Quote:
Originally Posted by buddahfan  The difference is simple
Regular rotation players play in the regular rotation
Non-regular rotation players do not play in the regular rotation.
To know the difference between what is considered regular rotation time and non regular rotation time, you may want to re-read this thread from the beginning.
As far as your other point about a player having to play in the regular rotation for a winning team when they are not good enough or experienced enough I totally disagree with you on this. In fact I couldn't disagree with you more if I wanted to.
Take someone like Durant. His game is primarily offense, specifically the ability to get his shot off and score. So on a scoring challenged team like Seattle he will play.
Murray is in street clothes not primarily because he doesn't pass the ball, because he did pass the ball when he started. As I recall he even had one game with 13 assists as a starter. Murray is in street clothes because he can't play defense.
As a Pistons player, if you can't play defense better than the guys on the depth chart who are ahead of you, you just don't play ahead of them.
Playing defense is not just a matter of blocking shots or rebounding. In fact a lot of time guys who block a lot of shots get burned by good offensive players, like AJ did last night when they attempt to go for a block. Playing defense is first and foremost a team thing. It mean making the proper switchers, knowing when to step out, covering the weak side when needed, etc, etc. These things are learned in practice or in basketball camps and then reinforced in game situations.
If a player doesn't make the proper defensive plays it messes up the entire team defense.
In addition AJ is still not strong enough to hold his position against most PF and Centers.
You keep countering, why not play AJ at the #3? There are a number of valid reasons for not playing him at the #3 and almost none for playing him at the #3
The Pistons unlike almost all NBA teams are first and foremost about defense. Barring injury, AJ will have to earn his spot in the regular rotation when he is playing Pistons type defense. If he can't get strong enough and learn to do that he will be traded.
However, I am confident he will based upon his skill set and attitude.  |
If I thought Amir Johnson could not play good D by this playoffs after getting a lot of playing time in our rotation, I would not be calling for him to get many minutes right now. But that is not the case. I believe he would be one of our best defenders by that time, if given the playing time now.
The next question is, would it cost us wins if Amir played now to gain the experience? So far, the answer is no. Sure our bench has given up leads here and there, but that is not from Amir's play. Like a game I just reviewed yesterday, maybe you remember it. Murray turned the ball over. Maxiell turned the ball over twice. All the sudden, the lead had shrunk. Amir had contributed a bit, fouling a guy and sending him to the line. But Amir in the same stretch got rebounds, blocks, and showed up on transition D to prevent scoring. Pretty much neutral.
How about this last game. There was no problem with Amir playing center for us. He gathered in 9 rebounds in his first 8 minutes. The lead was holding well enough. Brezec came in at center, and wow, the lead got dangerously close. Not quite too close to where we had to put starters back in, but maybe just one bucket from it. Brezec, in 8 minutes of play, got no rebounds.
I'll go at this another way. We had all kinds of time to showcase Murray. That costs us games. Ditto for Mohammed. And Hunter cost us games while getting up to speed. We certainly can find time to play Amir Johnson, one of the future stars of this team, and one that can help us this year, in the playoffs, where we will need him.
If you don't envision Amir playing in the regular rotation in the playoffs, then who would you have as the 4th big? I certainly see no better options.