In the top 5 list of minutes played per game, Houston has 2 players - Harden and Parsons at #2 and #3 respectively. (http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/minutes) The only other teams with similar significance are the Warriors with Curry and Thompson at #6 and #7, and Portland, with Aldridge and Lillard at #11 and #17. No other team has 2 players in the top 5, top 10, or top 20. The question is, are we focused too much on the short term (regular season) that we endanger our success in the playoffs? Is there a better way? Dwight Howard is also in the top 40, and if you look at Terrence Jones' entire January mpg, he would have been ranked at 36 or 37. I think TJones is the prime example of letting a player develop by trusting him and giving him adequate playing time to play through mistakes and get into a comfort zone where he can excel. When he became a starter in November, he performed quite well and clearly showed potential that he could be the permanent starter at PF. However, it was plain that the trust was not yet there, as his minutes fluctuated wildly in December, he would play 18 minutes one game, 35 minutes in another, then 15 minutes afterwards. It was only when it was clear that Asik would not be traded and would not be playing anytime soon that TJones' minutes started to stabilize and his performance followed. With Smith also out, the coaches were forced to use TJones extensively whether they liked it or not and this really allowed him to break out AND be more consistent. I think it's time the bench be given more time, and more confidence because this will definitely help the team come playoff time, and even earlier once these players develop their own comfort zones given the trust. Lately, it seems it has become a cycle - the bench comes in, afraid to make mistakes, then because they are tight they don't perform to expectations, the lead dwindles, and Mchale sends back Harden and co. asap, which leads to them being even more afraid to play loosely the next time out.
Its one thing to play young players a lot of minutes. Its another thing to play Parsons the entire second half or Harden 40 minutes on a bad foot in a blowout.
This has been a Rocket's problem since the Yao/Tmac days. Our bench isn't trustworthy enough immediately, so we just don't use it regularly to rest our starters when the games don't matter that much. Popovich is one of the best coaches of all time because he regulates minutes better than any coach I've seen. It has been what has kept Duncan consistently great for so many years. If Duncan had to play 82 games/35 min/game, he'd be out of the league by now, or have suffered some sort of injury.
Garcia and Casspi can not be trusted enough. Dmo has barely seen the floor. We've had injuries so that accounts for some of the extra minutes, Rockets need a bench badly or our starts will break down quicker than Tracy and Yao.
If Mchale gives DMo, Greg Smith, Casspi, and even Lin for that matter, a bit more trust and leeway, won't they perform better in the longer run? DMo can spell the 3-4-5 positions, Smith the 4-5, Casspi 3-4, Lin 1-2, so that should give plenty of minutes extra rest for almost the entire starting lineup. By giving these guys "a longer leash" since that seems to be the CF theme nowadays, you give them a psychological boost, and it will pay off with less injuries, and possibly less blown leads, and a stronger total team come playoff time.
Yea, but even youth I have doubts can do this even for the whole season if we make any kind of playoff run, and they definitely can't keep doing it over time. We gotta trust some of our bench guys and let them make mistakes. Come playoff time we'll know exactly what we have, and have rested superstars using that strat.
I think playing Harden so many minutes is bad for Harden and bad for team. The expectation should be that he should always expend A-level effort on defense. There has always been talk, since way back when he was in college, that Harden didn't have a "good motor." I wonder how often a "good motor" really just means "good endurance." And I don't mean conditioning. Some players simply don't have as good natural endurance as other players. I suspect that Harden may be one of them. Note that in addition to playing among the highest minutes in the league, Harden, if I recall correctly, is also among the lowest in the league for distance traveled per minute on the floor, according to SportsVu data. Thus, in addition to sometimes playing lackadaisical on defense, he's not moving much without the ball on offense, either. I think he's compensating for being tired. Tell him to put out top-level effort on defense and to move a little more without the ball on offense, and cut his minutes a bit so he has more energy to do those things. Parsons I suspect has better endurance (he travels a lot per minute on the floor, I recall), but it would probably help him to cut his minutes a bit too.
Coach probably doesn't change his car tires until they're bare. He doesn't care it's hurting his fuel economy or increases the probability of an accident.
