to go, you can play PG Spanoulis SG Head SF/PF Novak/Wells C Hayes
Of course I was watching the game. I did the pbp in the chat, and I detailed Spanoulis' significant plays earlier in this thread. But thanks for insinuating that I wasn't. The Blazers are full of young players, who by nature are unpredictable -- that team did beat us earlier this year. I'm glad you've become a body language expert, but that stuff can turn around easily. Now you're depriving Head of point guard minutes, and Head is a more viable point guard alternative because he's shown a willingness to play within the defensive scheme and has a bona fide NBA skill - shooting. You're also not letting Bonzi play with Battier, with whom he started to show some good chemistry in this game leading him on a cut earlier in the game. But whatever. I'm not going to sit here and debate about whether Spanoulis and Novak should have gotten an extra 5 minutes - considering how quick you were to jump on me for micro-analyzing Spanoulis' performance in the time he did get, arguing over 5 minutes of alleged garbage time seems hypocritical. The fact of the matter is, we have the 5th best record in the NBA now, and have a fairly respectable 4-5 record against the top 4 teams, especially considering 5 of those games have come missing either TMac or Yao (and one of them missing both). Part of that can be attributed to the way the team has accepted the Van Gundy attitude, commitment to a team defensive philosophy, and mistake-free basketball. Similarly, Van Gundy has refused to play those who refuse to buy into these concepts -- see Bonzi earlier in the year. Feigen said it about as well as it could have been said a few days ago - Spanoulis doesn't see the court because he's not performing there, neither in games nor in practice. He didn't perform in his time against Portland. That's the reason he doesn't get minutes: he hasn't earned them. Under Van Gundy, players on the fringe have to earn their spot in the rotation. You can debate whether or not that's fair, but that's the reality. That was the case with Hayes -- and he earned his way from undrafted into the starting job in less than a year. Luther was supposed to be all the way out of the rotation -- he played his way up to 6th man. I could be empathetic to the position if Spanoulis was performing like say, Sergio Rodriguez. Spanoulis' had his 12 game stretch in the rotation earlier - he didn't perform. Lucas came in right after, and performed significantly better. It's asinine for any meritocracy to give minutes to Spanoulis over Lucas or Head. Spanoulis had a chance to win a spot in the rotation in preseason. Didn't do it. He got another chance in the regular season. Didn't do it. At that point, he has to take his seat on the bench, and perform if and when the coach calls his number. Against Portland, he didn't do it. At some point, you accept that he probably won't be the answer this year. You don't keep force feeding him minutes just to prove that.
Well, that is what they meant, but the way they came across they made it sound like Euro's have always struggled as rookies. They haven't. They didn't come into the league and start dominating, or having the same success they had overseas, but that can be said about most rookies independent of where they came from. My point is that these Euro rookies they are referring to didn't come in and play badly...they actually had very nice output for first year players. Then for the most part they improved quite a bit by the next season, because they had the experience behind them. With the kind of minutes Vassilis is getting right now (or lack thereof), he's basically still at square one with REAL NBA playing experience, meaning if things don't change, he'll basically be just as much of a rookie next year as he is this year. I don't like that idea. We blew out Dallas. VSpan got 4 minutes. We blew out Miami. VSpan got 1 minute. We blew out Cleveland. VSpan got 18 minutes. We blew out Golden State. VSpan got 23 minutes. We blew out Charlotte. VSpan got 17 minutes. We blew out San Antonio. VSpan got 1 minute. We blew out New Jersey. VSpan got 1 minute. We blew out Atlanta. VSpan got 4 minutes. We blew out Los Angeles. VSpan got 2 minutes. We blew out Portland. VSpan got 3 minutes. So that's 10 blowouts. He obviously got some good minutes against Cleveland, Golden State, and Charlotte, but look at the other 7 games. He only averaged 2.3 minutes per game in those. Why? All but 1 of the games (Miami) was decided with plenty of time remaining...sometimes by the middle of the 3rd quarter. I see no reason why he shouldn't get at least 4 or 5 minutes in games like that. To put him in with 1:15 on the clock or whatever, makes no sense to me. It's really more like 50 seconds, because the last 20 seconds or so is often spent just dribbling out the clock. Nobody learns from getting minutes like that. I mean, we were up by as much as 35 points Friday night. THIRTY freaking FIVE. As someone else already pointed out, the Blazers had obviously given up, and even if they hadn't, even a blind man could see a 35 point lead dwindling before it could even get back down to 20. So why play VSpan less than 3 minutes?
JVG can not give V-Mac minutes for at least a couple of weeks. Here is how it will probably go down. 1. JVG or the Rockets begin to praise V-Span for practicing hard. 2. JVG says he is happy that V-Span has finally focused his frustrations on the court instead of in print. 3. JVG finally puts V-Span in for a looksee at PG. There is no way JVG can put V-Mac in the game right now.....it would make him look weak, and look like the whining by V-Mac worked. V-mac has to take his lumps and learn his lessons....tough love baby ! DD
I didn't mean to insinuate you weren't . The "if you were watching" was more of a filler. Maybe you should take a step back here... no need for that hostile tone, I respect your opinion a lot as well as your statistical analysis. I have noticed that recently you seem to go away a bit from your previous approach, though, and that you added more unnecessary vile to your posts, which is a pity, because you know your stuff. Head played a lot more backup point guard minutes already this season. He's not going to become a much better ball handler than he already is by playing 6 more minutes against some Blazer reserves. Bonzi played quite a few minutes with Battier in that game already. I'd say about 15-20. How did I "jump on you"? A bit sensitive today, are we? I am not all that passionate about the issue, I just made a case for why I think Span could have gotten a few more minutes. And yes - actually you are sitting here and debating whether they should have gotten 5 more minutes. No disagreement here. Still, the record and the philosophy would be the same had Novak and VSpan been inserted a few minutes earlier when we were already up by 25. Well, Clutch's most recent article says that Spanoulis just had a great practice. You repeat it over and over again that Spanoulis didn't earn the minutes in practice - yet, I assume that you get to watch as many practices as I do. I am neutral toward JVG. Love the defense, players seem to love him, yet I sometimes feel he might be a little too rigid, but it's hard to tell from the outside. However, he cut Hayes and had to play Head because of injuries, so maybe that is not the best example. Obviously, he allowed Hayes back in and Head is firmly in the rotation now, so I am not one of those who say "JVG hates rookies". You repeat the same things over and over again. I got your point. Yet, giving him 8 instead of 3 minutes in a 25-point blowout would hardly be "force-feeding him minutes".
That's a good point, and might actually be a sensible reason why all the scrubs got in so late - JVG didn't want to make it seem like he would "reward" whining (which would have made him look weak), while at the same time he didn't want to single out VSpan by putting in everyone else early and leaving him on the bench (which would have made him look resentful). So if that is the reason the minutes were handled that way, I could fully understand.
It's actually 3 months. Lucas and Head were born 11/82 and Spanoulis 8/82. NBA.com actually has Spanoulis' birthday wrong. Someone forgot to inform those idiots that in Europe 8/7/82 would be written as 7/8/82, meaning that on nba.com they should have transposed 7/8/82 into 8/7/82 since he was born on August 7th, 1982. but then again they just recently changed Yao's player profile to state he wasn't a rookie.
You can tell we're having a pretty good season when the most passionate debate on the bbs is about whether the scrubs should get 2 minutes or 6 minutes in blowout games.
Basically its, when you see Dan Dickau in there even at the 8 minute mark, its time to empty out your bench 8th to 12th man.
Not the way it came out. If it's filler, why put it at all? I'm fed up that in the midst of our best season since the championship years, where I could be discussing how the Rockets have come up with the winning solution against the Spurs, and are unthinkably regarded as the 3rd best team in the league while being short one of the big 2, and 2 of our big 3 for half the season. Head has not logged many backup PG minutes this year. I doubt he gets to run point guard much even in practice because he's been the backup 2 (and even partial starter sans TMac). Saying he's not going to become a better ball handler in 6 more minutes is like saying Spanoulis is not going to become a better shooter in 6 minutes. That's not the point. While Head won't be asked to be a traditional point guard, there are still things he needs to do to get more comfortable with the role. Bonzi needs all the minutes he can get, and it's going to help him a lot more to play with the guys he's going to be playing with come May. Again, on the margin, 6 more minutes may help Novak/Spanoulis' development more than Bonzi/Head's. But come playoff time, Novak and Spanoulis will be glued to the bench. Bonzi and Head won't be. Multiple posts on something you've generally stayed out of, and the above "if you were watching". I disagree the philosophy would be the same -- it's a killer instinct, and perhaps Van Gundy had his foot on the pedal a little more because we lost to this team earlier in the year. Further in the games I've seen around the league, coaches seem to going to garbage time later and later. One of JVG's tenants is consistency. Spanoulis performed badly over many practices. He then had a good practice. He didn't play against the Spurs, and presumably we had another practice in the downtime between the SA game and Portland. Perhaps he had another good practice - even then, you're talking about 2 good practices in a row, followed by an underwhelming garbage time performance. That doesn't earn you PT. Perhaps Portland will be the exception, and he's performing well in practice, and will do well the next time he gets in the game. We'll see. As far as cutting Hayes, given JVG's stated avoidance of roster moves, I don't think that's entirely fair. The Rockets had just made a high profile signing at the 4 (Swift), and given we had 4 bigs signed on multi-year deals, and I believe either 13-14 guaranteed contracts, it was a numbers game. Head has been getting minutes from opening day this year. Maybe he wouldn't have had Bonzi been healthy on day 1, but Head was getting 20+ mpg before Snyder or TMac got hurt. Regardless, both performed when they were put in the rotation. Spanoulis didn't. Like I said, I'm more empathetic to Sergio Rodriguez only getting 10 mpg on a losing team when he's actually put up some (relatively) brilliant performances. Personally, I'm tired of the debate of why Spanoulis doesn't play. The same tired "VSpan is better than JL3", "Rafer sux", and "JVG is a moron." The answers are JL3 has outperformed Spanoulis in similar minutes, Rafer's PT has no effect on Spanoulis until he outperforms JL3, and JVG is doing things with a team missing a superstar no one thought possible. I would stay out of it, except much of what goes around is patently false, or horribly faulty logic. But even now, I'm reaching the end of that rope. Once he logs some more time, I may post a Luther Head at the point guard thread. He's played about 8 minutes there the last 3 games or so, and in sum, has done what he's supposed to do - he hasn't screwed up.
Well, you'll just have to take my word for it. Wtf is your problem?? So that means one is not allowed to discuss that a few players could get a few more minutes or you will be "fed up"? Sorry to hear that. Which is pretty much all I'm saying, so I don't really see what you are getting so excited about. It's likely, but you never know. Oh...sorry that I offended you by making multiple posts on something I am apparently supposed to stay out of . Nobody is forcing you to participate in it. I didn't say any of the above. The only thing I said was that I thought Spanoulis and Novak could have gotten a few more minutes in a 30-point blowout. Which caused you to start a lengthy argument in which you went on and on repeating the same things over and over again. These are the answers to what? Certainly not to my simple assertion that VSpan and Novak could have gotten 8 minutes instead of 2 or 3. It certainly seems that you are reading more into this than you should. I don't see anything patently false, or horribly faulty logic, in saying that in a 30-point blowout, one could give a few more minutes to the bench players. And that is not even a major issue or a major criticism of JVG. You sure seem a bit defensive when you get the impression that someone might in any way say anything bad about JVG (which wasn't even my intention).
SJC - Continue your and . This thread started out about Bill and Clyde on Spanoulis, his role and his future, and you come to it and directly address my post for micro-analysis, we have a decent debate, and then you bring it to a question of whether he should play 8 minutes or 2 in a blowout. So you agree that the likeliest scenario is, down the stretch this year, Bonzi and Head will be significant contributors and Novak and Spanoulis will be on the bench. JVG utilizes the opportunity to prepare for the likeliest scenario and plays Bonzi increased minutes with other rotation players, and plays Head at the point. There's your answer. You can continue to play Monday Morning Quarterback about what you would do differently in a 30 point blow out, etc. I prefer to look at what happened, and why it happened. I have no intention of continuing this. You seem to be taking hostilities out of this from me that just aren't there, and vice versa. PS - And I did answer your original question. The reason Spanoulis isn't the change-of-pace backup to Rafer is that Lucas outplayed him.
It is so funny watching all these guys say that VSpan should have received at least 8 minutes in the blow out win. A dose of reality - VSpan picked up 2 fouls in 2 minutes. He wouldn't have made it 8 minutes. Maybe the refs don't know that Vspan is Tmac from Europe.
