If you’ve been paying attention, you know that the Pistons’ top six players played more minutes than the top six from any other NBA team last season. Using a measure of equivalent games, the 05/06 Pistons played more than 90 regular season games. (see:
How Many Minutes? How Many Wins?)
O.k., fine. So they played a lot of minutes. Don’t winning teams’ top players always play a lot of minutes? Well, let’s see. For this comparison I picked dynasty teams from the past 25 NBA seasons. These were teams with extraordinary three season runs, either winning or playing for the NBA title in each season, including (using data from the regular season only)…
• Celtics 84/85/86 (two titles, lost to Lakers)
• Lakers 87/88/89 (two titles, lost to Pistons)
• Pistons 88/89/90 (two titles, lost to Lakers)
• Bulls 91/92/93 (three-peat)
• Bulls 96/97/98 (three-peat)
• Lakers 00/01/02 (three-peat)
• Pistons 04/05/06 (one title)
Some overall findings…
• Over the past two seasons the Pistons concentrated minutes among the top six players to an unprecedented extent.
• The ’04 championship run looks very different from the last two seasons.
• Aggregating across the three seasons in each run, the current Pistons team again leads the ranking in concentration of minutes.
• Teams that three-peat concentrate minutes in the top six much less than those who don’t.
• Dynasty teams can shake the roster up between seasons and still remain at the top of their game.
• Nobody else here mixes in the bench like Phil Jackson.
Comparing Individual Seasons
The table below compares the number of minutes played by the top six players for each of the teams and seasons listed above. The top ranked team in number of minutes played? The 05/06 Detroit Pistons. The second ranked team in number of minutes played? The 04/05 Detroit Pistons. The team that won a championship back in ‘04? Ranks 12th in terms of minutes played by the top six. Could there be a pattern here?
The top six Bulls players from 96/97 collectively played 2,684 fewer minutes than last season’s Pistons despite more minutes from Jordan and Pippen than from any individual Pistons player in any of the past three seasons. Given that the average top six player across all these teams and seasons averages 31.5 minutes per game, this means the 05/06 Pistons top six played 14.2 more equivalent games than the Bulls during the regular season.
Source:
www.basketballreference.com Comparing Dynasties
Now let’s aggregate each team’s three season run and do comparisons. Which team’s top six played the most minutes across the three season run? Yep, you guessed it. The 04/05/06 Detroit Pistons. They out-minute the short-benched Celtics, their arch rival Lakers, the Bad Boys, the Shaq Lakers, and both Bulls’ sprints. Compared to the Bulls, the Pistons top six played 28 more equivalent games over a three year period, 5,284 additional player minutes.
That Pistons / Bulls difference comes out to more than 21 minutes a game taken away from the top six, 3.5 minutes per player per game. Even though the difference between 32 MPG and 36 MPG doesn’t seem like all that much, over the course of long seasons and even longer multi-season runs, it really starts to add up. More importantly, 21 minutes a game can be used to adequately develop non-starters into productive players.
Source:
www.basketballreference.com
Note: The players in the Top Six can vary season by season.
It’s interesting to note that the current Pistons won one championship during the three years. The Celtics, Showtime Lakers, and Bad Boys, ranked 2, 3, and 4, won two of three. All the three-peats are at the bottom of the ranking. No matter who your top six guys are, after three long regular seasons and three long playoff seasons, six guys don’t consistently win championships if they are the only ones you play. Also interesting to note that Phil Jackson coached all of the three-peat teams, teams built around two superstars and a big and revolving supporting cast.
Player Consistency
The measure in the table below is the percentage of minutes played by the same players across seasons. If no player changed across two seasons and each played the exact number of minutes the value would be 100%. If no player played in both seasons the value would be 0%.
The Bulls, Bad Boys, and Showtime Lakers are all models of consistency. Jerry Krause found a good combination and by and large stuck with it for each season within each three-peat. Jerry West was able to shake things up in between each of the three-peat seasons and still put a consistent and winning team on the floor. Joe D tried the West model, but either through the wrong mix of players or the revolving door on the coaching position, couldn’t consistently deliver the same results.
In the table below I look at the number of players who player various numbers of minutes measured two ways – minutes per game played, and total season minutes divided by 82.
Note that the 92/93 Bulls only had four players who averaged more than 20 minutes per game, and eleven who averaged more than ten across the whole season. Only the Shaq Lakers come close to this even distribution of minutes. Both teams, besides being coached by Phil Jackson, relied on two superstars (Jordan and Pippen, Shaq and Kobe) for heavy minutes and a lot of role players who played significant numbers of minutes.
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Appendix – Player Rankings 
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www.basketballreference.com 
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www.basketballreference.com