This was brought up in another thread along with a couple of media outlets. Is anyone else concerned that McHale may overplay Harden and Lin? Link Last night, Harden and Lin played 44 and 36 mins respectively against a Detroit Pistons that is one of the bottom teams in the East. Not to discredit Detroit's young talent and coaching (I think Lawrence Frank will eventually get things clicking). I'm aware its the first game of the season, however, besides Lin and Harden there really isn't a dependable playmaker on this team. Chandler is developing but it looks like its going to take time with him and White or Machado aren't getting on the court anytime soon. This is really just stemming from McHale running Lowry and Dragic out there last season until they had nothing left. If this becomes a common trend, there will likely be a higher risk of injury to our backcourt.
The bench really needs to improve alot. Douglas is ass when he isn't shooting well. Machado for all his defensive liability needs to be a back up pg.
Maybe but it seems more likely that no one could possibly know the absolute best rotation just yet. Maybe that will include T jones or white, etc., but coming off 2 practices with Harden and a completely overhauled roster, I'm thinking Mchale is letting it play out. Way way too early to criticize minutes or rotations.
Maybe if Delfino hadn't gotten so many fouls, he would have subbed in for Harden... I'm just hoping when Patterson comes back, it will stabilize things a bit.
There's only one way to remedy playing too many minutes: better backups. That's it. Because basically no coach in the NBA will limit his star minutes when his replacements are horrendous. Not McHale. Not Adelman. Not JVG. Not Rudy T. Not when we're contending. Not when we're fighting for 40 win seasons. Spurs are probably the only team to go out of their way to limit their stars minutes, but that's after their core has become old, and they started to develop young talent rather than recycling old scrubs. Morris, Delfino, Machado/Douglas will have to perform, or we'll be seeing a lot of 40 minutes games from both Harden and Lin.
I think McHale will distribute the minutes better once he gets a rotation that he likes. It's the first game of the season and we have a lot of young new players. It takes a little time to put the new peices together. I wouldn't worry about it too much. We Won......Be Happy!!:grin: ....................... ....................... .......................
he really don't have a choice last night imo. Delfino 3 fouls in 1st quarter, Cook and Douglas were awful at both ends , if Harden and Lin didn't play big minuted, we would've lost the game
They will have because bench stinks. Cook and Delfino can't create own shot. Douglas can't run offense at all (1 assist !!??). Wish we kept Courtney Lee
Delfino got into foul trouble very early which forced him to play Harden probably more than he intended. 30-35 minutes will be fine. I *suspect* that Morey just wanted them to get some floor time together as Harden wasn't with the Rockets during pre-season. That and until the Bench really gets their crap together, our only hope for winning games is getting as much playtime for Lin and Harden as possible. I expect once they get some more practices and live time together Morey will feel more comfortable reducing Harden and Lin's playtime a bit. Sadly, we're not there yet. Lin/Harden/Delfino/Asik were pretty much the only ones standing between us and a blow out loss.
Yea Pop did a great job distributing minutes with the Spurs last year, as well as Doc for the Celtics. But this was necessary due to their stars being old. Harden and Lin are young, so it's different. But we definitely can't keep this up all season
young guys, playing against a team they can beat in the first game of the season, and the two stars have been playing together for 2 days... let them run. It was a close game, take the wins you can get, and let them rest more later.
I agree, it is too early to criticize. However, judging by the lack of quality depth at those positions, its not exactly wrong to assume that the two will be playing some heavy minutes. With the offense being a "free flowing" offense, its highly dependent on either great passing or a good playmakers. I'm hoping that eventually the practices will create the good passing. I'm just a little concerned based on what we saw with Lowry and Dragic last season. McHale was incredibly dependent on them to create offense. To the point, where both of them were on the floor at the same time.
Nice insight. So should he have played Harden less and watched the team lose? I would expect that Harden plays about 39 mpg this year.
we couldve used terrence jones, then put delfino in sg for some minute instead of the small forward. we can also shift jones to sf to back up parsons
