Even if everyone is healthy, I think between small injuries and Stevens giving guys days off for rest, you'll see around 30 player games being missed by Horford, Morris, Hayward, Tatum, Brown and Smart. Those minutes for those player games will go to Semi and he could easily average 15-20 minutes per game for those 30 games. And that's with good health. Add that to small regular rotation minutes and games with big minutes due to blowouts and I just can't see Semi averaging less than 10-12 mpg for as many games as he plays.
The real issue is whether or not he merits rotation minutes, and it looks to me as though the coaching staff have already settled that for themselves. They had him in at crunch time frequently last year, and he played a big role in the playoffs.
For some players there's an effort gap after the first year; not Ojeleye, who continues to get high marks for his work ethic (from Larranaga in Vegas, for example). He showed evidence in SL of work on his dribble drives and playmaking.
The first paragraph is not really accurate. He received playing time more out of need than merit.
I'm not persuaded - not that you've done any more than state an opinion.
Most of his minutes were as a swing, some at wing. Those wing minutes could easily have been replaced, if he did not merit them, by Smart, Brown, or Tatum. The swing minutes could have been replaced by bigs (like Theis, for example, whom you put ahead of Ojeleye in your depth chart, or Baynes, ditto, who only averaged just over 18 minutes per); or by Morris and Tatum. It's true that Semi's minutes dipped the second time Morris came back, but by mid January they were back up again, with both players getting substantial minutes. Semi's minutes came back up after the dismal 4-game losing streak.
Your "frequently" in crunch time comment doesn't seem true either, but I don't have the time to pull Semi's crunch time minutes to support it.
4th quarter or overtime, less than 5 minutes left, neither team ahead by more than 5 points, he played 14% of minutes. Compare, for example, to Aron Baynes, who played 10%.
He didn't play a big role in the playoffs...
Brad acknowledged the team defense on Giannis after the series, in his words, "led by Semi". We could quibble about what "big" means, but is there any debate about the responsibility that the coaching staff gave him in assigning him that role?