2019-2020 Season Minutes Per Game Thread

[gyso]

Here is a little spreadsheet that I made.  It has all the Boston Celtics players: 15 NBA players and 2 Two-Way players, as things stand today.  I put Tacko Fall in the 15th spot, because I could (but I didn't give him any minutes - LOL).  He is a 2-3 year project, at best.  

I added some columns with information like Age, Experience, Position, Weight, etc.  I only added those columns to fill out some more width with this form.  My main reason to make this form was to figure out the minutes per game for the players.  Excel is a good program to use in order to create rows and columns, and to do math.

Here it is:

[gyso]

Here it is, player by player:

Kemba Walker:

He has to get 30 minutes. Most will be at PG. Maybe he plays 5 minutes with Marcus Smart. So it is 25 and 5.

Gordon Hayward:

I only want to give him 25 minutes. I hope for the best, but I want to see it first. I have read where he is going to get some minutes at PF. Small ball for sure. Okay, so I'll give him 5 there. So it is 20 and 5.

Marcus Smart:

He has to get 30 minutes. I would like to give him more, but . . . 30 it is. Marcus will split his minutes between PG and SG. He may come off the bench, but he will finish close games. So it is 15 and 15.

Jason Tatum:

He has to get 30 minutes. Jason will split his minutes between PF and SF. He will start at PF, but he will get minutes at SF in a big lineup. So it is 15 and 15.

Jaylen Brown:

He has to get 30 minutes. Jaylen will split his minutes between SG and SF. He will start and get most of his minutes at SG. He will get less minutes at SF. So it is 20 and 10.

Enes Kanter:

He has to get 25 minutes. All of his time will be at Center. He will start.

That is it for the big minute players. I skipped Daniel Theis, but he will show up first in the next group.

[gyso]

I promised you Theis, so here he is, at the top of the second tier players:

Daniel Theis:

I'm going to give him 12 minutes at PF. That doesn't sound like many minutes, but it was all that were available to him, according to how the schedule filled out.   I read where he may play some C in small ball lineups, but we don't believe we need him playing center.

Romeo Langford and Carsen Edwards:

They are listed as SG and PG, but I am not so sure which player plays best at which position.  Perhaps Romeo handles the ball more and Carsen comes off the bench as a shooter.  Either way, I gave them both 8 minutes.

Vincent Poirier:

I gave him only 15 minutes.  He was probably promised playing time for him to give up money in Europe and sign here.  He may get more, he may get less.  That will depend on the Timelord.  He will play center, maybe first off the bench as Kanter's main replacement at the beginning of the year.

Grant Williams:

He is listed as a PF.  Okay, lets see it.  I'll give you 8 minutes.

Robert Williams:

The Timelord gets the scraps left over at the 5 position.  Maybe he gets a couple more minutes at PF in a big lineup.  If he proves out, he could take minutes away from V-Po.  For this exercise, he gets 2 and 8.

Semi Ojeleye:

With the return of arm/wrist flexibility, will his shot improve?  He is our 3 and D guy, but he will get more minutes off the bench at the 4.  He gets 3 and 6.

Brad Wannamaker:

Sadly, I have no minutes for him.  I would rather invest any minutes available at guard in Langford and Edwards.

[gyso]

Fun with Excel.

Minutes per game and minutes per season, here is one person's guess. Once I gave the top six players their minutes, I had to distribute the remaining minutes to the other players. You could take some minutes away from the rookies (and we have a lot of them) but who deserves to get those minutes?

gyso

[bobheckler]

Gyso,

Good stuff.  Is there any way you could provide your template to the board so other wannabe head coaches here could fill out theirs?  Then we could move them all up to a sticky so we can see how everybody did during and by the end of the season?

Might not be doable, but if there is a way to make it accessible only to registered board members that might encourage some of the couple dozen people who are reading our board at any given moment who are not board members to register and join the community.  (Hint, hint)


bob


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[tardust]

More than likely have to send out thru email.  It is a simple spreadsheet to compile though if you know how to use Excel

[gyso]

More than likely have to send out thru email.  It is a simple spreadsheet to compile though if you know how to use Excel

You are right, it is just a simple spreadsheet. You are also right about how I could send it. It would have to be attached to an email.

I could try to send it to anyone that wanted it. I'll try to send it to Bob first as an experiment.

gyso

[gyso]

Bob,

I used the board's email to send you the file. I used the email that you used to register here. If that email is no longer valid, please PM me the correct one to use.

gyso

[kdp59]

My ideas on probable minutes played

Kanter- 24/G- 2000 Total
Rob W - 12/G- 1000
Poirier- 10/G- 800
Theis- 16/G- 1200
Semi- 16/G- 1200
Grant- 14/G- 1000
Tatum- 30/G- 2400
Hayward- 30/G- 2400
Brown- 30/G- 2400
Smart- 30/G- 2400
Walker- 30/G- 2400
Edwards- 6/G- 500

Fall, Wanamaker and Langford get limited minutes except when pressed into action due to injuries.

[NYCelt]

gyso,

Amazing.

I head out on a baseball trip for a week, return, and see more great ideas you came up with.

We lost in the semi-final, but seeing this put the smile back on my face.

Regards

[bobheckler]

Bob,

I used the board's email to send you the file.  I used the email that you used to register here.  If that email is no longer valid, please PM me the correct one to use.

gyso

gyso,

Got it, opened it. All good.


bob


.

[dboss]

How do you post an excel spreadsheet to the board?

If someone could email instruction to me it would be great.

[bobheckler]

Kemba Walker - 31mpg X 78 games = 2418 mins (2 mins/game less than Kyrie, but more durable)
Enes Kanter - 24mpg X 75 games = 1800 mins (22mpg career, couple games less as Brad rests him like with Horford)
Jayson Tatum - 31mpg X 78 games  = 2418 mins (usual)
Marcus Smart - 28mpg X 65 games = 1820 mins (assuming injuries)
Gordon Hayward - 28mpg X 76 games = 2128 mins (more playmaking = more mins.  If he's back, he's back)
Jaylen Brown - 27mpg X 74 games = 1998 mins (extra min or 2)
Vincent Poirier - 15mpg X 72 games = 1080 mins (fewer mins/game but 2X the games. 50% more mins total)
Daniel Theis - 18mpg X 68 games = 1224 mins (more mins, more games.  He's our only big 4/stretch 5)
Brad Wanamaker - 16mpg X 65 games = 1040 mins (he didn't resign for less $ than Europe to play the same mins)
Robert Williams - 12mpg X 55 games = 660 mins (more than double last year's total mins of 283.  He's still a project)
Semi Ojelaye - 10mpg X 56 games = 560 mins (about the same as last year as he competes with GWill for mins)
Grant Williams - 10mpg X 45 games = 450 mins (a rookie's life.  He'll screw up defensively where Semi won't)
Romeo Langford - 14mpg X 55 games = 770 mins (he's a rookie who missed summer league)
Carsen Edwards - 15mpg X 55 games = 825 mins (a well-defined NBA skill, shooting, and a quick guard defender gets him more mins than Langford, who is behind Smart and Jaylen)


This totals 19,191 mins for our first 14 players.  There are a total of 19,680 minutes in a normal 82 game, 240mpg season.  There will be OTs, which will up that number.  This means that, not including OTs, there are 489 minutes left over for the 15th man and 2-way players (e.g. Tacko, Waters, Strus).  That might be a few too many, so a couple hundred might be consumed by the first 14, but close enough (489 = 2.4% of 19,680.  So, I allocated 97.6% of the minutes without knowing the hash total and backing into it).

Anybody over, say, 14mpg can be considered a rotation player (a purely arbitrary number).  If Danny trades Semi then GWill will pick up minutes and become a rotation player, or vice versa.  Do not be so confident that Danny wouldn't trade GWill over Semi in a NY second if he thought that's what it would take to get a player he wants.  Semi costs $1.6M, and is an expiring contract, while GWill signed for 120% of the rookie scale for 4 years ($2.38M this year).  So they both have value as trade bait.  Right now I see them as competing for the same space.  Not the exact same skill sets, GWill appears to be more versatile while Semi has a lot more NBA experience and Brad's confidence, but close enough in body type they'll be filling similar roles.  Both undersized 4s.

Romeo is behind Smart and Jaylen on the depth chart at SG and behind Gordon and Jayson at SF, and he missed summer league.  He's going to be in Maine a bit getting reps and learning Brad's system.  He is facing a logjam at 2 positions.

Carsen Edwards is Rozier's replacement.  He is the only quick defensive point guard we have.  Wanamaker stayed in front of players with veteran smarts but Edwards has the athleticism to stay in front of them with speed.  He is also, of course, a MUCH better shooter than Rozier.  Even if he starts out rocky and misses a lot of shots that's just rookie nerves.  He's a natural scorer while Rozier never was.

Robert Williams showed something in summer league but he is still behind some good players on the depth chart and is still considered "a project" by Celtic coaches.  That's french for "he's still in the oven, cooking".  I more than doubled his minutes, as he gets his chance to contribute, but he's not going to vault from 283 minutes to 1283.  That'd be 15mpg for 82 games, and he won't be playing 82 games this season.  I just don't see it happening, not with Poirier and Theis in front of him.  He's our 4th big and will get 4th big minutes.


bob



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[gyso]

As far as I can tell, you cannot post a Excel spreadsheet directly to the board.  My work around involves making a screen shot of the spreadsheet, thus creating a PNG file.  Then I host the image (PNG) file.

I use the Snipping Tool to make the PNG file.  The Snipping Tool comes with Windows 10, it probably comes with older versions as well.  There may be a similar tool on Apple devices (Pete?)  I make the box around the outside of what I want, use "Save As . . ." and then save the file to a place I can remember (make a folder), with a file name that I can also remember.  

I use this process to capture anything I want on the internet or computer in general.  Tweets, charts, box scores, anything that doesn't copy and paste well into a post.

One last trick.  Making a screen shot directly off of Excel leaves lines and boxes in the image that I did not intend to be in the image.  Once I am finished with my edits in Excel, I save and close the Excel file.  Then I open it in a new session and use "Save As . . ." to save it as a PDF file.  Then I create my screenshot from the new PDF file.  Much cleaner.

Give it a try and let me know if you still have any questions.

gyso

[gyso]

Bob,

Your post pokes one big hole in my spreadsheet, Games Played.  My spreadsheet assumes that each player plays in all 82 games, which is unrealistic.  I knew this and I was waiting for somebody to point this out to me.  

I could add a column (GAMES PLAYED) between the PER GAME and the PER SEASON columns, but that would take away any meaning to the TOTAL MINUTES/GAME AT POSITION found at the bottom of each position.

I can play with it and make a second version that has a GAMES PLAYED column.  I will just have to take away the fun of trying to get each position to add up to 48 minutes.

gyso

[dboss]

GYSO yesterday I was seriously thinking about this subject.   You have taken it to another level.

I put together a MPG for the team based on 240 MPG total and at the end I realized I forgot to allocate minutes to Semi and Romero Langford so i had to rethink my assumptions.  These are in fact just assumptions.  

This is a very difficult guesstimate because of attempting to allocate minutes to players that were not on the roster last year.  Kanter is the only NBA player added to the team.  The rookies and free agency signings have zero NBA experience.

I think I need to begin with our 9 returning players from last year.  Of those returning players Gordon Hayward and Jaylen Brown played 25.9 MPG.  I think both of them will see an uptick in MPG.  Semi and Theis played 11 and 14 MPG respectively.  I see their MPG remaining the same.

All 3 college rookies have to earned rotation minutes and I do not think all 3  (Lanford, Edwards and Williams) will play every game.  

Here is my take

30 minutes each for Walker Tatum and Brown that's 90 MPG

28 for Marcus and Hayward  That's 56.  (90 + 56 = 146)

Kanter at 24, Theis at 14 and Semi at 11 That's 49.  (146 + 49 = 195)

RW at 16 and VP at 14.  That's 30.   195 + 30 = 225.

That leaves a total of 15 minutes available for the 3 rookies.  I think we will see 1 or maybe 2 of them play and average 7 to 8 minutes per game.  I think there will be situational rotation minutes for them.  One game Edwards may get more minutes and in another game Langford or Williams may see time on the court.

Wanamaker gets no minutes but he will be a situational guy when needed.

My overall assumptions here is that our 3 rookies will not play a lot of minutes.  Guys that were on the team last year like Theis and Semi are going to get minutes on par with last year.

I am also making an assumption that Boston will use a big rotation when they match up against bigger frontlines.  That is the reason why I have Williams at 16 MPG.  In big lineups he can play with either Kanter or Poirier.  I see minutes at the C/PF position for him.  

The Celtics rotation is deep but very inexperienced because of our 3 rookies.

Danny Ainge may at some point pair down what looks like a logjam at PF.  Theis is the only one who can probably play small ball 5 because he can defend on one end and stretch the floor on the other.  

I think fans may need to take a step back in terms of having high expectations for our rookies.  CE and GW played very well in the summer league and did it against a bunch of players who will never make an NBA roster.  We need to keep that in perspective.  RW also played well during the summer but unlike the rookies Williams has a year under his belt.   

The biggest unknown for me is Poirier.  I gave him 14 MPG but that number could be flipped flopped with Williams at 16 MPG.  

At this time we just need to see this team play and Brad will be better able to allocate playing time.

[dboss]

[gyso]

The new goal is to reach the TARGET minutes amount of 19,680 (ignoring overtime minutes).

Here is the revised form:

[gyso]

I found minutes for both Wannamaker on this new spreadsheet, but I still think he is the most expendable. I even found minutes for Tacko Fall, Max Strus and Tremont Waters, for what it's worth.

[gyso]

Bob,

I sent you the revised spreadsheet.

[dboss]

VINCENT POIRIER SCOUTING REPORT

Published by Konstantinos Panas

Years ago the seven footer were the main big men for every European team. Nowadays that the athleticism is raised and the undersized big men became viral, the seven footers are near to extinction. 

 

But for big man Vincent Poirier that's not even close to the truth. The center out of France is having a solid rookie season so far with Baskonia. Even if he has good competition in front of him, Poirier showed his coach Pedro Martinez that he can play an important role in this team. 

 

With a terrific wingspan and amazing versatility around the hoop this big man provides a great back to basket player who can rebound and protect the rim quite well. 

 

He often runs the open floor pretty well and that's something for his size. He is working on his perimeter game too. 

 

His biggest problem right now for sure is pick-n-roll defense and his lateral quickness. He is not able to chase his man down on the low block if he gets passed by him.

 

A seven footer with post moves, rebound and rim protecting skills. This man has a bright future in front of him! 

My Notes

All I have seen are highlight videos.  Highlight videos give us an idea about a few things.  They however do not provide a complete picture.  VP has good basketball skills but after playing professionally for 6 year he has not develop an outside game.  He looks like a P and R guy.  He looks to be able to block some shots and he is an aggressive rebounder.  The biggest problem with all of our 3 centers (not Theis) reflects limits on their versatility to step away from the basket and make shots from the outside, let along behind the 3 point arc.

At this point I am at a wait and see position.  Kanter is a proven NBA scorer and rebounder.  His defense continues to be a big question mark.  Neither RW or VP are proven NBA scorers and rebounders.  VP is not as quick as RW.  RW is very inexperienced and will make mistakes on defensive assignments but he appears to be fully engaged in learning.  We really do not know what type of defender we have in VP.  

We will go into the season with a 3 headed center all of whom are limited offensively given the way NBA centers play today.  In the end we will score more in the paint and we should become a much better team on the glass.  We will get as many points out of Kanter as we did AH but those points will mostly come from inside and at the line.  The combination of RW and VP should exceed what we got from Baynes (5.6 PPG, 4.7 rebounds, 1.1 assists, 0.7 blocks, 0.2 steals) -  great defensive rating of 102.2 and 110 on offense)

But these are just numbers.  Stats by themselves hardly tell the whole story.  Yes I think we will get more points, rebounds and block shots from the center.  But the net ratings goes beyond those numbers.  

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