Summer Quandaries: Rotation Minutes - My Take

http://celticsgreen.blogspot.com/2014/09/sq14-58-rotation-minutes-my-take.html









First let’s talk the aim of rotations.  In simplest terms, most teams try to keep their best players on the court for the largest amount of time.  Next, most endeavor to rest those primary players long enough and at the proper spacing to ensure they are the most productive, especially at the end of the game.  

For the Celtics there are, I think, two additional factors in play.  Boston needs to develop their youth, even if it means at the expense of veterans who will not be part of the future.  Second, if the Celtics are to dedicate themselves to the running game, they need to manage their rotations accordingly--shorter shifts to allow maximum effort, and few overall minutes to negate the effects of exhaustion.

Think of the following split:  96 minutes for the back court, 48 at small forward, and 96 for the front court.  Committed to a true running-game foundation, then it follows that Boston’s players will have shorter playing segments.  Likely you would also want to limit total minutes per player to closer to 30 mpg than the more normal 36-40 that most teams play their stars, and starters.  

So let’s consider a minutes allocation similar to the following:  30-32 for Rondo, Bradley, Green, Sullinger, Olynyk, Zeller.  That leaves 32-36 minutes at guard, 16-18 at small forward, and 0-6 for a big man.  From my perspective training camp breaks down to building a collection of parts into a team, instilling a defensive DNA and seeing who fits into it, and finding out who earns/deserves the “other” 48-60 minutes.

Now my assumption is that Smart will come out having staked his claim to at least 18, perhaps close to 30, of those guard minutes not taken by Rondo and Bradley.  I also believe that the unused minutes at small forward are Evan Turner’s to lose, as he might well do.  And that tiny slice of big-man minutes, I hope Faverani takes them by storm; but, if not, Brandon Bass may have his opportunity to become relevant.

Only 6 more days until training camp.




bob
MY NOTE:  Yes, most teams try to give the most minutes to the best players.  Most teams don't play an uptempo motion offense as well as an aggressive defense either.  I'd like to see no Celtic player averaging more than 32-33mpg this season.

Rondo should get 30-32.  I hope he won't get many more.  Bradley averaged 31mpg last year in 60 games.  In a cautionary note, he has never played more than 64 games in a season, the most minutes he has ever played was 1855, last year.  There are a maximum, not including OTs, of 3936 (48 x 82) minutes available at SG, so he used less than half.  That leaves 2100 or so for Smart and Thornton, with Smart also getting some of the 16-18 unallocated minutes at PG.  Depending upon how well Wallace comes back from surgery will determine that allocation.  If he's not 100% then Turner will get solid minutes early on.  If/when Wallace gets to 100% then Turner had better have proven he has found religion on defense or his minutes will diminish.  In fact, as Wallace recovers I think the battle for minutes at 3 will be more fierce than almost any other position.  That's because Green is a starter, Wallace is untradeable and Turner is cheap so unless Turner makes eyes pop none of them will be traded.  Steady Eddy Bass will get minutes but he should expect to be traded by the deadline.  It's a damn shame, I've never hidden my admiration for him, but we don't need 3 starting PFs.  Zeller played 26.4mpg his rookie year, when he started 55 out of 77 games.  If he plays 28mpg for 82 games that'd be a nice bump up for him and would be 2296 minutes out of a total of 7872 available at PF/C.  That leaves 5576 (68mpg over 82 games) for Sully, Kelly, Bass, Vitor, Anthony.  Sully played 2041 last year (27.6mpg over 74 games) and Kelly played 1400 but I'd expect him to play closer to Sully's 2100 this year.  Forget about whether Kelly's playing 4 or 5, he's playing 2100 minutes and that consumes available front court minutes.  That's 4200 out of 5576 which only leaves 2376 for Bass, Vitor and Anthony.  Considering that Bass played a career-high 2266 minutes over an ironman 82 games last year, you can see the logjam.  If we want to develop Vitor, he needs some minutes and that cuts way into Bass' minutes.  The loss of Hump didn't help Bass, it hurt him, since it opened up the roster slot for a true center and still left us with too many 4s.

btw, about 5.6% of all regular season games go into OT.  That would be 4-5/year/team.  If they are only single OTs and no doubles/triples/etc, then that adds 100-125 minutes (5 minutes/OT, 5 players = 25 more player minutes/game x 4-5) onto the season.  That doesn't sound like much, and as a hash total it's not, but if they come as part of a back-to-back or a long road trip, then that takes a disproportionate toll on the heavier minute players, providing an opening for Brad to go deeper into his bench.  My prediction is that Brad will play 10 deep, whenever possible.  Injuries will change which 10.  If you look at the minutes of the 5 likely starters (Zeller, Sully, Green, Bradley, Rondo) from last year (and give Zeller 28mpg over 77 games for this year and Rondo 32mpg for 72 games) you get 11,160 minutes out of a likely 19,800, leaving 8640.  Jeff Green played 2805 minutes over an ironman 82 games, 34.2mpg over 82 games.  Wow.  The next nearest Celtic was the Celtics' other ironman, Brandon Bass, with 2266.  One could easily take some minutes from Green and allocate them elsewhere, which would reduce the 11,160 number and free up minutes for the bench.




.

My guess, again:

Zeller- 1800
Fav- 400
Joel- 200
Kelly- 1800
Sully- 2200
Bass- 1600
Green- 2400
Wallace- 600
Young- 100 (D-League mostly)
Turner- 1100
Rondo- 2400
Bradley-2000
Smart- 1600
Thornton- 1400
Pressey- 600

play em whereever you want em.

kdp59 wrote:My guess, again:

Zeller- 1800
Fav-   400
Joel-  200
Kelly- 1800
Sully- 2200
Bass- 1600
Green- 2400
Wallace- 600
Young- 100 (D-League mostly)
Turner- 1100
Rondo- 2400
Bradley-2000
Smart- 1600
Thornton- 1400
Pressey- 600

play em whereever you want em.

kdp,

In 8 seasons Rondo has played 2400 minutes or more only 3x, the last time being the 2010-2011 season when he was 24.



bob



.

It'll be interesting to see how the allocation of minutes turns out in reality.  That's when I'll make my prediction.

I'm not convinced that Thornton won't be used in a sixth man role, which would mean that Smart would be be more likely to earn 18 than 30 minutes in relief of other guards.

I'm also unconvinced that any guard not named Rondo or Pressey can run an uptempo offense.  Unless they want to run a hopscotch offense, roller coasting from fast to slow to fast to slow, it's very possible that Phil could also get some guard minutes.

As for developing younger players, I maintain unshakably that the younger players will develop more quickly and correctly if they play within the "womb" of veteran presence in the lineup.  Playing 4 or 5 young players together is little more than garbage time in my book because they'll all be so intent on struggling individually that they won't learn a whole lot collectively within the team concept.

Finally, even if Brad does develop a shortened rotation, it can easily vary from night to night depending on injuries, the nature of the competition and matchups, what he's seeing in practice, and the possibility of foul trouble—to say nothing of how much the opponent answers speed with speed.  It's one thing to fast break down court and then to trot back upcourt and another thing to have to run in both directions.

Sam

kdp59 wrote:My guess, again:

Zeller- 1800
Fav-   400
Joel-  200
Kelly- 1800
Sully- 2200
Bass- 1600
Green- 2400
Wallace- 600
Young- 100 (D-League mostly)
Turner- 1100
Rondo- 2400
Bradley-2000
Smart- 1600
Thornton- 1400
Pressey- 600

play em whereever you want em.

kdp,

You have 520 minutes too many.
Yes, there will be OT games but probably not 520 minutes worth.


Isn't it easier to estimate how many minutes per game each player will play?
We don't know if Rondo will have an injury, but we know he will play 33-38 minutes per game as he always has.

You know what's funny?

I was saying this very thing last year. Spread out the minutes, keep up the intensity. Bam, perpetual ground game.



KJ

tjmakz wrote:

kdp59 wrote:My guess, again:

Zeller- 1800
Fav-   400
Joel-  200
Kelly- 1800
Sully- 2200
Bass- 1600
Green- 2400
Wallace- 600
Young- 100 (D-League mostly)
Turner- 1100
Rondo- 2400
Bradley-2000
Smart- 1600
Thornton- 1400
Pressey- 600

play em whereever you want em.

kdp,

You have 520 minutes too many.
Yes, there will be OT games but probably not 520 minutes worth.


Isn't it easier to estimate how many minutes per game each player will play?
We don't know if Rondo will have an injury, but we know he will play 33-38 minutes per game as he always has.

actually I find it better to use season total minutes. The reason being that it takes into account projected games played.

take Bradley for instance , I have him at a career high 2000 minutes. over 82 games that would be only about 24 min per game. HOWEVER I project him playing in 62 games this year, which has him at 32 min per game.


If I say

Zeller-24 min/G
Fav- 8
Joel- 5
Kelly- 24
Sully- 28
Bass-20
Green- 32
Wallace-10
Young- 4
Turner-12
Rondo-32
Bradley-32
Smart-20
Thornton-18
Pressey-10

I have 270 plus minutes allocated there, instead of 240.

so that's why I always look at season totals for minutes played as a better gauge for a team.


as for my over allotment of minutes, cut 50 minutes form the LOWEST 10 players then.